Dear Editor:
I concur with John S. and his statements about voter ID.
I want to respond to a comment left on his letter comparing voter ID laws to the health care mandate.
First of all, the mandate in the healthcare act is NOT a tax-it was only listed as such so the justices had a leg to stand on when they upheld the very unconstitutional law.
Secondly, voter ID is NOT the only problem.
Obama's administration is attempting to stop Florida officials from removing DEAD PEOPLE from their voter roles. Why would the president want to stop something that would only aid in preventing people from impersonating a dead person to cast an extra vote? Voter ID should be required to protect the voting process. If dead people can vote, than certainly illegal immigrants can vote, and that, my friends, is not constitutional at all. If this is a democracy, then only legal citizens have the right to vote.
If we do nothing to enforce this law, then our right to know that we are duly electing our leaders is being infringed upon. We know this is an important election year. If the current president truly wanted transparency, he would encourage voter ID laws to ensure the voting process was accurate and he certainly wouldn't be attempting to stop state officials from removing ineligible voters from their rolls.
Thank you.
Bethany Gates, Vinton
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You have made my case for me. Thank you. I do have to say something about the Southern Poverty Law Center. When is it wrong, left wing or liberal to go after racists groups? Attorney Morris Dees has spent decades fighting the fight for racial equality. The SPLC has successfully gone after the KKK. One case in particular was successful in shutting down and giving ownership of KKK assets to an African American woman whose family was victimized by the KKK. SPLC does good work tracking extremists groups of all kinds and bringing to justice those who have broken laws. To impugn the organization just to score points on this site is irresponsible and show the lack of knowledge you have about what is really going on in America.
I want to bring this debate back to where it started.—Voter ID. In today’s Gazette there is an article from a professor at Kirkwood and a member of the League of Women Voters, (I know Patti you are going to think it is a left wing liberal democratic group but it is not it is a bipartisan group whose mission is provide assess and support for voting rights.) The article discusses who voter ID laws truly affect. The same argument I have been making. The second half of her article discusses felon voting rights but please read the whole article for an unbiased view.
I would also like to bring this to a real world situation. My Mom will soon be 85 and currently she has a driver’s license but say she lives in Cedar Rapids where she would not be driving. This voter ID law goes into effect and now she has to prove who she is to purchase a voter ID card to be able to vote. One way to do that is a birth certificate. Mom does not have one. It was destroyed in a courthouse fire years and years ago. She does not have a passport, student ID? Hardly. Who knows what she would have to produce to prove who she is so that she could vote as any citizen should be able to do. This is something that an 85 year old woman who has voted in every election should not have to through to do something that is her right. These voter ID laws are not just set up to “catch” illegal voters but to discourage voter turnout and depress the vote and what is more truthful is it is being proved over and over again and here in Iowa voter fraud is pretty much non-existent. I rest my case.
There is so much to work with here, I don't know where to begin but the whole birther thing, the real reason behind voter ID is to restrict the poor and minorities from voting because those groups vote more Democratic, the extremely rascist signs and rhetoric during the health care debate, the increase in hate groups for that one check out http://splcenter.org/ the Southern Poverty Law Cemter, the whole Muslim thing including radical peole worrying about sharia law, not to mention the Muslim paranoia in our country I could go on an on
I guess that is the difference between you and me. I never once referenced Jim Crow as Republican policy. It doesn't make a difference. It was an abhorrent law that took way too long to get rid of. I have studied the Civil Rights movement and will always say no matter what that America treated slaves, then freed slaves, and African Americans in most disgusting and dispictable ways and it still is permeating our present culture. (My Master's thesis was a study of African American Philanthropy and how it has changed between 1950-2000.) Our greatest president in this regard was Republican Lincoln.
Furthermore, I have never purported that everything Democrats do is correct while what Republicans do is incorrect. The Southern Democratic party of Jim Crow south were dispicable as well. I do not defend their actions.
The racial divide in our history is stain on us all and currently is being perpetuated by the radical right and leftover or overt racists who cannot stand that an African American sits in the White House. Right now it so happens that group is entrenched in the Republican party.(Not all the party but you cannot deny that this group does not have a voice in the Republican party.) I would be saying the same thing if it was in my party because unlike some people I do not separate right or wrong along party lines. And racial animas and bigotry is wrong no matter what party affiliation one holds.
I did go to the library and I have picked up a history book, many of them. Guess what, the majority, if not all, of the poll taxes and Jim Crow laws you reference were instituted by DEMOCRATS! In the words of Marge Schott, "Well, There You Go."
The difference in sources is newspapers across the state reporting on a story, an actual history book, and the Constitution versus right wing internet sites that hate everything President Obama and Democrats do and are far from objective as you can get. Just because it is on the internet does not make it true. Would not hurt anyone to pick up a history book instead of using the internet. It is amazing what you might learn!
The health care bill was passed ONLY if it's implemented AS a tax...(it was not set up to be one) that's the only way it can be implemented. So to use this health care "reform" bill, we are again, taxing and spending...what we don't already have. As far as the debate on the dead still being registered...why not add that "tax" in the healthcare bill..then we'd all be happy...
