Recently, various states have passed new voting laws requiring that a valid photo ID be presented by the voter to prove his identity. Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the Obama administration are roiling mad, screaming about voter suppression and disenfrachisement of poor blacks and Latinos.
The Justice Department is threatening the new voter ID law in Texas and possibly in South Carolina. Meanwhile, DNC chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz has been hyperventilating about the new laws. “Republicans across the country have engaged in a full-scale attack on the right to vote, seeking ways to restrict or limit voters’ ability to cast their ballots.”
We thought about the opposition to providing photo ID to vote and a question popped into our head: If requiring a valid ID at a polling station is equal to trying to suppress “the right to vote,” does requiring a valid ID to purchase alcohol mean the same thing? Are the state laws requiring valid photo ID to buy alcohol an effort to suppress legal drinking?
We decided to ask Wasserman Schultz her opinion and got a huffy and defensive response (through a spokesman). “I certainly hope you are not equating a fundamental right of our democracy, the right to vote, with the ability to drink alcohol,” Wasserman Schultz replied.
Indeed, we were making such an equivalency, since the law requires the same.
And the fact is that some Democrats are making the same argument, too. Democrat and Rhode Island Secretary of State Ralph Mollis said this about their state’s new voter ID law (proposed and passed by Democrats): “The perception that identity theft could occur at the polls weakens the public’s faith in the fairness of our elections. Voting should be at least as secure as everyday tasks like renting a car or getting a library card that routinely require ID.” Or buying a drink, we would add.
UPDATE: To be fair, Rep Wasserman Schultz isn’t even the most extreme voice when it comes to talking about phony voter “suppression” and photo ID legislation. That award goes to Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) for accusing GOP legislators of trying to take us back to the days of Jim Crow. Tired, tired, tired.