USDOJ Blocks South Carolina Voter Photo ID Law

The Justice Department on Friday rejected South Carolina's law requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls, saying it makes it harder for minorities to cast ballots. South Carolina's law, which is almost identical to Texas' voter photo ID law, was the first voter ID law to be refused by the Obama administration. The Justice Department must approve changes to South Carolina's election laws under the federal Voting Rights Act because of the state's past failure to protect the voting rights of blacks. Texas, also covered by the Voting Rights Act, may soon receive a similar letter in response to it's preclrearance request. (USDOJ's letter to SC at the bottom of this post)

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said South Carolina's law didn't meet the burden under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discriminatory practices preventing blacks from voting. Perez said tens of thousands of minorities in South Carolina might not be able to cast ballots under South Carolina's law because they don't have the right photo ID.

South Carolina's new voter ID law requires people casting ballots to show poll workers a state-issued driver's license or ID card; a U.S. military ID or a U.S. passport.

South Carolina is among five states that passed laws this year requiring some form of ID at the polls, while such laws were already on the books in Indiana and Georgia, whose law received approval from President George W. Bush's Justice Department. Indiana's law, passed in 2005, was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. This USDOJ decision places the federal government squarely in opposition to the types of voter ID requirements that have swept through mostly Republican-controlled state legislatures.

“Put differently, although non-white voters comprised 30.4% of the state’s registered voters, they constituted 34.2% of registered voters who did not have the requisite DMV-issued identification to vote,” Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez, who heads the Civil Rights Division, wrote in the letter to South Carolina. “Non-white voters were therefore disproportionally represented, to a significant degree, in the group of registered voters who, under the proposed law, would be rendered ineligible to go to the polls and participate in the election.”

Perez wrote that the number of minority citizens whose exercise of the francise could be adversely affected by the proposed requirements “runs in the tens of thousands.” He wrote that the state had “failed entirely to address the disparity between the proportions of white and non-white registered voters who lack DMV-issued identification.”

Because Justice Department lawyers reached the conclusion that South Carolina’s voter ID law would have the effect of suppressing minority voter turnout, they found it was unnecessary to examine whether that was the intent of the legislators who voted for the law. Cases based on intent to discriminate are usually more difficult to prove even though they don’t require the government to prove the effect was discriminatory.

The Texas Secretary of State filed the the state's request for preclearance in July, but the USDOJ determined in September that it needed more information. Specifically the USDOJ requested the racial breakdown and counties of residence of the estimated 605,576 registered voters who do not have a state-issued license or photo ID, and how many of them have Spanish surnames. It requested the same information for registered voters who do have valid IDs.

The Texas Secretary of State (TXSOS) had initially told the DOJ that 605,576 registered Texas voters do not appear to have a Texas driver’s license or personal ID card. The SOS report indicates that in 27 of Texas' 254 counties, at least 10 percent of the registered voters might be unable to cast ballots. In Presidio County in Southwest Texas as many as 25.9% of registered voters might not have the required photo ID, which will block as many as 1,313 out of the 5,066 registered voters in that county from casting ballots in any election.

The Texas Democratic Party followed up with its own letter and spreadsheet to the USDOJ showing that in at least 46 Texas counties, over half the voters who do not have one of the required photo ID's are Hispanic. The Texas Democratic Party and various organizations staunchly opposed SB14 on the grounds it will disenfranchise elderly and minority voters.

Although most Americans have government-issued photo ID, studies show that as many as 11-12% of eligible voters nationwide do not; the percentage is even higher for seniors, people of color, people with disabilities, low-income voters, and students. Last month, the Brennan Center for Justice issued a report on its research that shows as many as 11% of eligible voters nationwide do not hold a government issue photo ID. With 18.8 million voting age citizens in Texas, as counted by the 2010 U.S. census, as many as 2.1 million (11 percent) registered and unregistered voting age citizens in Texas possibly do not hold a Texas driver’s license, personal ID card or other government issued photo ID document.

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson said he would fight the Justice Department in federal court. He said the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar law in Indiana several years ago. "Nothing in this act stops people from voting," Wilson said. The ball is now in Wilson's court;

If the state does nothing, the voter photo ID provisions of the law is nullified.

Alternatively, Wilson can advise the state to provide new data to the USDOJ (the state told USDOJ 55 days into the 60 day review period that the data they originally turned over was flawed) and ask for reconsideration. Or, Wilson can advise the state legislature to pass a different law with less restrictive identification requirements. Or, Wilson can appeal the decision through the courts. The Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law in 2008, so the state may think it has a good chance to win on appeal, though the question of racial disparity wasn’t the focus of SCOTUS’s 2008 decision.

