Reply #388: Daily News Journal (TN): New Voter ID law "not about voter fraud".."clearly about voter suppression"

[highplainsdem]

http://www.dnj.com/article/20110830/OPINION02/108300302

When Sen. Bill Ketron's guest column on the new Voter ID law appeared in The Daily News Journal (Aug. 4), he was on his way to the ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) conference in New Orleans, arriving in time to attend some of the lavish parties paid for by large corporations who are also major contributors to ALEC.

His column conveniently omitted a quote from Paul Weyrich, the founder of ALEC, "Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

It's not about voter fraud as Sen. Ketron implies. It's clearly about voter suppression. Sen. Ketron, who is a member of ALEC, knows the truth and knows how ALEC has crafted this model legislation to make it more difficult for citizens who might not agree with ALEC's agenda to vote. Why did Sen. Ketron go to New Orleans to sit in meetings not open to the public but open to representatives and lobbyists of large corporations?

What ALEC model legislation is he bringing back this time to introduce into our legislature? An ALEC whistleblower recently made available hundreds of documents that reveal the extent of ALEC's involvement in our state and other states' legislation. See ALECEXPOSED.org. I too went to New Orleans to see first-hand how our democracy is being stolen from us. At the Marriott, I saw color-coded labels that identified individuals as, Private Sector Member, a dark blue border, or Attendee, legislators, with an orange border. I saw display boards with the five levels of Financiers of ALEC's convention: President, Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Director and Trustee. BP, Reynolds American and Takeda were under the President's level. They and other corporations buy a seat at the table as part of the Pay to Play that allows them to sit as equals with state legislators.

-snip-