Voting Rights Repair Act Is Not Going Happen in 2013

Updated - Congress really sucks.

Politicians are regarded by the American people whom they represent as almost pathologically dishonest, corrupt and incompetent.

Here is Wisconsin, we seem to grow a more noxious breed.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisconsin) is a case in point. Sensenbrenner and two white Republicans from northeastern and east-central Wisconsin opposed the Martin Luther King, Jr. federal holiday legislation in 1983 in an ode to the white racist constituencies populating Wisconsin.

Wrote Fox News political analyst, Juan Williams in September, a few short months after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder:

The big surprise at the Republican National Committee’s lunch celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington was the loud ovation for an elderly white conservative.

The tall, 70-year-old Congressman hobbled to the front of the room with a cane. He had to be helped up the stairs to the stage. But once he reached the microphone, his call for Congress to restore the full power of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) had the crowd scrambling to get to their feet and applaud him.

Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) defied political stereotypes and several other Republicans when he announced an end-of-the-year deadline for reviving the pre-clearance provision of the VRA.

“I am committed to restoring the Voting Rights Act as an effective tool to prevent discrimination,” said Sensenbrenner to repeated cheers. He was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when a bipartisan group approved reauthorization of the VRA in 2006.

“This is something that has to be done by the end of the year so that a revised and constitutional Voting Rights Act is in place by the 2014 elections — both the primaries and general election,” Sensenbrenner told his largely black Republican audience.

End of the year. That what's Sensenbrenner said. Wow, the RNC must really like the Voting Rights Act.

Williams, whose gushing piece is housed at Sensenbrenner's congressional website, is impressed.

He should not be.

Now, there is word that Sensenbrenner is working with the NAACP on a new formulation of Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act eviscerated by Shelby County v. Holder in June, working hand-in-hand with the likes of Hilary Shelton, Washington Bureau Director of NAACP, a giant of a civil rights worker.

But drafting, introducing and passing restorative Voting Right Act legislation in the House in 2013 is not going to happen.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner has scheduled only a handful of legislative days for the rest of the year, to no objection from Sensenbrenner, giving his members of Congress some more long paid vacations.

In any event there is no way the House is going to lift its collective finger on repairing the GOP justices' damage to the Voting Rights Act, and there is no way Sensenbrenner is going to do anything beyond lip service when introduction occurs.

This is the same Sensenbrenner who is a major supporter of GOP voter obstruction laws and his office said Sensenbrenner can't comment on Wisconsin's very own state voter obstruction law now on federal trial "as it is a state law," the precise type of law the Voting Rights Act was designed to stop.

In August 2013, Sensenbrenner had a change of heart on commenting on state voter obstruction laws after Attorney General Holder said he was going to challenge Texas' onerous Photo Voter ID law under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: "I regret that the Department of Justice announced its intent to file a lawsuit against Texas’ Voter ID law citing Section 2 to the Voting Rights Act.  The Texas legislature passed Voter ID, and Governor Perry signed this legislation into law in 2011. Voter ID laws are an essential element in protecting the integrity of our electoral process and do not have a discriminatory intent or effect," intoned Sensenbrenner.

Sensenbrenner was the chair of House Committee on the Judiciary from 2001-2007 when the Voting Right Act came up for reauthorization, and it was virtually assured passage, facing opposition only from southern racist Republicans.

In 2005-06, Sensenbrenner was chair of the House Judiciary Committee so he likes to preen that he was the champion of the renewal of the various sections of the Voting Rights Act that passed 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate and, history should remember, was signed into law by President George W. Bush.

In fact, Bush did one hell of a job of conjuring LBJ in the White House, and as noted by Gary May and Joseph Morgan Kousser cajoled Congress into passing a 25-year reauthorization in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Writes May:

(D)uring his second term Bush found it necessary to court black voters. The president's slow response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which hurt blacks disproportionally and revealed again the presence of widespread poverty in the South, damaged Bush's standing. In an attempt to recoup his political fortunes as congressional elections approached in 2006, Bush turned to the black community. On a trip to Memphis visited the Loraine Motel and stood on the balcony where Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968. He also agreed to address the NAACP's annual convention, which he had ignored for six years. There Bush was received coolly but won a standing ovation when he expressed his support for the Voting Rights Act, urging congress to enact it then, one year before it was due to expire. This was not simply rhetoric. Behind the scenes Bush's staff encouraged Republicans, who now controlled both houses of Congress, to extend the Act. And this time the Republican congressional leadership in both the House and Senate were receptive to such appeals because if you weren't a southerner, there was no political payoff for attacking the now-iconic Voting Right Act. (pp 273-274)

So, House Judiciary Committee Sensenbrenner was going to defy Bush and Rove on the Voting Rights Act reauthorization of 2006? Right.

