Emily Mills writes about Assembly Bill 7, sure to become law:
This bill is, at its core, a rollback of the right to vote that impacts the most vulnerable and already disenfranchised populations in this state. It spits in the faces of those who’ve come before and fought (and sometimes died) to see this most fundamental right guaranteed to all citizens….
Via Isthmus Daily Page.
It was wrong as policy and wrong for individual liberty to restrict freedom of association through collective bargaining – and yet, these unnecessary and unfair restrictions on citizens’ voting rights are even worse.
They’re despicably un-American.
Not a single legislator who voted in favor of this bill, and not a single one who should prove to support it in the Wisconsin Senate next week, is worthy of re-election. Contentions that this legislation is necessary to prevent fraud are, as Ms. Mills notes in her post, exaggerations and – most likely – lies.
In every race in Whitewater, in the 2012 election, candidates should be asked: Do you support elimination of workers’ bargaining rights for government workers, local, county, and state? Do you, in fact, support the elimination of these rights for some employees, and not others, as Gov. Walker does?
Do you support restrictions that would deny the ability to vote, under current circumstances, to these numbers of law-abiding citizens now lacking a photo ID:
177,000 elderly Wisconsinites, 17% of white men and women, 55% of black men, 49% of black women, 46% of Hispanic men, 59% of Hispanic women, 78% of black men aged 18-24, and 66% of black women aged 18-24?
These vast numbers are citizens who have done no wrong, represent no danger, and yet would be denied the exercise of a fundamental right.
This proposal stains our beautiful state, working an injustice on some, while tainting others who remain idle.
