By MARSHA MERCER
Searching for the right words to condemn slavery, Thomas Jefferson called it an “abominable crime,” a “hideous blot” and “moral depravity.” Yet he owned slaves all his life.
Nor was Jefferson alone. Twelve of the first 18 American presidents were slave-owners.
For most of our nation’s history, Americans have swept these uncomfortable historical facts under the red, white and blue rug. Some have romanticized Jefferson and the rest of the founding fathers while others have regarded them with cold-eyed contempt.
Finally, a new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington focuses with compassion on the inherent contradictions of a nation that was founded on the lofty ideals of liberty and freedom while it relied on the institution of slavery.
“Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello: Paradox of Liberty,” open through Oct. 14, neither celebrates Jefferson nor makes him into a monster. The sponsors -- the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is slated to open on the National Mall in 2015, and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, where a companion exhibit also explores slavery -- present an ugly, painful era with calm sensitivity.
I draw heavily here from the exhibit in Washington and the web site, www. slaveryatmonticello.org.
Jefferson owned about 600 slaves over the years, and his life and theirs were intimately intertwined. Slaves helped build his beloved home at Monticello, tended his crops, ran his household, made his furniture, cooked and served his meals, almost certainly gave birth to his babies, cared for his children and grandchildren, comforted him as he lay dying and then dug his grave. Enslaved children and adults worked six days a week, sunrise to sunset.
The exhibit displays items handed down in the Jefferson family that portray an active life of the mind – the revolving bookcase on which Jefferson could keep five books at a time to appease his “canine appetite” for reading, his silver spectacles from Philadelphia, his inkwell in the shape of Voltaire’s head and his silver-and-gold fountain pen.
It’s jarring to turn to the sad remnants of slave life also on display. Iron shackles, called bilboes, from slave ships come in two sizes – for the ankles of children and adults. The nails made by boys just 10 years and up who crashed their hammers 20,000 times a day. A few buckles and fragments of ceramics are all that’s left of personal belongings.
Slavery in the New World started as a trickle and grew to a flood. In 1660 only a fraction of Virginia’s planters held slaves, and white indentured servants worked the tobacco fields. But by 1700 slaves worked the fields instead.
No doubt the growth was fueled in part by those born and bred into slavery. The Virginia Slavery Act of 1662 declared that children would be slave or free “only according to the condition of the mother.”
When Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, declaring that “all men are created equal,” one of every five men, women and children in the “free and independent states” were slaves.
If the exhibit did no more than explain Jefferson’s ties to slave labor and what slaves’ lives were like, it would deliver a strong, if depressing, dose of American history, but the exhibit turns the corner to offer a hopeful look at slave descendants’ struggle to make Jefferson’s ideals real for everyone.
Since 1993, researchers at Monticello’s “Getting Word” oral history project have interviewed almost 200 slave descendants. The exhibit highlights six families, including that of Elizabeth Hemings, whose daughter Sally likely was the mother of four of widower Thomas Jefferson’s five children.
Descendants of the slave families served in the Civil War, formed and led churches and businesses, and, imbued with the love of learning, became teachers and professors.
As for Jefferson, despite finding slavery abhorrent, he never freed his slaves, and his will granted freedom to only a handful. He died deeply in debt, his 130 slaves sold with his other property at auction, tearing apart families that had served him for generations.
“You don’t know who you are until you know where you came from,” says a descendant in the exhibit’s video. Amen.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Why applauding, kissing and hugging Gabby Giffords isn't enough -- Jan. 26, 2012 column
By MARSHA MERCER
The outpouring of respect, empathy and, yes, love for Gabrielle Giffords on Capitol Hill was heartfelt, inspirational – and inadequate.
The congresswoman from Arizona who was critically wounded a year ago by a would-be assassin rightly received thunderous applause, hugs and kisses Tuesday at the State of the Union address and a teary farewell Wednesday when she resigned from the House.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, called Giffords “the brightest star among us, the brightest star Congress has ever seen,” and Republican Eric Cantor, the majority leader, said he spoke for all his colleagues when he said, “We are inspired, hopeful and blessed for all the incredible progress Gabby has made in her recovery.”
On Jan. 8, 2011, Giffords was holding “Congress on Your Corner,” a meet-and-greet event, in Tucson when a gunman opened fire, killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl who just wanted to meet her congresswoman, and wounding Giffords and 12 others.