Sensenbrenner is no champion of the Voting Rights Act. Sensenbrenner is a fraud of the worst kind, in this writer's harsh opinion. Not withstanding Sensenbrenner negotiating with the NAACP this Autumn, no chance will he cross his party's leadership and the Tea Party.

On a final note, to give you an idea of the utter incompetence of Congress, after culling through legislative databases looking for legislation, I called  Rep. John Lewis' office asking the person answering the phone if he could transfer me to someone who could confirm no bill had been introduced repairing Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. The kid did not know what the Voting Rights Act is.

I talked to a staffer as House Judiciary Committee posing the same question. I received another, "I don't know."

Several other phone calls yielded similar protestations of ignorance of whether the crown jewel of the civil rights movement may have had a bill introduced to repair the obscene act committed by the five GOP partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court.

I don't care for the Republicans on the U.S. Supreme Court and corrupt members of Congress, but at least they are not as fracking dumb as staffers in Congress.

As for Sensenbrenner, action and passed legislation do speak louder than words.

Wisconsin Voting Rights Trial to Be Followed by State Appellate Hearing

Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District II
Coming soon for Wisconsin Voter ID Law

The federal trial on the constitutionality of Wisconsin's Photo Voter ID law will be quickly followed by a state hearing before a Wisconsin appellate court panel challenging the permanent injunction order issued in July 2012 by Judge David T. Flanagan in Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker on the same Photo Voter ID law, Act 23.

Wisconsin's voter photo ID law will be under adjudication in state and federal court simultaneously, with asserted violations of the federal and Wisconsin Constitutions.

Wisconsin's (the defendants in the trial) primary expert witness, M.V. Hood III of the University of Georgia, testified yesterday in what an informed observer characterized as not a very compelling rebuttal to the plaintiffs' social scientific experts' testimony last week.

Hood's testimony and the cross-examination by the voting rights plaintiffs are described as mostly inside social scientific baseball by one observer.

Michael Sandvick, the ex-Milwaukee, racist cop, is expected to testify Thursday or Friday for the defendants, though the thrust of Sandvick's expected testimony, the 2008 report on alleged voter fraud has been disavowed and discredited.

The trial, composed of two cases, is slated to end on Friday.
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Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker - permanent injunction order issued on July 17, 2012 by Judge David T. Flanagan

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District II will hear the NAACP case on December 17, 2013 before a three-judge panel, the composition of which is not yet public.

District II is dominated by heavily Republican Ozaukee, Washington, Waukesha and Fond du Lac counties, and two of the judges appear to be under the sway of the Koch brothers.

Two of the four judges in District II, Paul F. Reilly and Mark D. Gundrum, are self-identified Republican partisans.

Judge Gundrum is a former state representative (R-New Berlin, 1999-2010) and was appointed by Scott Walker in 2011. Gundrum was elected in April 2012 to a six-year term.

As noted by Badger Democracy Judge Reilly may be more ideological than Gundrum:

Reilly is a known Republican. In the 2010 election, Reilly received the endorsement of the heavily Republican-conservative Wisconsin Family Action PAC, applauding his bringing "...respect for the law and the separation of powers to this key judicial position." The twisting of "separation of powers" meaning was key to conservatives in defending the overreach of Act 10 enactment, and their legal opining that courts could not intervene - even in light of constitutional challenges. According to Judicial Education Commission staff, Reilly "pushed hard" for Henry Butler's seminar on Law and Economics to be included in the 2009 program. A non-partisan judge, lobbying for a seminar created, and paid by Koch Industries in 1995, focusing on Friedman principles of "free-market economics." Butler moves from one university to the other with private funding. In 2009, the program was at Northwestern University. Now, the Law and Economics program resides at George Mason University - but always under the direction of Henry Butler.

