26 Feb 2014 Biden Abuses Black History Month Observance to Push Politics, Hurt Voter Protections
In an affront to the original intent of Black History Month, Vice President Joe Biden used an event at his official residence to launch into a race-baiting political tirade against commonsense protections for balloting.
At the February 24 event — which was attended by Obama apparatchiks and partisans such as White House advisor Valerie Jarrett, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Sacramento’s Mayor Kevin Johnson (D) — Biden criticized the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder (a case, supported by the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network, that properly aligned the Voting Rights Act with 21st century American society) and voter protection laws passed in states such as North Carolina, Alabama and Texas.
Disparaging the justices and these democratically-enacted state-level laws, Biden declared:
I thought it was done — finally, finally done… These guys never go away. Hatred never, never goes away. The zealotry of those who wish to limit the franchise cannot be smothered by reason.
Putting a definitive and hard-nosed political spin on his comments, and bolstering current Obama Administration efforts to nullify existing ballot protection measures such as asking voters to prove their identity with valid identification before receiving a ballot, Biden added:
This fight has been too long, this fight has been too hard, to do anything other than win — not on the margins, but flat out win.
Project 21 co-chairman Horace Cooper, a former professor of constitutional law who is a frequent commentator on voting rights issues and even made the case for voter ID laws with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, called Biden’s unseemly tirade an attempt to distract the public from the policy failures of the Obama Administration.
Cooper also added that the White House is culpable for not prosecuting real examples of voter fraud when presented with them:
Vice President Biden’s remarks calling voter ID laws evidence of “hatred” and “zealotry” are not only false, but — like his “put ya’ll back in chains” comment during the 2012 election— his recent remarks make clear that the Obama Administration is desperate to distract voters, especially blacks, from Obama’s devastating economic record by trying to equate legitimate measures to protect voters with the kinds of activities his own political party pushed for over a hundred years.
In just five years, this White House’s economic policies have been more destructive for blacks than more than 50 years of Jim Crow laws ever did. Instead of changing course, however, the Vice President cynically pretends that voter ID is the problem black America must worry about more.
This administration has also been completely indifferent to actual instances of voter fraud, including dropping the slam dunk case involving the New Black Panthers. Its failure to engage in any serious effort to prevent voter fraud in places such as Chicago and Milwaukee is troubling.
Echoing his paper on voter fraud issues for the National Center, “Victims of Voter Fraud: Poor and Disadvantaged are Most Likely to Have Their Vote Stolen,” Cooper added:
Here’s the truth: blacks and lower income Americans are the most likely victims of voter fraud.