The horrific attack stunned the nation and Congress. There’s nothing like having a colleague shot in the head at close range on a Saturday morning back home to focus the mind of even the most cynical member of Congress. Every House member and senator knew he or she could have been the target. Ordinary citizens knew we could have been exercising our civic right at the wrong time.
Watching Giffords now, we marvel at how far she’s come, and we know that the unspeakable could happen to any of us or to our loved ones. We too could struggle to speak clearly, to walk haltingly and to cope with a right arm that doesn’t work the way it used to. Any of us.
Giffords is one of those rare and luminous elected officials who rose above the political fray. As an obscure Democratic House member, she had a reputation for working across party lines and, old fashioned as it sounds, for wanting to do what was right for her constituents and the country.
She now is a beacon of hope for the 1.7 million Americans a year who suffer traumatic brain injuries.
Medical experts say Giffords has been lucky. She has received America’s finest health care – from intensive care to rehabilitation. As a federal employee wounded on the job, she has coverage for rehabilitation services for as long as necessary.
Many other traumatic brain injury patients are not so fortunate. Much depends on what kind of insurance someone has, if any, where one lives, what medical facilities and even whether family advocates are nearby, according to the Brain Injury Association of America.
The bottom line is that while Medicare, Medicaid and most insurance plans cover brain surgery and intensive care, insurers tend to skimp on rehabilitation programs, which affect a patient’s quality of life, USA Today reported in March.
Hundreds of thousands of patients who lack coverage are discharged each year from hospitals to nursing homes or to languish in their beds during critical early months when their brains are more receptive to healing, USA reported.
The military’s treatment of brain injuries also has been criticized, but ProPublica, a non-profit investigative news organization, recently quoted a neurological surgeon who said military care of brain injuries is “a hundred times better than what goes on in the civilian sector.”
Gabby Giffords wants to change that. She believes anyone who has suffered a brain injury should have access to the same high quality care she has been fortunate to receive.
And so, members of Congress can applaud, hug and kiss Giffords all they want, but it’s not enough.
To support Giffords’ struggle in a meaningful way, lawmakers should endorse, not repeal, the Affordable Care Act, also derisively known as ObamaCare. The law says some rehabilitation services must be included in essential benefit packages that go into effect in 2014 for Medicaid and companies participating in insurance exchanges.
The Obama administration has said it’ll leave details of those packages to the states, but to honor Gabby Giffords, the packages should specifically cover rehabilitation for traumatic brain injuries. It’s the right thing to do.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
The outpouring of respect, empathy and, yes, love for Gabrielle Giffords on Capitol Hill was heartfelt, inspirational – and inadequate.
The congresswoman from Arizona who was critically wounded a year ago by a would-be assassin rightly received thunderous applause, hugs and kisses Tuesday at the State of the Union address and a teary farewell Wednesday when she resigned from the House.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, called Giffords “the brightest star among us, the brightest star Congress has ever seen,” and Republican Eric Cantor, the majority leader, said he spoke for all his colleagues when he said, “We are inspired, hopeful and blessed for all the incredible progress Gabby has made in her recovery.”
On Jan. 8, 2011, Giffords was holding “Congress on Your Corner,” a meet-and-greet event, in Tucson when a gunman opened fire, killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl who just wanted to meet her congresswoman, and wounding Giffords and 12 others.
The horrific attack stunned the nation and Congress. There’s nothing like having a colleague shot in the head at close range on a Saturday morning back home to focus the mind of even the most cynical member of Congress. Every House member and senator knew he or she could have been the target. Ordinary citizens knew we could have been exercising our civic right at the wrong time.
Watching Giffords now, we marvel at how far she’s come, and we know that the unspeakable could happen to any of us or to our loved ones. We too could struggle to speak clearly, to walk haltingly and to cope with a right arm that doesn’t work the way it used to. Any of us.
Giffords is one of those rare and luminous elected officials who rose above the political fray. As an obscure Democratic House member, she had a reputation for working across party lines and, old fashioned as it sounds, for wanting to do what was right for her constituents and the country.
She now is a beacon of hope for the 1.7 million Americans a year who suffer traumatic brain injuries.
Medical experts say Giffords has been lucky. She has received America’s finest health care – from intensive care to rehabilitation. As a federal employee wounded on the job, she has coverage for rehabilitation services for as long as necessary.
Many other traumatic brain injury patients are not so fortunate. Much depends on what kind of insurance someone has, if any, where one lives, what medical facilities and even whether family advocates are nearby, according to the Brain Injury Association of America.
