…the Cubs would win the Series, the people of Myanmar Burma would toss off their military junta for their crimes of neglect…
…and the people of the Fifth District would shake their heads, realize “Oh, Crap - Keith Ellison is one crappy representative!”, and carry Barb Davis White to Washington on their shoulders.
But this is the real world - so Barb’s gotta work for it.
Not just a “real world”, mind you, but a “real world” where the local mainstream media is completely in the bag for the DFL. As a result, GOP candidates can expect boundless hatchet-jobbery…
…while Democrats can expect to get their message out pretty much as they want to; the Strib, at least on its editorial pages, is a PR firm for the DFL in all but name.
So last week, the Strib uncritically ran Rep. Ellison’s fairly vapid attack on the Supreme Court’s upholding of Indiana’s voter ID laws.
Barb Davis-White promptly wrote a rebuttal. And she’s waiting for the Strib to print it.
And waiting.
And waiting…
Well, I’ll print it here - and if you’re a blogger who assails the Strib, I hope you will, too. I’m not going to inset my comments - but I will add emphasis to parts I think are particularly important:
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 opinion, has ruled that it is not too burdensome to ask citizens to show a picture id when voting. Now, most people would say that this is common sense. In fact, a Rasmussen poll found that 82 percent of Americans, including 75 percent of Democrats, believe that “people should be required to show a driver’s license or some other form of photo ID before they are allowed to vote.” The civil rights of every American are violated when the fraudent votes are counted in an election. The integrity of the ballot box is just as important to the credibility of elections as access to it.
Representative Ellison does not appear to be blessed with the common sense that the legislatures in Indiana and several other states have. His recent editorial in the Star Tribune spits out in the style of a first year law student accusations of “disenfranchising voters and likens it to a “poll tax.” He even brings up the concurrence of Justice Scalia, obviously in an attempt to obfuscate the fact that the court’s most liberal justice wrote the court opinion. As Justice Stevens points out, “Because Indiana’s [identification] cards are free, the inconvenience of going to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, gathering required documents, and posing for a photograph does not qualify as a substantial burden.” Again, common sense that is lost on Mr. Ellison.
In a democracy, the voters, through their elected officials, have a right to pass laws to protect the integrity of their democracy. There are countless stories where ACORN, a liberal activist group, has been found guilty of voter fraud, from submitting false voter registration forms in Kansas City to bribing voters with cigarettes in Milwaukee.
We face many threats to our liberties, and these right to vote is an important one not to be taken lightly. But when you watch what voters in most of the world go through to exercise their franchise, including brave Iraqis who defy sniper fire and suicide bombers, is it too much to ask that our voters show an ID?
Ellison’s reponse is vacuous demigoguery - good enough for a DFL meeting, but not good enough for an elected official that represents a big, diverse district.
Cross-posted at Shot in the Dark. Comments welcome.
