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You are here: Home / Past Elections / Election 2018 / Proud to Be A Democrat: Concerning Heidi Heitkamp

Proud to Be A Democrat: Concerning Heidi Heitkamp

by Anne Laurie|  October 10, 201812:35 am| 20 Comments

This post is in: Election 2018, I'm With Her, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Women's Rights Are Human Rights, All we want is life beyond the thunderdome

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SCOTUS just upheld voter ID law in North Dakota that could disenfranchise thousands of Native voters & cost Heidi Heitkamp her Senate seat. "The risk of disenfranchisement is large" RBG writes in dissent https://t.co/jZVB955OGa

— Ari Berman (@AriBerman) October 9, 2018

… North Dakota’s 2017 voter law ID was challenged by Native residents who alleged that the law disproportionately blocked Native Americans from voting. In April, a federal district court judge blocked large portions of the law as discriminatory against Native voters. “The State has acknowledged that Native American communities often lack residential street addresses,” Judge Daniel Hovland wrote. “Nevertheless, under current State law an individual who does not have a ‘current residential street address’ will never be qualified to vote.” According to the website of the Native American Rights Fund, which represents the plaintiffs, many native residents lack residential street addresses because “the U.S. postal service does not provide residential delivery in these rural Indian communities.”As a result, tribal IDs use P.O. boxes, which are not sufficient under North Dakota’s new law—a specification that seems designed to disenfranchise native voters. Hovland’s ruling was in place during the primaries this spring.

But in September, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the law to go into effect. The Supreme Court upheld that ruling Tuesday. In her dissent, Ginsburg argued that the Supreme Court’s order was at odds with one of the top court’s most frequently invoked doctrines on election law: not to change the rules right before an election. By allowing a different set of ID rules in the general election from in the primary, Ginsburg warned, the court was risking widespread confusion and disenfranchisement…

Ginsburg noted that according to the factual record of the case, about 20 percent of voters likely to try to cast a ballot in the midterms will lack the required identification. Another “approximately18,000 North Dakota residents also lack supplemental documentation sufficient to permit them to vote without a qualifying ID,” she noted.

But very few among that 20% will be elderly white people who’ve lived at the same address for decades, so the chances of losing Repub votes is much smaller!

Per the Washington Post:

RUTLAND, N.D. — … One day after the [Kavanaugh] vote, she was back among North Dakotans, wearing a dark sweatshirt against the chill as she led a group of about 100 supporters during the parade for Uffda Day, a Scandinavian heritage festival held each year in this town of fewer than 200 residents.

“I knew this was going to be a difficult vote,” she said in an interview. “I just hope I have the chance to explain why.”…

Since Heitkamp announced her decision, television screens across the state have been blitzed with a commercial from the senator’s campaign explaining why she voted as she did. In her ad, Heitkamp sought to make sure North Dakotans understood that her vote was not partisan, reminding them of her support last year for President Trump’s first court nominee, Neil M. Gorsuch.

On Sunday, standing before a huge tractor emblazoned with her name, Heitkamp delivered a similar pitch to a local television camera while a parade organizer tried to get the event started….

A key moment, Heitkamp said, was watching the nominee’s testy exchange with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) about the nominee’s drinking habits. Asked whether he had experienced any blackouts in his youth, Kavanaugh turned the question back on Klobuchar, moments after she had described her father’s drinking problems.

“When he was put in a tough spot and asked a tough question, his response was to attack and double down,” Heitkamp said….

Heitkamp said she thought the Kavanaugh decision was among the toughest of her political career. It also has changed the government, she said.

“We have a highly partisan executive branch; we have a highly partisan legislative branch,” she said. “We now have injected that partisanship into the judicial branch.”

These are Norwegian-Americans, remember. If my experience of the breed is any indicator (I’ve been living with one for forty years), partisan is a slur to rank with puppy-kicker; they’re the folk who put the fangs in those ‘Midwestern Nice’ tales. Even the rockribbed members of the opposition party prefer Nice Polite Repubs. Senator Heitkamp knows her audience.