USDOJ officials are still reviewing Texas' ID law. The USDOJ likely will send a rejection letter to Texas in mid-January at the end of the current 60 day clock on its Texas preclearance decision. Since the laws and issues are so similar between TX and SC, the Tx letter is likely to say much the same thing as today's SC letter.

It is widely expected that South Carolina (and Texas) will take the USDOJ's preclearance rejection to the three judge court in DC, with direct appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is also expected that South Carolina (and Texas) will argue that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional — an issue that has been simmering in other VRA cases.

South Carolina (and Texas) likely will seek expedited review of the USDOJ's rejection in the DC court as well as in the Supreme Court, on grounds that the states want to use their new voter photo ID laws in the 2012 election. That would put the VRA constitutionality question raised in the voter photo ID case before the Supreme Court at about the same time SCOTUS will be considering the constitutionality of the San Antonio court's redrawing of Texas' House, Senate and Congressional district maps. This would give the conservative activist Supreme Court Justices a chance to not only weaken section 5 of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional before the 2012 election, but to strike it down all together.

How Freedom Became Tyranny

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 20th December 2011

Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among think tanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did libertarianism, once a noble impulse, become synonymous with injustice?

In the name of freedom – freedom from regulation – the banks were permitted to wreck the economy. In the name of freedom, taxes for the super-rich are cut. In the name of freedom, companies lobby to drop the minimum wage and raise working hours. In the same cause, US insurers lobby Congress to thwart effective public healthcare; the government rips up our planning laws; big business trashes the biosphere. This is the freedom of the powerful to exploit the weak, the rich to exploit the poor.

Cartoon by Barry Deutsch @ Lefty Cartoons

Seasons Greetings With A Christmas Carol

As a holiday offering to all our readers we offer old radio broadcasts and a 1935 British movie of "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens.

Here are the 1938 and 1939 Campbell Playhouse radio broadcast productions of "A Christmas Carol" featuring Orson Welles and Lionel Barrymore. [Mercury Theatre Info]

1938 version featuring Orson Welles as Scrooge. Play starts at 5:30 minutes [MP3] 1939 version featuring Lionel Barrymore as Scrooge (My favorite) Play starts at 3:00 minutes [MP3]

Seymour Hicks plays the title role in the first sound version of the Dickens classic about the miser who's visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. This British import is notable for being the only adaptation of this story with an invisible Marley's Ghost and its Expressionistic cinematography. This is the uncut 78 minute version from the Internet Archive.

Bill Maher:

New Rule: Someone needs to explain to the Republicans that Ebenezer Scrooge is supposed to be the bad guy. And before conservatives start whining about another "War on Christmas", they must admit they hate everything about Christmas. Because brotherhood, good will toward men, and especially charity make their skin crawl.

Now this week, Michele Bachmann proposed cutting huge holes in the federal safety net, demonstrating a total misunderstanding of the concept of a net. Here's what she said.

MICHELE BACHMANN (11/7/2011): Self-reliance means if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.

Merry Christmas to you too, crazy lady. Yeah, that's the first thing I think whenever self-reliance comes up: punishment by starvation.

Honestly, who could hear that statement, and not think of Scrooge, who in A Christmas Carol, suggests that if the poor don't want to go to the workhouse, they should get on with dying as a service to population control. Now if Herman Cain said that at a Republican debate, he would get a standing ovation. And say what you want about Ebenezer Scrooge, he never shoved Bob Cratchit's head into his groin and said, "Look, you want Christmas off or not?"

Newt Gingrich refers to Obama as the "Food Stamp President", because Obama doesn't want children to starve to death, fuckin' commie.

Mitt Romney says we should let all the people about to lose their homes, lose them. And they can just become renters. Ownership society? Meet "No pets, no waterbeds". Mitt said the same thing a few years ago when the automobile industry was tottering: "Let it die".

I find it ironic that Republicans have such disdain for the lazy, and yet their solution to every problem is "do nothing".

Their answer to wealth inequality? Do nothing.

Health care? Do nothing.

Climate change? Nothing.

Racism? Doesn't exist.

For a group of people so head over heels in love with self-reliance, they sure do recommend a lot of sitting on their ass.

