Chief sponsor of NC Photo ID bill - flies the Confederate flag in his yard

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

North Carolina has a republican majority in our state legislature in the house and senate for the first time in 112 years. In addition to bills to cut 22,000 teaching jobs, expand public gun carry laws, laws against gay marriage, shift public school funds to charter schools... they are pushing hard for photo ID. Ironically they also are pushing to make mail ballot fraud 1000 times easier.
If you have any doubt that the photo ID bill is racist in nature, look at this:


The North Carolina Confederate/Rebel Flag hangs from State Senator Wesley Meredith's home
in Fayetteville. Meredith is a chief sponsor of photo ID bill.

The first 77 days of legislative mayhem
by Bob Geary
...
House Speaker Thom Tillis, with Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger at left
We're roughly halfway through the 2011 General Assembly, according to the timetable set by its Republican leaders, and the place is thick with legislation that is either long-overdue (if your political hero is Ronald Reagan) or, as one progressive Democrat put it, "Another day, another outrage."
...
Republicans are also intent on passing legislation that would require voters to bring a photo ID to the polls with them (HB 351, SB 352). The stated idea is to stamp out voter fraud. Because voter fraud of this kind is virtually non-existent, however (and because no such requirement would attach to absentee ballots sent by mail), opponents suspect that the real motive is to let GOP operatives slow the voting down in targeted precincts, especially in African-American communities.

Whatever the real motive, African-Americans can be forgiven if they see this as just the latest in a long history of "voter suppression" efforts aimed at blacks by the GOP.