At the cutting edge of segregationist voting suppression today

Roll Call has an article describing some of the key operators behind the Republican Party's segregationist voter-suppression operations: Eliza Newlin Carney, Conservative Veterans of Voting Wars Cite Ballot Integrity to Justify Fight 09/26/2012:

Less well-known than Indiana election lawyer James Bopp Jr., who's made a national name for himself challenging the political money laws, conservative veterans of voting wars such as Hans von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams nonetheless play a role similar to Bopp's in their behind-the-scenes fight to protect ballot integrity.

And by protecting ballot integrity they mean blocking as many black and Latino voters as possible. ...

Other leaders in the Beltway anti-fraud [i.e., segregationist anti-voting] brigade include GOP election lawyer Cleta Mitchell, president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, and Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund, who helped launch the anti-fraud movement with his 2004 book "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy."

Also active is the nonprofit American Civil Rights Union, which bills itself as a conservative counterpoint to the American Civil Liberties Union ...

Unfortunately, Carney's article relies on the lazy this-side-says/the-other-side-says formula of which reporters have become so fond and so doesn't state clearly the flat-out segregationist nature of this voter-suppression effort. This is a classic case: "About the only thing both sides agree on is that their opponents have the facts wrong."

It would be nice if we had someone like professional reporters to, you know, really research this stuff and tell us who is lying and who is not instead of just getting "balance" by taking stenography from Both Sides.

Tags: segregation, voter suppression

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