Henry Butler is a known conservative and free market proponent-economist. Butler had a long affiliation with the American Enterprise Institute, having been the former director of the "Judicial Education Program." In 1992, Butler left George Mason University to accept the "Koch Distinguished Professor of Law and Economics" at the University of Kansas - funded entirely by a generous grant from the Koch Foundation. While at the U of K, Butler developed his course, with money, support, and influence on policy from the Kochs. In its formative stages, U of K received over $2 million dollars in private endowments from the Koch Foundation for the "Judicial Education" Institute (pgs. 18-20 of the document).

A report by Bruce Green prepared for the Koch Foundation in 2004 (pgs. 18-28 of the document) discloses that Butler, with Koch support and money, began developing, publicizing, and teaching a course with the intent of influencing state judicial opinion - with the express goal of gaining "free-market" supporting decisions at the all-important state level. Bruce A. Green at that time was the Stein Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law and the director of the Louis Stein Center of Law and Ethics. The original study conducted by Green, upon which this report was based, was based on the following report: Bruce A. Green, Ethics of Judicial Education: An Analysis of Private Charitable Gifts for Judicial Learning (Oct. 15, 1999). The report was prepared for three foundations-the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation, and the Fred and Mary Koch Foundation, which retained the author to render, on a compensated basis, a report on the propriety of private foundation support for judicial education programs. ...

Henry Butler, heading the Law and Economics program now at George Mason, keeps the espoused principles grounded firmly in the conservative principles of an unrestrained, free market capitalism – without regulation getting in the way. The reading list for the program is indicative of that bias – many of the readings are required reading for the American Enterprise Institute. The video introduction of the program gives a synopsis of the mission – train judges to rule in favor of  in matters of particular interest to big business, monopolies, trusts – the Kochs of the world. ...

As an academic, he certainly has the ability to move in the right corporate/wealth sectors, and he belongs to the organizations which are able to attract money from those who wallow in it. He has received grants/fellowships from the Koch, Olin, Coor and Scaife-funded organisations, and he currently serves on the:

• Legal Advisory Council of the American Enterprise Institute’s Legal Center for the Public Interest, 
• Advisory Council of Atlantic Legal Foundation, 
• Legal Policy Advisory Board of the Washington Legal Foundation

Indeed, Butler ran as a Republican for Congress (Virginia) in 1992, and lost – despite a $1000 contribution from David Koch. Quietly, Koch political dominance has emerged over the past decade. According to the Wisconsin Judicial Education staffer, Judge Reilly had seen Butler deliver his program in Chicago – likely true, as Butler was at Northwestern at the time. Being a lifetime conservative ideologue, Reilly would have known the premise of the “Law and Economics” program, as well as Butler’s reputation and connections with Koch Industries. If Reilly was on a scouting mission to vet the program for presentation in Wisconsin, it is merely conjecture – Reilly three times refused comment on the subject, in requests for interviews.

When one considers the role ideologically conservative judges have played in the power grab in Wisconsin this past year – especially those in and influenced by Waukesha County politics; the genius and deviousness of the Koch plan is apparent. The influence of Henry Butler and Koch ideology on some justices cannot be overstated – and will continue for years to come, until this program is rejected by academia and universities as unilaterally political propaganda – not legal study, and Judges like Reilly are exposed for the political ideologues they are – not members of a non-partisan judiciary. Next time a Republican screams judicial partisanship about a “radical” Dane County Judge, ask them about Henry Butler and Koch Industries, and Paul Reilly.

Dane County Judge Flanagan found as fact after a 2012 trial that over 300,000 Wisconsin citizens lack GOP-mandated IDs necessary as a condition to vote under Act 23.

Scott Walker, the GOP Wisconsin Attorney General and Wisconsin Republicans argue that obtaining the approved type of photo ID is not an undue burden. The Koch brothers agree.

