Rolling Stone: Congress Investigates GOP War on Voting (ALEC implicated)

[highplainsdem]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/congress-investigates-gop-war-on-voting-20110908

In the current issue of Rolling Stone, I examine how Republican officials in a dozen states have passed new laws this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process. It's a widespread, deliberate effort that could prevent millions of mostly Democratic voters, including students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly, from casting ballots in 2012. Congress is, belatedly, starting to pay attention, and yesterday afternoon Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights, held a hearing on "New State Voting Laws: Barriers to the Ballot?"

“I am deeply concerned by this coordinated, well-funded effort to pass laws that could have the impact of suppressing votes in some states,” said Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate.

-snip-

Hans von Spakovsky, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who led the Bush Administration’s crusade against voter fraud while serving in the Justice Department, told the committee that the "evidence is indisputable that aliens are registering and voting." However, the evidence he provided – that illegal immigrants have been called to jury duty, failed to confirm his assertion, since jury duty lists are drawn not only from voter rolls, but also from driver's license records and other state lists.

-snip-

Under questioning from Durbin, von Spakovsky did admit that the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative advocacy group funded in part by the Koch brothers, was a major player behind the new photo ID laws. “Senator, they have a lot of model bills they recommend to their legislators,” von Spakovsky said.

-snip-

It's good to see Congress beginning to investigate this, but it needs much more media attention, especially from cable news and the networks. And it's time for the Justice Department to step in.

More on the harm being by this conservative advocacy group -- really a corporate front group -- in the long compilation topic on the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

[gateley]

1. EXCELLENT article -- thanks!! nt

[napoleon_in_rags]

2. There is some rich chocolate here to enjoy.

About half an hour ago, I attempted to give to a progressive group here in Washington that says they're fighting for some programs I value. But the donation page had a broken https icon, suggesting a man in the middle attack to intercept my credit card info. When I was trying to watch Obama's speech, the signal kept cutting out. First on CNN, then on MSNBC. For some reason Mitt Romney's quote of "President Obama keeps putting quarters into a pay phone that isn't connected," leaped to mind: a disruption of connection between the President of the United States and the people who elected him that he wants to speak to. Now I hear that the people's attempts to vote are being stymied. Do you remember those hilarious "you might be a redneck" quotes? Well guess what: You're political product might be SHIT if you:
1) Have to disrupt communications of the opposition to keep people from realizing that they are better than yours.
2) Have to hire hackers to disrupt opposition activist groups from getting donations.
3) Have to keep people from voting to keep yourself in power.

The whole "cut my taxes! put me under surveillance! start a new war! Spend billions!" wing of the Republican party has turned out to be awful unpopular. Its time for them to invest in a real new way, some of those previously buried conservative voices, or throw in the towel. You're not gonna hide this thing post 2012 when the shit really starts hitting the fan in this new America.

[tblue]

3. Remember Bush's Help America Vote Act?

Couldn't Obama offer one, too?

[Enthusiast]

5. LOL

[defendandprotect]

4. kr

[starroute]

6. Along with ALEC, we need to draw attention to the State Policy Network

It's the other main wing of the Heritage Foundation project and serves as an umbrella group for right-wing think-tanks and legal foundations. The agenda is identical to ALEC's -- in fact, ALEC is one of its members -- and the two are largely complementary to one another.


http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/state-policy-network-union-bargaining

Apr. 25, 2011

From New Hampshire to Alaska, Republican lawmakers are waging war on organized labor. They're pushing bills to curb, if not eliminate, collective bargaining for public workers; make it harder for unions to collect member dues; and, in some states, allow workers to opt out of joining unions entirely but still enjoy union-won benefits. All told, it's one of the largest assaults on American unions in recent history.

Behind the onslaught is a well-funded network of conservative think tanks that you've probably never heard of. Conceived by the same conservative ideologues who helped found the Heritage Foundation, the State Policy Network (SPN) is a little-known umbrella group with deep ties to the national conservative movement. Its mission is simple: to back a constellation of state-level think tanks loosely modeled after Heritage that promote free-market principles and rail against unions, regulation, and tax increases. By blasting out policy recommendations and shaping lawmakers' positions through briefings and private meetings, these think tanks cultivate cozy relationships with GOP politicians. And there's a long tradition of revolving door relationships between SPN staffers and state governments. While they bill themselves as independent think tanks, SPN's members frequently gather to swap ideas. "We're all comrades in arms," the network's board chairman told the National Review in 2007.

Occasionally, SPN think tanks boast of their clout. Such was the case when the Tennessee Center for Policy Research bragged on its website recently that it "leads the charge against teachers' union" and "laid the groundwork" for the bills now in the Tennessee legislature to restrict, and possibly eradicate, bargaining for public school teachers. More often, though, the fingerprints of SPN's members are less apparent. . . .

In Michigan, as Mother Jones previously reported, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, an SPN member, published a list of four policy recommendations that would give unelected "emergency managers" more power to go into municipalities and wipe out union contracts and fire local elected officials, all in the name of repairing broken budgets. All four ended up in Governor Rick Snyder's "financial martial law," as one GOP lawmaker described it. The bill was signed into law in March.

[DirkGently]

7. Flat-out, organized subversion of democracy. ALEC is every "star chamber" conspiracy come to life.