Lies, Damned Lies and Suppressioin

How about this one:  Voter ID laws are meant to address rampant voter fraud; so are laws to restrict polling hours and early voting.  Conveniently, this lie was exposed by the perps themselves when the 2012 elections were barely over.  Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer admitted that the voter fraud line was, in his words, “a marketing ploy”. The real goal was Republican victory by limiting access to early voters and others who overwhelmingly vote Democratic.  This assessment was corroborated by ex-Governor Charlie Crist.

Here’s another one:  Laws to curb unions from collecting union dues through paycheck deductions are just addressing a  straightforward civil rights and fairness issue.  If we can believe Grover Norquist, the so-called “paycheck protection” strategy may have started as early as 1998:  "This all started with a group of three guys in California. …  My contribution has been to take it nationwide …”

The three guys and their backer ran a pro-voucher conservative Christian group and they were frustrated by the power of  the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers to defeat their political initiatives.

There seems to be a preponderance of  mainstream opinion that the civil rights/fairness claim for “paycheck protection” is cynical and fraudulent.   A federal judge recently struck down Arizona laws on “paycheck protection” and restricting the right to picket, saying such laws were unconstitutional.  In a January 7, 2012 editorial, the New York Times described the eagerness for Republican administrations to use “model bills” engineered by ALEC:

Many Republican leaders are adopting model legislation proposed by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national corporate-financed conservative organization that is also assisting the Republican push to require voter identification cards to suppress the vote of minorities, young people and other constituencies that tend to favor the Democratic Party.

There is little doubt that politics is also behind the Republicans’ push for right-to-work laws: they see an opportunity to further weaken unions, which are far more likely to support Democrats — as well as health care reform and a higher minimum wage — by slashing their funding and their donating power.

The Oregonian and Jill Gibson Odell both promote the fairness/worker choice rationale for limiting the power of unions to collect dues.  The Oregonian’s stance is lamentable and spurious.  Odell is the author of Initiative Petition 9 – the most threatening of the “right to work” initiatives that may end up on the ballot in 2014.  The Oregonian reports: 

 What is currently known as Initiative Petition 9 wasn't motivated by anti-union sentiment, insists Odell, who once served as legislative director for Oregon House Republicans. It is, rather, "a civil rights issue."