In the case, Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP v. Walker, Judge Flanagan's order and opinion reads in part:

Conclusions of Law – Constitutionality of the Photo ID requirements of Act 23

This matter is being decided based upon Article III, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution. This court need not and does not reach the claims asserting denial of substantive due process and equal protection in violation of Article I, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution. The court hereby adopts the following conclusions of law
a.
The cost and the difficulty of obtaining documents necessary to apply for a DMV Photo ID is a significant burden upon the opportunity of Wisconsin citizens to vote.
b.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 impose a substantial burden upon a significant proportion of the Wisconsin citizens who are already registered to vote.
c.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 impose a substantial burden upon a significant proportion of the Wisconsin citizens who are not yet registered to vote but who are legally eligible to register.
d.
The cost and the difficulty of obtaining documents necessary to apply for a DMV Photo ID is a substantial burden which falls most heavily upon low income individuals.
e.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 are entitled to a presumption of constitutionality.
f.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 include no back-up mechanism to examine or to verify the qualification of an eligible Wisconsin voter who, through indigency or other sufficient cause, appears to vote at an election without the required Photo ID
g.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 are unlikely to protect the electoral process.
h.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 are not narrowly tailored to achieve a goal of voter
verification.
i.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 constitute a substantial impairment of the right to vote guaranteed by Article III, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution
j.
The Photo ID requirements of Act 23 are inconsistent with, and in violation of Article III, Section 1 of the Wisconsin Constitution.

Republicans Are Getting Routed at Wisconsin Voter ID Trial

Voter obstruction now, voter obstruction
forever, says GOP

Judged by every report I've read on the federal trial challenging Wisconsin's photo voter ID law, one can compare the trial to an unprecedented rout in a pro football game.

On one side we have the pro-voting rights citizens against the Republican Party's voter obstruction law.

With the testimony of the elderly, veterans, minorities, with lots more to come, an appropriate football analogue for the pro-voting rights case is the combined starters of the Denver Broncos, Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks against the Republicans' anti-voting team—the practice squad of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Republicans are getting slaughtered in court, and they know it.

Hey, the Republicans may have the disavowed and discredited report of the ex-Milwaukee, racist cop, Michael Sandvick and his gang that can't shoot straight.

The GOP knows the game is over.

So, naturally they have just passed another voter ID obstruction bill in the Wisconsin State Assembly. And the GOP introduced a voter obstruction attack on early voting, with the effect of taking away voting rights and community control.

From United Wisconsin:

United Wisconsin Executive Director Lisa Subeck released the following statement on today’s passage of Assembly Bill 493 (AB 493) by the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections. The bill now heads to the State Assembly.

“Wisconsin’s Voter ID law is nothing more than a politically motivated attack by Republicans on our voting rights, and AB 493 marks the GOP’s latest attempt to circumvent a court order barring its enforcement. Despite narrowly carved out exemptions, AB 493 still leaves many voters – particularly low-income, minority, senior citizen, and student voters – without access to the ballot. Faced with significant statewide electoral losses in 2012, Assembly Republicans are now scrambling to game the system ahead of the 2014 elections by disenfranchising those voters they see as least likely to support their own candidates. Voting provides each of us a voice in choosing our representatives and is critical to our freedom and our democracy. The State Assembly should reject AB 493, as well as any other attempt to implement Wisconsin’s unconstitutional Voter ID law.”

93-year-old Testifies Against Wisconsin Voter ID Law at Trial

Carrie Healey reports that a 93-year-old woman, Lorene Hutchins, testified today at the trial challenging the GOP-passed Wisconsin photo voter ID law, Act 23.

Reports Healey:

"I feel there is a strategy to keep minorities and older people from voting,' the 93-year-old said, according to court transcripts. "Most of us who migrated to Northern states do not have birth certificates, a prerequisite for obtaining the photo ID required to vote. I’ve been voting since the 1940′s when I voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It would be devastating to lose the right to vote now, after all these years.'

Hutchins was born at home in Mississippi because hospitals at that time did not accept black patients, and she did not receive a birth certificate.

Katherine Clark, Hutchins’ daughter, spent over $2,000 and several years to obtain birth certificates for both herself and her mother.

Hutchins testified in the case, League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin v. Deininger (Case 2:12-cv-00185), one of two cases in the consolidated voting rights trial.

The League case is the first trial in the country post-Shelby County v. Holder using Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Act (Section 4) last summer, as noted by The Advancement Project.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said he sees "no barriers" to voting; but $2,000 might not seem like a lot of money for Walker whose own salary, healthcare and pension have been funded by taxpayers since 1993.

