During yesterday’s hearing in federal court about South Carolina’s voter ID law, the author of the bill, State Rep. Alan Clemmons answered questions regarding the motivation for the bill, and it wasn’t pretty.
An attorney for the civil rights groups suing South Carolina under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 presented emails to Rep. Clemmons which evidence that Clemmons supports racially charged rhetoric used to denounce the notion that brown folks might not have the means or transportation to obtain voter ID.
Ed Koziol, a racist-ass South Carolinian, e-mailed Clemmons and said that if the legislature offered a reward for ID cards, “it would be like a swarm of bees going after a watermelon.” In response, Clemmons wrote, “Amen.” Amen, Ed! High five!
Additionally, Clemmons claimed not to remember handing out packets of peanuts with cards that read “Stop Obama’s nutty agenda and support voter ID.” (The civil rights attorney stated that Clemmons had previously testified he had handed out the nuts.)
State Rep. Alan Clemmons acknowledged his reaction in the second day of arguments before a three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over whether the law violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
~snip~
Garrard Beeney, who represented the civil rights groups, presented emails sent to and from Clemmons’ personal account between 2009 and 2011, when he was working on the law. One, from a man named Ed Koziol, used racially charged rhetoric to denounce the idea that poor, black voters might lack transportation or other resources necessary to obtain photo ID. If the legislature offered a reward for identification cards, “it would be like a swarm of bees going after a watermelon,” Koziol wrote.Beeney asked Clemmons how he had replied to this email. Clemmons hesitated a moment before answering, “It was a poorly considered response when I said, ‘Amen, Ed, thank you for your support.’”
Beeney also contended that Clemmons, a Republican, wrote the law to suppress Democratic votes. Blacks in South Carolina typically vote Democratic. Beeney asked Clemmons whether he remembered distributing packets of peanuts with cards that read “Stop Obama’s nutty agenda and support voter ID.”
Clemmons said he did not, though Beeney said he had testified in June that he did.
I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you, that the voter ID law enthusiasts consider passage of these sorts of laws a way to ensure that folks who might vote for Obama can’t.
Oh wait — no I’m not.
[read full post at ABLC]
? Martin
I think we’ll only see one more possible attempt at this. Texas should go democratic no later than 2020. Once they lose Texas, it’s game over.
Insomniac
It never ends with these Republicans, does it?
Calouste
@? Martin:
So the GOP has 8 years to repeal the VRA? I assume the Supreme KKKlowns are itching for it.
eric
You have to understand that we just cant trust the coloreds with the vote, they just dont have the faculties that white folk have. I thought that shit as politics died with Wallace, Nixon, and Atwater. I a not talking buzzword racism of Reagan or modern GOP, but this is pre-civil rights institutional racism.
khead
I keep trying to get my bro to move out of South Carolina.
JGabriel
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eric: @eric:
And the Conservatives / Mainstream Republicans(tm) have been trying to bring it back ever since.
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Davis X. Machina
@Calouste: Opus Dei lo vult.
maya
This IS South Cackalacky and we reserve the right to secede from anything. Care for a Palmetto?
Phoenician in a time of Romans
I propose a simple solution – “No Taxation Without Representation”.
It’s a simple idea – EITHER the State must show that any given person is on the electoral roll, OR that they are a member of a legitimately excluded group (such as a non-citizen or a felon) OR the State is not entitled to any taxes from that person, and must refund any sales or indirect taxes on request.
States seem to be able to keep track of people they tax, somehow. So why doesn’t that automatically translate into teh right to vote?
karen
Did you hear about how Texas, SC and other states are filing an amicus brief, saying the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional and should be overturned because it “impedes laws intended to make it more difficult for racial minorities to cast a ballot.”
In other words the Constitution doesn’t want Ni-CLANG to vote.
1badbaba3
@maya: Don’t you mean South KKKaKKKalaKKKi?
There, much better.
karen
@maya: The bug or the tree?