When White Privilege and Senatorial Privilege Combine

To quote Charlie Pierce of Esquire, “It’s never about race.”

Senator Mitch McConnell has announced that the Senate will not vote on the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as Attorney General until the Democratic senators stop filibustering the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015 (S. 178). The Democratic senators are opposing the bill because the Republican senators inserted a provision that would not allow the expenditure of funds toward abortion, carrying forward the Hyde Amendment from Department of Health and Human Services authorization bills. The language appears in the portion of the bill that establishes a Domestic Trafficking Victims’ Fund.

Part of the back and forth on the validity of the objection raised by the Democratic senators is that the language was added in the Judiciary Committee and was not objected to until after the bill was reported to the floor. I view this as a red herring, and don’t want to go any deeper on that part of the controversy.

Yesterday Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) invoked the memory of Rosa Parks to accuse the Republicans of holding up Lynch’s confirmation as a matter of racial discrimination. Republicans responded by accusing him of race-baiting. On this morning’s MSNBC program Morning Joe, the eponymous host Joe Scarborough noted that Tim Scott (R-SC), one of the two African-Americans in the Senate, said as much about Durbin’s remarks. Scarborough insisted the delay in Lynch’s confirmation is simply the procedural back-and-forth of a majority trying to get what it wants by denying the filibustering minority what the latter wants. There is evidence to show that Scarborough is way of the mark.

As reported in yesterday’s News and Observer, both of North Carolina’s senators have announced that they will oppose Lynch’s confirmation, despite her broad support from the Judiciary Committee. The reason, apparently, is that Ms. Lynch would not agree to stop pursuing legal actions against states such as North Carolina in which Republican-controlled statehouses and governor’s mansions adopt voter I.D. laws and other voting restrictions that disproportionately affect black voters. As noted in that article, McClatchy reported in February that, “The state’s senior senator, Republican Richard Burr, issued a statement later in the day saying he would oppose Lynch when her nomination reaches the full Senate – likely next month – because she supported a Justice Department lawsuit against North Carolina’s new election law.” North Carolina’s law was one of a passel of such acts that clearly were adopted to lower minority and college student voting turnout; While ostensibly aimed at reducing the risk of voter fraud, there is not one credible study that shows that voter fraud is a significant occurrence in any state. The evidence is doubly damning when one considers that only states where Republicans control both the legislature and the governorship have adopted such laws. Because of their following the Republican line that it is a state’s privilege to construct obstacles to minority voting, Burr and Tillis, in whose state Lynch grew up and began her education, are demonstrating the same racist mindset that is part-and-parcel of the Republican party today. Durbin’s remarks were not race-baiting, but were exactly on point.

As to Scarborough’s reliance on the remarks of Senator Scott, the opinion of the one black Republican in the U.S. Senate does not change the fact that racism is a fundamental policy of the GOP any more than does the concurrence of the single black justice of the Supreme Court in the decision gutting the Voting Rights Act. In that opinion, Justice Thomas claimed that, “our Nation has changed.” The delay in Lynch’s confirmation and the actions of Republican office-holders to make it harder for minorities to vote make it clear that is has hardly changed at all in this respect.

4 thoughts on “When White Privilege and Senatorial Privilege Combine

  1. Voter ID laws discourage minority and college student voting? Since when? Perhaps North Carolina is inherently evil in this regard, but here in Florida, anyone can get a registered ID for a minimal fee. The ID is intended to prove that the person lives in the district, and has the right to vote. How does that harm minorities and students, if they have the right to vote in that precinct in the first place?

    It does discourage false voters trying to tip the scale by voting in elections in which they do not have voting rights. That would apply to any race, creed, or status.

    If North Carolina hinders these people from getting IDs based on anything other than legal residency, then shame on them. It does not follow, though, that voter ID laws, by definition, hinder some groups unfairly.

    1. [Ed. note: I have known Joe Sewell for a long time, and am comfortable addressing him by his first name.] Joe, for some of the available documentation on both the effects of stringent voter ID requirements and the myth of voter fraud, see the site of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Florida has in recent years implemented shorter early voting hours and voter roll purges at the last minute that discriminate against minorities, and have been invalidated by court decisions. For examples of these types of actions, see here and here, the latter noting the reinstatement of longer early voting periods. But among all the evidence of the problem, none is more damning then the fact that only Republican controlled legislatures and governorships are even considering these laws.

  2. Voter ID laws discourage minority and college student voting? Since when? Perhaps North Carolina is inherently evil in this regard, but here in Florida, anyone can get a registered ID for a minimal fee. The ID is intended to prove that the person lives in the district, and has the right to vote. How does that harm minorities and students, if they have the right to vote in that precinct in the first place?

    It does discourage false voters trying to tip the scale by voting in elections in which they do not have voting rights. That would apply to any race, creed, or status.

    If North Carolina hinders these people from getting IDs based on anything other than legal residency, then shame on them. It does not follow, though, that voter ID laws, by definition, hinder some groups unfairly.

    1. [Ed. note: I have known Joe Sewell for a long time, and am comfortable addressing him by his first name.] Joe, for some of the available documentation on both the effects of stringent voter ID requirements and the myth of voter fraud, see the site of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. Florida has in recent years implemented shorter early voting hours and voter roll purges at the last minute that discriminate against minorities, and have been invalidated by court decisions. For examples of these types of actions, see here and here, the latter noting the reinstatement of longer early voting periods. But among all the evidence of the problem, none is more damning then the fact that only Republican controlled legislatures and governorships are even considering these laws.

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