A quick shout out to this week’s “Scum of the Week”, a guy I’m sure nobody has heard of, Mike Turzai, a state House Republican (of course) from Pennsylvania. In comments this week, Turzai was talking about “accomplishments” for the state house, and touted the passing of “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
The man is scum, but he’s HONEST scum, unlike the rest of the Republican party who are pushing for over-the-top voter ID laws to combat “Voter Fraud”. THIS, despite studies and evidence showing there IS no meaningful voter fraud in the U.S. Turzai was just stating the obvious, the real reason Republicans are pushing voter ID laws…these laws have been shown to depress voting from the poor and minorities who tend to overwhelmingly vote Democratic. As this story from the NY Times notes, a federal panel studied the issue and found NO evidence for any significant voter fraud in the last election…but then Republicans complained and “revised” the report, changing the conclusion that voter fraud wasn’t an issue, and instead reporting that it was “open to debate”.
In the last presidential election, there were stories of “robo-calls” to minority voters, telling them they will be forced to prove detailed citizen paperwork before they could vote. In the Wisconsin recall vote for Gov. Walker, Democratic voters who signed the petition to get the recall vote on the ballot received robocalls telling them they didn’t need to come in and vote, because their vote was recorded by the petition. What does it say about the Republican Party platform and election strategy when a key component seems to be trying to PREVENT people from voting? Given their complete lack of support for anyone who doesn’t make over $200,000 a year, I guess it’s not a surprise that the only voting bloc they WANT to vote in elections are rich, Christian white men.
In some ways, I feel guilty about giving Turzai the “Scum of the Week” award. HE’S the only one who has been honest about the true Republican strategy.
Can the entire Repub-rich-white-men-power-machine hold this Scum of the Week honor?