Instead of spending your time surfing the net for right wing sources that justify your opinion, I suggest you go to the library and pick up a history book and research how poll taxes or a variety of mechanisms of poll taxes have been used over time. Play close attention to the Jim Crow south in early to mid -twentieth century when poll taxes were used to disenfranchise the poor and African Americans.
Justice Roberts did not dismantle the 24th Amendment with the healthcare ruling. The issues are like apple and oranges. There are constitutional scholars who spend their lifetimes studying the Constitution. They have far more experience in the interpretation of the Constitution than you or I, but I know the difference between the healthcare ruling and requiring people to purchase something, whether that is a made up head tax or the purchase of a voter ID before they can vote. Then go onto to read the 24th Amendment to understand why it was ratified. Voting without buying anything is our right. See below.
Twenty-Fourth Amendment - Abolition of the Poll Tax Qualification in Federal Elections
Amendment Text | Annotations
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Also Bethany, you have made blanket statements before that since you live in rural Vinton and you have no impediment in doing things, everyone across the nation should be able to do the same thing, in this instance purchase a picture ID. There is another whole other world out there that does not live in a town of 5,000 where going to the courthouse is just a few blocks away. Making blanket statements about the ease of purchasing such ID lacks a world view and is so very provincial.
In your first letter you stated that the penalty for the healthcare bill is NOT a tax, now you say that it is. Remember that Justice Roberts is a conservative nominated by Bush not a Democrat that made that ruling.
Also what you think in regards to voter ID is tax or not is not the issue, it is that requiring someone to purchase something to vote is unconstitutional, whether you think it is or not, it is a POLL TAX. Do not confuse the health care bill with unconstitutional voter ID. They are 2 different issues.
And if the health care penalty as you assert is not a tax as you did in your first letter, then President Obama can not be charged with "the biggest tax increase" in history as Repubs want to claim because as you say it is NOT a tax and is exactly the same penalty that Romney signed into law in Mass.
--Rosemary Schwartz
Here are some 'liberal' sources for you...but since they corroborate the 'right wing extremist rantings' I assume you'll claim they're garbage as well?
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/homeland-security-data-can-be-used-to-check-voters-in-florida-644775/?print=1
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/302500/amid-battle-over-florida-voter-rolls-accuracy-state-sues-dhs-katrina-trinko
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-07-14/florida-citizens-list/56224900/1
As for your claim that voter ID laws are unconstitutional and a 'poll tax'-didn't the SCOTUS just rule that taxes mandated by the federal government are constitutional? If you stand by the healthcare ruling, then you can hardly argue that requiring voter ID is unconstitutional.
For the record, I do not view requiring voter ID a tax. State ID costs $5 for 5 years in Iowa. Citizens have the right to vote in the United States but due to the fact that illegal immigrants are allowed to live here we have no choice but to ensure that only legal citizens are voting. If the $5 is too expensive, I'm sure the democrats would be more than willing to create a federal program for that.
Another thing in regards to photo ID being a form of tax-to drive my car I am required to have a photo ID. To attend college I am required to have a college-issued form of ID. To open a bank account, to go out of the country, I have to show an ID. Never once have I heard the argument that those things are unconstitutional or a 'tax'--until republicans started pushing for voter ID laws. Sorry, but the democrats have no ground to stand on by saying that a voter ID law is unconstitutional, not when they've just passed a very unconstitutional mandate that taxes American citizens regardless of whether or not they actually purchase anything. If the democrats don't want voter ID laws, perhaps they should stop supporting laws and regulations that let illegal immigrants live in the U.S. as Americans.
Your letter is not worth commenting on since your source is breitbart.com. Andrew Breitbart, (God rest is tortured soul) hated everything and everyone who did not subscribe to his radical right-wing rantings. This guy was an angry person who blew up at anyone disagreeing with him. His outbursts are well documented. His temper and anger could have possibly contributed to his premature death at age 43. He hated Democrats and loathed President Obama and his legacy continues with breitbart.com. Anything from brietbart.com needs to be seen as the garbage it is.
What I will comment on is that a few days after John S. letter about rabid voter fraud, a front page article in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, coverage in the Des Moines Register and editorials in at least Ames Tribune and Mason City Globe Gazette all reported on Secretary of State Matt Schultz crusade to expose massive voter fraud in Iowa is a bust. After announcing to the world, or at least Iowa, that he was going to expose this problem, a thorough examination of voter records has shown that voter fraud in Iowa is virtually non-existent. But Schultz is not satisfied with those results and is going to continue spending tax payer dollars to prove something that doesn’t exist to justify voter id laws that put up barriers on people wanting to vote. He is like Don Quixote flailing at windmills.
I agree with the person who answered that requiring someone to purchase ID to vote is a poll tax and is unconstitutional. With Republicans, Ron Paul libertarians, and Tea Party people clamoring about following the Constitution, how can anyone of those groups support a poll tax that is unconstitutional? I thought we had dealt with this kind of stuff 40-50 years ago.