Obomination: The Scaremongering by the President’s Men

The title of this Obomination comes from an insightful op-ed by Jason Riley published this week.  Riley is a seasoned journalist on the editorial board of a major newspaper, not a politician.  His observations of the voter ID issue comes after hearing recent comments by an Obama administration official and a civil rights leader with close ties to Obama.  He identifies what is going on as “scaremongering.” 

As Riley notes, Attorney General Eric Holder gave a speech where he said, “Are we willing to allow this era – our era – to be remembered as the age when our nation's proud tradition of expanding the franchise ended?”  Then, the NAACP’s Ben Jealous tries to make a historical argument about why to oppose voter ID laws by associating them with Reconstruction era poll taxes.  Jealous said, "You saw it after the Civil War. You see it now after the election of the first black president." Riley argues that these statements by Holder and Jealous are actually part of the left’s strategy of scaremongering. 

First off, he points out first that these statements are, first, not even historically correct as applies to voter ID laws.   Voter ID laws were passed by state legislatures prior to Barack Obama.  Even the author of an Obomination blog series must admit that not everything that happened in politics – in particular, in state legislatures – since January 20, 2009 (Obama’s inauguration) has to do with Obama.  The NAACP and others on the left have tried to make up a vast right-wing conspiracy theory that there is some secret political plot involving voter ID laws launched by the Republican Party.  If you think that, why did the Democratic legislature in Rhode Island pass a voter ID law?  Are they part of this conspiracy too?

Next, Riley supports his argument that voter ID laws actually don’t block access to the franchise by pointing to a 2007 study that shows that minority turnout increased after voter ID laws were passed in Georgia and Indiana.  It should be noted that this study, done by the Heritage Foundation, is not the only one looking at voter ID.  Check out what nonpartisan academics have found.  University of Missouri professor Jeffrey Milyo discovered that after voter ID, turnout increased in Democrat-majority districts.  A University of Delaware professor Jason Mycoff found that voter ID did not decrease turnout. 

Third, Riley quotes from a courageous Democrat, former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis, to show that there are reasonable people on the left who actually support voter ID, and those are the people that should be heard.  I encourage everyone to read what Rhode Island state senator Harold Metts has to say about this issue.  Harold Metts and Artur Davis take their stand in support of voter ID and don’t let fierce political pressure by Obama’s attorney general or the NAACP leader stop them from saying what is really good for our elections.  Metts said, “For me, it's not about red state-blue state, or who's on the left or who’s on the right.  It’s about strengthening the public’s faith in the system.” 

Finally, Riley writes, “the argument that showing identification to vote is too cumbersome is specious.”  This is common sense.  The left has been saying that getting a photo ID that would apply in a state voter ID law in the year 2011 is just too difficult.  They made this argument a few years ago and lost.  In court cases challenging the Georgia and Indiana laws, the plaintiffs could not find a single defendant who was prevented from voting based on the photo ID requirement of the voter ID laws. They are still searching for them, but they have yet to find one.  The current favorite story used by the left is a 96-year-old African American woman from Chattanooga.  But if you actually read carefully through the news reports, this woman is actually able to vote under the state voter ID law that passed.  They can’t find a real example to support their case.  So how should a judge evaluate the same legal argument posed by the Wisconsin lawsuits recently filed by the ACLU, NAACP and the League of Women Voters?   Legal arguments must be supported by facts.  If you can’t prove facts, your legal arguments should fail.

There’s Rhode Island State Democrat Representative Jon Brien who talked about the scaremongering in this way: “Those who are opposed to voter ID never let the facts get in the way of a really good emotional argument.”  Whether you call it “emotional arguments” or “scaremongering,” it’s not right. The discussion about voter ID laws should be about facts.