Hey everybody @HeidiHeitkamp needs not only money but campaign volunteers. If you've got some time to spare, go help her out. Don't let this man get to the Senate. Please. https://t.co/UuuoWoJE5C

— Joan Walsh (@joanwalsh) October 8, 2018

In mid-October 2012 Heitkamp polled 10 down. Romney got 58. Trump got 62%, and now it’s a midterm w the opposing party in the WH.

She’s in no worse shape compared to when she won, arguably in better shape than this point in 2012. https://t.co/B3sKVoocoe

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 8, 2018

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20Comments

  1. 1.

    Adam L Silverman

    October 10, 2018 at 1:18 am

    You may want to add this up top.

    For anyone in ND or who knows someone in ND, please pass this on so they can pass it on to Native Americans in ND. It is a fairly easy workaround for this problem.

    North Dakota Native voters who do not have a residential address: here are instructions so you can vote in the midterms. Please print this off and share with others who don’t have internet. Call this number if you have questions: 1-701-255-0460 pic.twitter.com/AYQWmx0uU2

    — Ruth H. Hopkins (@RuthHHopkins) October 9, 2018

  2. 2.

    Adam L Silverman

    October 10, 2018 at 1:20 am

    And with that, I’m heading offline. Catch everyone on the flip.

  3. 3.

    low-tech cyclist

    October 10, 2018 at 1:22 am

    Funny how a rule like this is instituted in North Dakota, where it disenfranchises Native Americans, rather than in West Virginia or Pennsylvania or Kentucky, where it would disenfranchise rural whites.

  4. 4.

    Emerald

    October 10, 2018 at 1:31 am

    This is why they were so desperate to get him on the Court right away. More to come.

  5. 5.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 10, 2018 at 1:33 am

    @Emerald: he was not involved in this decision

  6. 6.

    r€nato

    October 10, 2018 at 1:34 am

    off topic:

    One of the most-popular critiques of the economy under Pres. Obama was the “labor participation rate” (LPR), a statistic that got almost no notice until the He-Man-I-Hate-Obama crowd seized on it as the definitive proof that Everything Was Terrible under the rule of The Great Black Satan™ (despite the different story told by literally every other economic statistic). It is expressed as the %age of the entire population that is either employed or actively looking for work.

    Funny how you don’t hear much about the labor participation rate since January 2017.

    LPR 1/17: 62.9%.
    LPR 9/18: 62.7%.

    In the intervening 20 months, it has bounced around between 62.7% and 63%.

    source: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

  7. 7.

    danielx

    October 10, 2018 at 1:36 am

    From earlier thread on how Lindsey Graham can be politely insulted: Lindsey Graham cannot be insulted.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    October 10, 2018 at 2:07 am

    @danielx: He can only be held in infinite contempt.

  9. 9.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 10, 2018 at 2:12 am

    I guess we’re sick of all the winning.

    The world has reached the lowest level of happiness in ten years

    World happiness levels are at their lowest level in over a decade, with the number of people who say they feel stressed and worried rising, according to a survey published on Wednesday.

    […]
    “Collectively, the world is more stressed, worried, sad and in pain today than we’ve ever seen it,” the group’s managing editor, Mohamed Younis, wrote in a foreword to the study.

    Gallup surveyed more than 154,000 people in 146 countries on whether they had felt pain, worry, stress, anger or sadness the previous day. It said the global mood was at its gloomiest since the first such survey in 2006.

  10. 10.

    Sister Golden Bear

    October 10, 2018 at 2:17 am

    To also take up the earlier Lindsey Graham thread, as someone who’s both trans and a lesbian:

    – Lindsey Graham is evil enough there’s plenty of ways to mock him without alluding to his sexuality. I’m plenty willing to call him on his apparent hypocrisy when it comes to LGBT rights because that’s when his being closet case in directly apropos. But otherwise it isn’t.

    – Referring to “Miss Lindsey” is misogynistic and effeminophobic even when gay men do it. (And yes gay men, I’m giving major side-eye to your peers on this.)

    – Comments using gay sex acts as a way to insult someone for loathsome actions are homophobic.

