This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. With it comes false charges leveled at Republicans of voter suppression through voter ID laws.
Those in leadership making the false charges know full well the history of the Voting Rights Act. Many of their followers do not and simply parrot what they are fed daily. Which is, that those proposing voter ID laws are racist. The critics don’t know that these “racists” are part of the same party that fought hard in the 1960s to get the Voting Rights Act passed.
PolitiFact reported that former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was correct when he said in an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper, “Our party has always had a strong view on this issue. … We fought very hard in the ’60s to get the civil rights bill passed as well as the voting rights bill.”
PolitiFact investigated Steele’s comments and reported, “The Civil Rights Act — which is best known for barring discrimination in public accommodations — passed the House in 1964 by a margin of 290-130. When broken down by party, 61 percent of Democratic lawmakers voted for the bill, and a full 80 percent of the Republicans voted for it. When the Senate passed the measure on June 19, 1964, the margin was 73-27. Senate Democrats supported the measure by 69 percent on final passage, but an even stronger 82 percent of Republicans supported it.
“When the Voting Rights Act came up in 1965, the vote results mirrored those of the Civil Rights Act. In the House, it passed by a 333-85 margin, with 78 percent of Democrats backing it and 82 percent of Republicans backing it. In the Senate, the measure passed by a 77-19 vote, with 73 percent of Democrats and 94 percent of Republicans supporting the bill.”
So much for the little-known history of the Voting Rights Act.
Republicans don’t get the credit they deserve for a number of reasons. First, their presidential candidate in 1964 was Barry Goldwater, and he was part of the minority of Republicans who opposed it. Next, it gets very little coverage in our history books. Lastly, the Republican leadership is too stupid to explain its positions and too cowardly to defend them, including this one.
As for Voter ID laws being racist, I’ve always been stunned Republicans are incapable of stating the obvious — that to call someone a racist if they insist that a voter produce a photo ID to vote is itself racist. The person saying it’s racist quite obviously believes minorities are not smart enough to figure out how to get a photo ID.
Photo IDs are a part of life these days. They’re easy to get, and almost everyone has one. There is nothing racist about a bank asking for it before cashing your check, a pharmacy requesting it before filling your prescription, and an airline asking for it before you board a plane. And no one thinks they’re racist for asking.
The photo ID racist charge is as silly as the one that Republicans want dirty air and water. Where do the critics think Republicans live, on Mars? Why would they want dirty air and water? And if everyone is required to produce a photo ID, how is that discrimination?
Here in Georgia, where we have photo ID laws for voting, the percentage of minority voters has increased since the laws were enacted. So much for the implied Democratic argument that minorities are too dumb to figure out how to get a photo ID and, therefore, voter ID laws suppress the vote for minorities.
Conrad Quagliaroli is chairman of the Cherokee Tea Party Patriots.
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