GOP's Biggest Target (albeit a bogus target): Voting Rights
(ranks next to repeal Obama-care, fewer rights for women, public schools)
Their M.O. (L: Modus Operandi)
(win at any cost, no matter who is stomped on along the way)
As the post title asks: Do you think there’s no harm in the GOP taking over state
governments, the Congress and the White House? Two graphic examples from here on top of plenty more examples across the country say since 2010:
1. NORTH
CAROLINA : In 2010, one single GOP-Conservative multi-millionaire,
Art Pope, bankrolled
a Republican takeover of North Carolina
state government when they won 18 statewide legislative races that turned NC red
for the first time since 1870.
Two years later, Pope helped fund Pat McCrory (R) who was
successful at winning the big office: Governor. (Note: Gov. McCrory later named
Pope as his state budget director).
With Republicans in full control of North Carolina, quickly
instituted a rash of conservative legislation: (1) strict voter ID laws, (2) various other forms of voter suppression, and several other red
meat GOP causes like (3) regressive taxes on the poor, (4) blocking Medicaid expansion under the ACA,
and (5) cutting pre-Kindergarten funding.
2. NEVADA : Now, just a few years later after those moves in NC, we see Nevada about to play that same sill-ass game.
In 2014, Nevada Republicans won control of both chambers of
the state legislature, and with a GOP governor who was already in place they
won the “trifecta”
– total state power they had not enjoyed since 1929, and just like NC, they wasted
no time in implementing harsh laws like several bills to restrict voting rights
that require voter IDs, and that are seen as a move that could have a
significant discriminatory effect among Nevada’s high minority population. They
even have moved to amend the state constitution to implement voter ID laws.
Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) has also expressed
support for those voter ID laws.
Worse, Nevada Republicans aren’t just trying to push voter
ID laws, but have a pair of bills that will require many voters to present
proof of citizenship or else their registration will be canceled.
Note: Requiring people to find documents like their birth
certificate or possessing a passport to show U.S. citizenship in order to vote
would discourage huge swaths of potential voters from voting, let alone
register to vote, and that is the GOP aim: keep the opposition base tied up in
knots while holding your base in tow and thus: win anyway possible –
by hook or crook, no matter what or how.
It is worth noting that similar laws in Arizona
were struck
down by the USSC (7-2 ruling). But, that has not stop Nevada Republicans
from trying to move ahead with their own flavor of that same idea.
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