Posted on 08/13/2013 2:47:48 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) on Tuesday called on the Justice Department to review her state’s new voter identification law, calling it one of “the most restrictive in the country.”
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed into law a bill on Monday that would require voters to show government identification when voting, shorten early-voting days, cut off same-day registration and end a program to preregister teens who would be eligible to vote by Election Day.
“I am deeply concerned that H.B. 589 will restrict the ability of minorities, seniors, students, the disabled, and low and middle incomes citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote,” Hagan said in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder.
Hagan is one of four Senate Democrats up for reelection next year in red states won by presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012. Her Senate campaign will not be immediately affected by the law, which goes into effect in 2016.
“Protecting the fundamental right of our citizens to vote should be among the federal government’s highest priorities,” she said.
Some Democrats argue that the law targets a segment of the population that traditionally votes for Democrats.
The Justice Department is considering taking action against North Carolina and a handful of states after the Supreme Court struck down part of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year.
In a narrow decision, the justices invalidated a portion of the law that required a number of Southern states with a history of voter suppression to clear all new voting regulations with the federal government.
The court ruled that the criteria are outdated and gave Congress the option of updating it.
The Justice Department has already said it would challenge a voter ID law in Texas and has not ruled out similar action in North Carolina, where lawsuits have already been filed by other groups challenging the law.
Hagan leads all potential Republican Senate opponents in a new survey from the Democratic-affiliated Public Policy Polling.
Some of her opponents — including state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R) — are dragged down by voters’ disapproval of the North Carolina state legislature, which has passed a number of controversial bills since Republicans won control in Raleigh.
Civil service now there is a “reform” that backfired. Chester Arthur’s folly. I’m with you 100% on that, the damn government worker unions and career bureaucrats are perhaps our biggest problem. They are all 100% loyal to the left and there’s not damn thing we can do cause they can’t be summarily canned.
The idea doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s radar.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the reasoning behind it and the national impetus to push for it following Garfield’s assassination (although just because a job-seeking lone nutter did a heinous act shouldn’t have been the main motivating factor). What I’m not sure is how many could’ve envisioned that replacing patronage with what turned out to be armies of government bureaucrats whom are almost impossible to terminate.
Of course I don't favor a unicamerial legislature at the federal level. Even if the misguided anti-17th loons were correct that Senators and Congressman had the same purpose, having two houses of Congress makes it more difficult for them to pass legislation (especially right now when the two houses are controlled by different parties), and that's a good thing, IMO.
The anti-17th argument that "Congressman and Senators now serve the same function and are redundant since they're both elected from the same state" is also ridiculous when you look at the House delegations and Senate delegations from various states. They obviously represent VERY different constituencies. Congresswoman Shelia Jackson-Lee of Texas would NEVER be Senator Shelia Jackson-Lee of Texas, and Congressman Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland would NEVER be Senator Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland. The demographics and interests of their district's constituents is vastly different than the state as a whole.
Field's suggestion of abolishing the 26th amendment is a worthy idea. It would never pass, but given that most 18-20 year olds don't vote anyway, and most of the ones that do are too ill-formed and ignorant to vote (not to mention they tend to be overwhelmingly liberal and pro-Obama), it would probably benefit our country if we limited voting suffrage to people age 21 or over. I was a conservative, informed voter at age 18, but unfortunately I was in the extreme minority at that age.
Hell I probably would have been for it at the time. Meritocracy sounds good. But it turned out to be a frying pan into fire situation.
With human nature being what it is I don’t know if a meritocracy is even possible.
The anti-17thers are extremely outspoken and would have us believe that trusting big government to appoint politicians for us is the "true conservative" position and one that the "tea party" embraces, but it's interesting how they NEVER poll grassroot conservatives and tea party members to gauge the level of support for it.
I think they probably fear what most of us suspect would be the results... you'd get around 20-25% of conservatives to endorse the idea, and the 60-70% or more opposed (with everyone else "undecided"). They can't sell people on this kool-aid, so they just run around screaming that you have to agree with Mark Levin on everything or you're a liberal RINO progressive Woodrow Wilson fan who "hates the constitution" and "doesn't understand the founders".
I see a similar attitude with the "only allow creationism in public schools" crowd. They'd you believe that they speak for conservatives as a whole, but their viewpoint is actually opposed by most conservatives and it only seems more popular than it is because they're screaming about it constantly and demanding everyone else accept their worldview.
There are other such fringe positions around (there are numerous Christian conservatives who still believe alcohol is the root of all evil and the prohibition should be re-instated, for example). The difference is, they're not running around on talk radio and yelling at the top of their lungs that they speak for the Tea Party, so we don't have to worry about them embarrassing us.
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