Near the top of the list of things driving the professional left to distraction this year is the popularity of voter ID laws. The laws have strong support, are perfectly constitutional and have been passed or are pending in 15 states.
That infuriates lefties since they reflexively view such laws as a scheme to suppress poor, elderly and minority voters. It has driven House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi so batty that she thinks the entire Fast and Furious probe is just a smokescreen for it.
But there is rhetoric and then there is the legislative reality. As much as the left may hate these these laws, they are on the books in many states now. So they have stepped up their voter-registration efforts.
By getting these voters properly registered and ready to vote though, the liberal groups are, whether they realize it or not, undermining their own case against the laws. That is, these registration drives underscore that there really is no good reason for why these voters cannot obtain ID and be prepared in the first place.
An AFL-CIO official highly involved in these drives conceded to me last month the “irony” of their efforts but added, “We have to deal with the facts on the ground.”
A recent post on the AFL-CIO website shows just how extensive these efforts are:
The union movement is working in community partnerships this year in what AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker describes as “the most aggressive push ever” to register voters. In June, the AFL-CIO announced a far-reaching, multi-partner campaign to register voters, ensure they can cast their ballots without intimidation and follow through to make sure those votes are counted. Partners include the NAACP, National Council of La Raza and the Generational Alliance, a collaboration of 20 national youth organizations building power for underrepresented and low-income communities. Youth and minority populations are those with the highest rates of unregistered voters. Along with member-to-member voter registration by national unions—with a target goal of registering 20 percent of unregistered union members—the AFL-CIO’s voter registration program is planning registrations blitzes in Albuquerque, Philadelphia, Denver, Detroit, Cleveland and Houston.
Good for them, I say. With more efforts like this, voter ID laws could fade from controversy altogether.
