FORMER TOP LEVEL DEMOCRAT IS DENIED A TEXAS VOTER ID CARD

…The “Father of the Right-Wing Movement”, Paul Weyrich

Voter suppression is working well in the state of Texas.

As expected, the latest voter suppression laws that were designed and financed by the Koch Bros. and the conservative, ALEC organization, they have done exactly what they were designed to do.  In Texas, a 90 year old man was denied a voter ID card last week.  And this man had been voting all his many years at the same location for 70 years.

But this was not just an older, regular, long-time Texas voter, no-sirree.

In this case, a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officer denied the 90 year old, former Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, a Texas Voter ID Card.

Due to the new Texas voter ID law that was passed in 2011, the former Speaker’s long-time ID of using his TCU faculty ID, would not satisfy the new requirements of the Texas voter ID law.  Speaker Wright had stopped driving some years ago, so his driver’s license that expired in 2010 was no longer eligible to fulfill the state’s government picture ID requirements.

After all the difficulty he had in trying to get a proper ID card, the legendary Speaker of the House expressed a concern that such problems could seriously deter others from voting and for stifling the voter turnout. After spending much of his life fighting to make it easier to vote, this Democratic Party icon said he was troubled by what he’s seeing happen under the state’s new voter ID law

“I earnestly hope these unduly stringent requirements on voters won’t dramatically reduce the number of people who vote,” Wright told the Ft Worth Star-Telegram. “I think they will reduce the number to some extent.”

Wright and his assistant, Norma Ritchson, eventually had to go to the local DPS office to get a State of Texas Election Identification Certificate. 

Speaker Wright made his concerns very well that not everyone will have the resources, or the knowledge, that Wright had to overcome these obstacles.  “From my youth I have tried to expand the elections,” Wright said. “I pushed to abolish the poll tax. I was the first to come out for lowering the voting age to 18.  The state put up these obstacles in the first place- now they are 'concerned' to make sure everyone can overcome them. They have 'solved' non-existent voter fraud problems by creating actual problems.”

For those other elderly Texas citizens that might have trouble establishing their ID requirements, a group of nonprofits has put together a great help site that will walk through all the requirements step by step.  The site is: Got ID Texas? At www.gotidtexas.org .

The percentage of eligible voters that actually vote in the US, when compared to other democratic nations today is appalling. Unfortunately, instead of doing whatever we can to get more people to vote, the Republicans are doing all they can to keep people away from the polls.  That’s because the more people that vote, the more people that vote Democratic.

Years ago, the super conservative Paul Weyrich, who is referred to as the "father of the right-wing movement”, was also the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, The Moral Majority, and ALEC, along with various other groups.

Weyrich told his flock over 40 years ago that he doesn't want everybody to vote. "The fewer people that vote, the better the chances are for the Republicans to win."  He complained that unfortunately, his fellow Christian voters have the "Goo-Goo Syndrome", and that stands for “Good Government Syndrome”.  Weyrich passed away in 2008, but he gave weekly right-wing strategy sessions to Republicans up to his death at age 66.

The GOP is in many ways more in line with the philosophies of the Iranian ayatollahs.  These leaders of Iran want to abolish Israel from the face of the earth.  The Republicans would similarly like to rid America of all the voters that vote Democratic.  The GOP's ridiculous and unnecessary voter ID requirements are just one of their approaches for meeting that goal.

Copyright G.Ater  2015