If A Christmas Carol was performed by the Tea Party Dramatic Society, it would be a cautionary tale about how the hero, Scrooge, a blameless job creator, is turned into a socialist through the corrupting influence of Tiny Tim. And the play would end with a simple plaintive question from Mr. Scrooge: "Just how much of my wealth does Mr. Tim think he's entitled to?"

And that is the great Republican fallacy of this election, that our economic problems are due not to Wall Street's gambling, but because too many Americans are lazy. But there are 16 million unemployed, and we only created 80,000 jobs last month. The problem isn't laziness, it's math.

But this is where the Republican Party is now.

In favor of people dying, because they don't have health insurance.

In favor of letting people go unfed if they won't work.

And if they want to work, but are Mexicans, in favor of putting up a fence that electrocutes them.

Even Scrooge is thinking, "Look, I hate the poor, but I'm not a fucking psychopath."

But that's where this party is. It simply has no bottom...

Bill Maher Video:

Ayn Rand And The Politics Of Selfishness And Greed

Alternet / by Bruce E. Levine | December 15, 2011

How Ayn Rand Seduced Generations of Young Men and Helped Make the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation. Thanks in part to Rand, the United States is one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world.

Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society....To justify and extol human greed and egotism is to my mind not only immoral, but evil.— Gore Vidal, 1961

Only rarely in U.S. history do writers transform us to become a more caring or less caring nation. In the 1850s, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) was a strong force in making the United States a more humane nation, one that would abolish slavery of African Americans.

A century later, Ayn Rand (1905-1982) helped make the United States into one of the most uncaring nations in the industrialized world, a neo-Dickensian society where healthcare is only for those who can afford it, and where young people are coerced into huge student-loan debt that cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

Rand’s impact has been widespread and deep. At the iceberg’s visible tip is the influence she’s had over major political figures who have shaped American society. In the 1950s, Ayn Rand read aloud drafts of what was later to become Atlas Shrugged to her “Collective,” Rand’s ironic nickname for her inner circle of young individualists, which included Alan Greenspan, who would serve as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board from 1987 to 2006.

In 1966, Ronald Reagan wrote in a personal letter, “Am an admirer of Ayn Rand.” Today, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) credits Rand for inspiring him to go into politics, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) calls Atlas Shrugged his “foundation book.” Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says Ayn Rand had a major influence on him, and his son Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is an even bigger fan. A short list of other Rand fans includes Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas; Christopher Cox, chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission in George W. Bush’s second administration; and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford.

But Rand’s impact on U.S. society and culture goes even deeper.

The Seduction of Nathan Blumenthal

Ayn Rand’s books such as The Virtue of Selfishness and her philosophy that celebrates self-interest and disdains altruism may well be, as Vidal assessed, “nearly perfect in its immorality.” But is Vidal right about evil? Charles Manson, who himself did not kill anyone, is the personification of evil for many of us because of his psychological success at exploiting the vulnerabilities of young people and seducing them to murder. What should we call Ayn Rand’s psychological ability to exploit the vulnerabilities of millions of young people so as to influence them not to care about anyone besides themselves?

While Greenspan (tagged “A.G.” by Rand) was the most famous name that would emerge from Rand’s Collective, the second most well-known name to emerge from the Collective was Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist, author and “self-esteem” advocate. Before he was Nathaniel Branden, he was Nathan Blumenthal, a 14-year-old who read Rand’s The Fountainhead again and again. He later would say, “I felt hypnotized.” He describes how Rand gave him a sense that he could be powerful, that he could be a hero. He wrote one letter to his idol Rand, then a second. To his amazement, she telephoned him, and at age 20, Nathan received an invitation to Ayn Rand’s home. Shortly after, Nathan Blumenthal announced to the world that he was incorporating Rand in his new name: Nathaniel Branden. And in 1955, with Rand approaching her 50th birthday and Branden his 25th, and both in dissatisfying marriages, Ayn bedded Nathaniel.

What followed sounds straight out of Hollywood, but Rand was straight out of Hollywood, having worked for Cecil B. DeMille. Rand convened a meeting with Nathaniel, his wife Barbara (also a Collective member), and Rand’s own husband Frank. To Branden's astonishment, Rand convinced both spouses that a time-structured affair—she and Branden were to have one afternoon and one evening a week together—was “reasonable.” Within the Collective, Rand is purported to have never lost an argument. On his trysts at Rand’s New York City apartment, Branden would sometimes shake hands with Frank before he exited. Later, all discovered that Rand’s sweet but passive husband would leave for a bar, where he began his self-destructive affair with alcohol.

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