    – In particular, comments about cock sucking — let’s not be coy here — are derogatory with the undertone that being there’s something wrong with being gay. Because it’s pretty much an insult aimed at men, despite hetero women doing the vast majority of actual sucking of cocks.

    – Comments about whores, etc. are slut shaming. There’s plenty of alternatives: sell outs, quislings, etc.

    – There’s in-group language that minorities groups can use — and other’s don’t have the rights to use because they were never the target of those slurs. The n-word is one, the f-word is another.

    Thank you Roger Moore, Dorothy A. Winsor, Kraux Pas, Amir Khalid, Aleta and others for calling this out.

    I get far too much anti-LGBT stuff thrown at me by society in general, I really don’t appreciate seeing it also thrown around by allies. Yes, liberals used to all-too-often be homophobic and transphobic (and still are misogynistic — I’m looking at you Wilmer bros). But now we know better. Time to act better.

  11. 11.

    West of the Rockies

    October 10, 2018 at 2:17 am

    Let me guess… It was a 5-4 decision?

  12. 12.

    Major Major Major Major

    October 10, 2018 at 2:22 am

    @Sister Golden Bear: perfect; thanks! I missed that thread… now I know not to look, since people must have reached other conclusions.

    @West of the Rockies: all we know is that two justices (RBG and Kagan) dissented; and the opinion clearly states that Kavanaugh was not involved.

  13. 13.

    Ailuridae

    October 10, 2018 at 2:53 am

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Thanks for that. I haven’t posted here in years but I found the thread re: Graham problematic and offensive.

  14. 14.

    SenyorDave

    October 10, 2018 at 3:07 am

    Melania Trump Wore a Red Turtleneck Sweater As She Returns to the United States

    How does this make a story for Yahoo news (posted under PWD)? She spent a week wearing the Great White Hunter outfit, apparently oblivious to the inherent meaning of her costume. But a red turtleneck?

  15. 15.

    opiejeanne

    October 10, 2018 at 3:09 am

    @West of the Rockies: No, Kavanaugh was not involved at all.

  16. 16.

    SenyorDave

    October 10, 2018 at 3:13 am

    WTF is wrong with this country?

    Trump crowd finds a new target to lock up: Feinstein

    How can any human support this piece of excrement?

  17. 17.

    Dan B

    October 10, 2018 at 4:16 am

    @Sister Golden Bear: Yes to your clear points on why anti-gay slurs on Lindsey Graham are offensive, and self defeating uf I might add.
    I’m gonna confess I got giggles from the LGB blogs that dished a lot on “Lindseybelle” and “Miss Lindsey”. These epithets skewered the uptight/well bred/superior imagery of southern privileged womanhood. They are worthy of ridicule partly because they represent a culture that is less, far less, valuable than an appendix. Its a catcall from the cheapseats to get off the stage when the hook is asleep at the wheel.

    All the same that the misogyny inherent in these nam3s is damaging the damage Lindsey Graham inflicts on the values of our republic are also egregious. Somehow we have to transcend our lack of monetary fortune with what resources we can muster. Shame and ridicule are two arrows in our quiver. But misogyny, anti-femininity, and homophobia can mess up our quest.

  18. 18.

    SFAW

    October 10, 2018 at 7:34 am

    I think it’s hilarious that SCOTUS has allowed to stand that the demographic group which was here before all the hyphenated-Americans is considered not American enough to be allowed to vote.

    And by “hilarious” I mean “totally fucked-up and evil.”

  19. 19.

    LAC

    October 10, 2018 at 8:50 am

    @Sister Golden Bear: name calling or being a member of a party that enacts hate based policies and laws (under the cover of religion) that you know would affect you adversely if you had an ounce of compassion? He will always be Senator Beverly Leslie from the great state of the green room to me. Sorry…

  20. 20.

    Bartkid

    October 10, 2018 at 4:45 pm

    There are still plenty of farmers and folks living on acreages in ND. Won’t they be disenfranchised, too? Thought they only had P.O. Boxes and land locations.

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