by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math
I'm hoping that fellow Jojah native Ed Kilgore can help shed some light on the outcome of the recent Voting Rights Act reauthorization. I'm pleasantly surprised that it passed, and that the Republican party overwhelmingly decided to support the measure. But something strange appears to have happened when you take a closer look at the list of the 33 reactionary cranks who voted against it:
Richard Baker (R-LA), J. Gresham Barrett (R-SC), Roscoe Bartlett(R-MD), Joe Barton (R-TX), Jo Bonner (R-AL), Dan Burton (R-IN), JohnCampbell (R-CA), Mike Conaway (R-TX), Nathan Deal (R-GA), John Doolittle (R-CA), John Duncan (R-TN), Terry Everett (R-AL), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Phil Gingrey(R-GA), Joel Hefley (R-CO), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Wally Herger (R-CA), Sam Johnson (R-TX), Steve King (R-IA), John Linder (R-GA), Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Gary Miller (R-CA), Charles Norwood (R-GA), Ron Paul (R-TX), Tom Price (R-GA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Ed Royce (R-CA), John Shadegg (R-AZ), Thomas Tancredo (R-CO), William Thornberry (R-TX), and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA)
Hmmm ... that's an awful lot of Georgians. Only Jack Kingston (R-Brunswick/Warner Robbins/Southeast Georgia) voted for the bill; not surprisingly, his district has a substiantial minority population. I imagine that most Gray State Republicans are not big fans of the VRA (which is perceived as needless federal meddling, in addition to having the pesky effect of helping black Democrats get elected), but why would the Georgia Republican Party have a special hatred for the Act not found in, say, the Alabama Republican Party?
My hope is that the Georgia delegation's vote was a show of support for the state Republican's new poll tax suppress-the-black-vote fraud prevention bill and their Delay-esque "cram-all-the-African-Americans-into-three-districts" map, and not a sign that the entire state party has been taken over by neo-Confederate nutjobs. So help me out, Ed, if you can.
