Carl Hiaasen: GOP won’t let democracy get out of hand

[highplainsdem]

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/28/2240369/gop-wont-let-democracy-get-out.html

Posted on Saturday, 05.28.11
In My Opinion
GOP won’t let democracy get out of hand
BY CARL HIAASEN


According to a new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida voters, Rick Scott is now one of the country’s most unpopular governors, a dubious feat after only four months in office.

It’s bad news for Republican Party bosses, but all is not lost. Scott recently signed a new election bill that is callously designed to suppress voter turnout, making it harder for many disgruntled Floridians to cast a valid ballot in 2012.

-snip-

In addition to impeding potential Democratic voters, Republicans lawmakers have tacked several items on the November 2012 ballot in hopes of galvanizing their own base. You’ll see an anti-abortion amendment, an anti-Obamacare amendment and still another measure that would allow tax dollars to be funneled to religious institutions.

The GOP’s dream scenario is a low turnout dominated by a grumpy, aging core of conservative white people who can’t stand Obama. With their party outnumbered on Florida’s voter rolls, top Republicans hope that rigging the voting rules will improve their chances to recapture the White House.

-snip-

Emphasis added. I agree completely with what he said about the GOP's dream scenario.

And Hiaasen is right to compare the attempt to limit voting by groups that usually vote Democratic, by reducing the number of early-voting days and so on, to the "literacy tests" in the South.

Unfortunately this sort of legislation to impede potential Democratic voters is being pushed through GOP-controlled legislatures in other states as well. Hiaasen doesn't name the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as the source of much of this legislation, but others in Florida have, such as Ion Sancho, Elections Supervisor of Leon County. Hiaasen points out that county supervisors of elections are mostly opposed to this new bill.

[Scuba]

1. Same sleazy tactics here in Wisconsin. n/t

[socialist_n_TN]

9. And in Tennessee

:(

[n2doc]

2. Grumpy old white people = Fox's Viewer Base

Just sayin'.....brainwashed people who can be counted upon to do as they are told.

[RandomThoughts]

3. I think part of that is Casandra.

And a mix of the idea of loopholes.

Eagles - Peaceful Easy Feeling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44A9iDQNrss

"I know what a women can do to your soul, but she can only take you how you already know how to go"

So education seems to be important also.


And to prove that, some would think that song validates the right side position, and some would think it validates the left side position. Some might think it validates the middle.

I think it is a great song.

[mysuzuki2]

8. Hey, I'm a grumpy old white guy and

I do NOT watch Fox news. Grumpy is as grumpy does.

[SpiralHawk]

4. The k and the r

luvs me some Carl

[CanonRay]

5. Floridians, please explain:

How can Florida's voter rolls be a Democratic majority, yet the Florida legislature is completely dominated by Republicans? Are the districts that jerrymandered? Do Dems not vote in state legislative elections? What's the story?

We're about 50-50 here in Colorado but the Dems control the Senate and the house fluctuates back and forth.

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. Chamber of Commerce types control local government.

There is a cleo mentality in Florida. Community leaders-elected officials control every aspect of municipalities from cradle to grave. We are talking Judges who own property, City Attorneys who come from law firms that represent land owners who own property in the municipality and community leaders who are entrenched in the real estate business. You put it all together and they will spread their fingers of control one layer into communities through the homeowner Associations. They contact officers of the board usually through civic organizations, so when they want to develop property that may infringe on the homeowners, they control the head of the HOA, they control everything.

This includes becoming accessories to fraud and conspiracy. And they have gotten away with it without the homeowners ever being aware of it or were used as useful idiots. Homeowners have no recourse since most of the attorneys in the area abide by this crooked network.

Simply put, we need attorneys from the AMA who are aware of this corruption to come into Florida to help us break the power structure.

And we need people like Obama and Clinton to stop empowering these trial lawyers and City attorneys in Florida from buying their way out.

So, it doesn't matter how many Democrats are in Florida as long as the Cleo network controls everything.

[XanaDUer]

6. I keep saying this but

FLORIDA NUMBSKULLS DID THIS TO THEMSELVES by voting this POS into office, where he is getting ready for his big payoff - his hands on FL's public hospital.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. The newspapers helped by not vetting him properly.