Writes Healey: "Having watched her family brave angry mobs while trying to vote in Mississippi in the 1920′s, Ms. Hutchins now faces a more subtle, yet no less harmful, barrier to the ballot box," said Advancement Project Staff Attorney Leigh Chapman.

The potentially landmark voting rights trial in Milwaukee is expected to last about another week.

GOP Moves to Stop Testimony on African American and Latino Voter Obstruction

Drawing by George Grosz - Keep this dark guy
from voting or making any other trouble,
by any means necessary

"Moreover, law makers have embarked on a new voter suppression tactic: voter identification requirements. The tactic involves imposing new laws and rules requiring voters to show identification in order to vote, despite virtually no evidence of voter misidentification fraud. Identification requirements pose a special burden to the poor, racial minorities, and senior citizens who often do not have specific forms of identification. The pretextual color-blind race neutrality argument made by state legislators rings hollow when this nation’s history of voting obstruction is considered."
- E. Earl Parson and Monique McLaughlin (Columbia Journal of Race and Law; Vol 3.1, pp 103-118) (2013)

Now there a couple of good rebuttal witnesses for civil rights activists in the landmark trial of the Wisconsin Photo Voter ID law used for voter obstruction, in violation of the Voting Rights Act. I'm no attorney but I would get a hold of these folks.
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Leland Beatty of Ethnic Technologies LLC will offer expert testimony in the Wisconsin voter ID trial.

Beatty will explain how African American and Latino registered voters are stopped from voting by Wisconsin Act 23, the GOP Photo Voter ID law passed with unanimous GOP support against the opposition of Democrats, civil rights groups, voting rights groups and local officials.

Voter obstruction, it's as Republican as opposition to women's' reproductive health.

What has the GOP in a tizzy about Leland Beatty is the plaintiffs' plan to put Beatty on the stand as an expert witness, and also put on the stand a former employee of Ethnic Technologies, John Mas, to describe what Ethnic Technologies does in plain, lay language.

Reads the plaintiffs' November 4, 2013 motion on the matter:

Mr. Beatty will testify about the impact of the voter ID provisions of 2011 Wisconsin Act 23 on African American and Latino voters. Specifically, Mr. Beatty’s expert testimony will include an analysis of the percentages of African American and Latino registered voters who lack driver’s licenses or state-issued identification cards that match their voter records, and how those compare to the percentages of white voters who lack similar identification. ... Plaintiffs contacted Mr. John Mas, a former employee of Ethnic Technologies, and asked him to offer factual testimony describing Ethnic Technologies and the services it performs. 

Yep, Mr. Mas must be stopped, the GOP lawyers say.

And that goes double for African American and Latino voters.

The federal trial features two consolidated cases, Frank v. Walker, (Case 11cv1128), and League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin v. Deininger (Case 2:12-cv-00185.

The League case is the first trial in the country post-Shelby County v. Holder using Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Act (Section 4) last summer, as noted by The Advancement Project.

Scott Walker held a press conference the first day of the trial in Milwaukee last week and pronounced: "There really is no barrier for people (posed by mandating GOP-crafted Photo Voter ID as an additional requirement to vote)." (Marley. MJS)

It's a very bet Scott Walker never talked to any of the plaintiffs, any homeless veterans, and certainly not Leland Beatty, John Mas, Lorraine Minnite, or any other voter, trial witness or expert who could easily disconfirm Walker's stated belief.

The reason is voter obstruction is Walker's objective, and Walker has no interest in what any civil rights advocate, voting rights expert, or Wisconsin citizen who does not know his place has to say about voting.

GOP Paper Bashes Photo Voter ID Law, as Bureaucrat Swoons on Stand

The Raft of Medusa by Théodore Géricault (1819)

Republicans want their restrictive Photo Voter IDs law on the books for two reasons: To win elections; and keep away undesirables (non-GOP voters) from the polling place.

We have asked if news outlets will play it dumb during what could be a landmark federal voting rights trial on photo voter ID taking place now in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Some news coverage and editorial comment of the voting rights trial [Frank v. Walker, (Case 11cv1128), and League of United Latin American Citizens of Wisconsin v. Deininger (Case 2:12-cv-00185, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin] are encouraging.

