[NOTE: An ADDENDUM Has Been Added To This Post]
“Attorney General Eric Holder used Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy on the anniversary of the civil rights leader’s birthday Monday to emphasize the Obama administration’s dedication to protecting the American people from discriminatory voting practices,” Politco reported today.
“Despite our nation’s record of progress, and long tradition of extending voting rights – today, a growing number of citizens are worried about the same disparities, divisions, and problems that Dr. King fought throughout his life to address and overcome,” Holder said at an MLK Day event in Columbia, S.C.
Holder’s remarks in the Palmetto State come just weeks after the Justice Department blocked the state’s new voter ID law from taking effect, citing an unfair burden on minority voters.
Thus, according to the Obama administration via Attorney General Holder and Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez, the “racial disparities” in photo ID possession are “the same” as the “disparities, divisions, and problems that Dr. King fought throughout his life to address and overcome”! Who’d a thought that a 20% “underrepresentation” of black photo ID owners is the equivalent of Bull Connor’s police dogs and fire hoses?
I’m more than moderately familiar with King’s career, but I confess that I must have missed all the marches King must, according to Holder, have led against the moral injustice of the disparate impact of requiring photo id’s to vote in union elections, to get food stamps in Philadelphia, to visit many doctors‘ offices, to buy an Amtrak ticket, to fly on an airline (including Hawaiian Airlines from the president’s home state), to return an item to Best Buy, to buy some drain cleaners in the president’s other home state, to play in a high level pool tournament, to take the ACT college entrance exam, to take the Scholastic Aptitutde Test, to take the Graduate Record Exam, and to take the Law School Aptitude Test.
If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today (see my post immediately below discussing the posthumous MLK’s possible career), he would certainly have his work cut out for him. As will “Disparate Impact” Holder if a re-elected President Obama keeps him or appoints someone of like mind as attorney general.
ADDENDUM [17 January 2012]
Holder Refuses To Protect Constitutional Rights Of South Carolinians
Attorney General Holder is quite flexible when it comes to making up new rights (such as requiring proportional representation of photo id owners), but quite rigid in his refusal to enforce already existing Constitutional rights. If South Carolina’s requirement of a photo id for voting violates the Voting Rights Act (Something the Supreme Court has already ruled a virtually identical Indiana requirement does not), then surely South Carolina’s requirement of a photo id to purchase a handgun violates the Second Amendment right of its black citizens who are “underrepresented” among the ranks of those who have such an id.