The testimony of the top Wisconsin election official is not encouraging.

Wisconsin newspaper staff across the state knows the GOP game is to attack the foundation of our democracy—voting.

The undesirables have no business on the Koch Ship, Wisconsin, the GOP believes: Discard them.

This morning's Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is instructive of a different sentiment: "Don't change voter ID law; get rid of it."

No one ever accused the Journal-Sentinel as being anything other than a GOP-leaning paper, but on Photo Voter ID, the editorial page and news coverage have been consistently excellent, though this reader would like the editors to simply state that Scott Walker and the Republicans are a bunch of goddamn liars—something the Journal-Sentinel staff knows to be true.

Nationally, the Republican project to restrict voting is properly derided as anti-democratic, and racist (as an ancillary benefit for the Tea Party).

"You must register. You must vote. You must learn, so your choice advances your interest and the interest of our beloved Nation. Your future, and your children's future, depend upon it, and I don't believe that you are going to let them down.," said President Lyndon Johnson in the capitol rotunda at the signing of the Voting Rights Act. That was in 1965.

Today of course, LBJ's aspirations come as unwanted news to Wisconsin's Government Accountability Board (GAB) whose staff live in fear for their jobs; a couple of pro-voting rights moves and Republicans will pass legislation disbanding the GAB and replace the Board members with GOP partisans.

Kevin Kennedy, Director and General Counsel of the Wisconsin GAB testified yesterday that "his main concern about the 2011 photo voter-ID law was training the state’s uncommonly large number of elections workers." (AP report)

That's Kennedy's main concern?

The GAB states as its mission (in part) that "Wisconsin elections are administered through open, fair and impartial procedures that guarantee that the vote of each individual counts and that the will of the electorate prevails."

Under Act 23, constitutionally qualified, registered voters who have voted for decades can walk up to the polling table, state their name and address, and be told by their neighbors staffing the polling table: 'Hey, Don; good morning. Oh, no acceptable voter ID? Sorry man, you can't vote. Have to protect the integrity of the election, brother.'

Kennedy must have lost consciousness for a moment on the stand yesterday.

It seems repulsive that GAB staff will not stand up to the anti-American Republican Party attacking the very foundation of our democracy because Kennedy and his colleagues fear for their jobs, content to let the votes of citizens be discarded out of career convenience and passive compliance to GOP dictates.

Kennedy could have testified in this landmark case and spoke the truth that he well knows: That requiring Photo Voter IDs as narrowly prescribed by the GOP's Act 23 has the effect of stopping legal voters from voting, and has no rational basis because in-person voting fraud is a myth, actually a lie.

Kennedy took the easy way out in his appearance in federal court.

If the GAB is so afraid to utter a word to save the legal votes of legal Wisconsin voters, what good is this cowardly body against the many-tentacled Republican Party eviscerating our democratic processes?

Yes, I know there are dedicated and good people at the GAB, but if all they offer is their silence and acquiescence, they may as well not exist; they are a woefully inadequate life raft against the anti-democratic partisans working to rip apart the fabric of Wisconsin democracy.

Put simply, what part of government accountability does the GAB not understand?

Wisconsin Voter ID Trial: Veterans Take a Hit from GOP

It's not just minorities, students and senior citizens who can't vote under the GOP's Photo Voter ID law in Wisconsin, it's veterans, especially homeless veterans.

Denesh Ramde reports this week from the trial against the GOP's Photo Voter ID law in Wisconsin that a veteran testified, "it took him almost two years to acquire a state ID."

Take a quick visit to a Homeless Veterans facility, and you'll see up close and personal that the GOP-created voter obstruction law (Act 23) disenfranchises our disgracefully large homeless veteran population across the state.

Plaintiffs have in their possession four declarations taken in the summer of 2012 in one two-hour visit to the Milwaukee Homeless Veterans Initiative at the St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church that the only form of ID for veterans contacted is a U.S. Dept of Veterans Affairs (DVA) (VA) Veterans Identification Card (VIC).

VA cards are not good enough for Republicans, who have a lousy record with veterans. 

But Scott Walker is not out of touch on this one.

Walker knows fully well that the GOP's Voter ID law will disenfranchise 100,000s of Wisconsin citizens.

That's the point for Wisconsin Republicans: Stop the vote.