The bottom line is that while Medicare, Medicaid and most insurance plans cover brain surgery and intensive care, insurers tend to skimp on rehabilitation programs, which affect a patient’s quality of life, USA Today reported in March.
Hundreds of thousands of patients who lack coverage are discharged each year from hospitals to nursing homes or to languish in their beds during critical early months when their brains are more receptive to healing, USA reported.
The military’s treatment of brain injuries also has been criticized, but ProPublica, a non-profit investigative news organization, recently quoted a neurological surgeon who said military care of brain injuries is “a hundred times better than what goes on in the civilian sector.”
Gabby Giffords wants to change that. She believes anyone who has suffered a brain injury should have access to the same high quality care she has been fortunate to receive.
And so, members of Congress can applaud, hug and kiss Giffords all they want, but it’s not enough.
To support Giffords’ struggle in a meaningful way, lawmakers should endorse, not repeal, the Affordable Care Act, also derisively known as ObamaCare. The law says some rehabilitation services must be included in essential benefit packages that go into effect in 2014 for Medicaid and companies participating in insurance exchanges.
The Obama administration has said it’ll leave details of those packages to the states, but to honor Gabby Giffords, the packages should specifically cover rehabilitation for traumatic brain injuries. It’s the right thing to do.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
'Socialist' Obama? Truth is a casualty -- Jan. 19, 2012 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Over the holidays, one of my dearest Republican relatives said, “Well, it’s too bad Obama turned out to be such a socialist.”
Then, she added in a tone between sadness and sarcasm, “I’m sure most people wouldn’t have voted for him if they’d known that.”
What? I paused to process her calm declaration and realized that what I hear -- and discount -- as political potshots in a presidential campaign have become in the ears of some voters reliable truth.
That surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. The old saying that “the first casualty of war is truth” also applies to political warfare.
The barrage against President Barack Obama started before he took office and has continued nonstop. Obama’s decision largely to ignore the charges just allows them to fester.
Newt Gingrich’s latest attacks on Obama as “the greatest food-stamp president in American history” are classic. Gingrich portrays Obama as socialist in chief, and Obama refuses to knock down the notion that he favors encouraging dependency on the state.
No wonder that 10 months before the election, half the voters surveyed in the latest New York Times and CBS News poll said Obama doesn’t have the same priorities for the country that they do.
The economy remains the country’s No. 1 issue, and 60 percent think Obama has done nothing to improve it. Most Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
And, confirming my holiday conversation, the poll also found that better than one in four voters -- 26 percent -- believe Obama’s policies are socialist. Twenty-two percent say his policies are liberal and 28 percent moderate.
If you’ve listened to the Republican presidential contenders sniping at each other, you know it’s now a supreme knock to call someone running for president a moderate.
Despite all this, polls consistently find that Obama would beat all the Republican presidential hopefuls -- except one. He ties with Mitt Romney, who’s most likely to be his rival in November.
And here’s where it gets really interesting. Obama ties with Romney even though most voters say they lack a clear idea about what Obama wants to accomplish in a second term.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Obama will outline his policy goals for the coming year, but implicit will be his plans for a second term. Hoping to rekindle the sparks of 2008, he’ll appeal to the middle class and ally himself with the 99 percent.
It’s a tough sell for a president who seems more professorial than populist. But the best thing Obama has going for him is the contrast with Romney, whose comments this week that he probably paid a 15 personal tax rate set him even farther apart from ordinary people than Obama.
For whatever reason, Obama has been reluctant to mention poverty, even as the ranks of the poor expand. He could use his primetime speech to explain why everyone benefits from a strong safety net. He could tell about policy changes in the George W. Bush presidency that led to increases in the food stamp rolls and trace how the economic slump intensified need. He could call on the Republicans to help, rather than demonize, the poor.
In 2008, voters were willing to buy the promise of hope and change. When Caroline Kennedy endorsed Obama in an op-ed in the Times on Jan. 27, 2008, she wrote:
“I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.”
That’s still a good job description for president in 2012.
Ms. Kennedy also wrote that Obama would inspire in people “a sense of possibility” that they have the power to shape their own future. It hasn’t worked out that way. Yet.
To shape his own future, Obama needs to inspire a new sense of individual possibility, not imply dependency that his enemies will call socialism.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Over the holidays, one of my dearest Republican relatives said, “Well, it’s too bad Obama turned out to be such a socialist.”
Then, she added in a tone between sadness and sarcasm, “I’m sure most people wouldn’t have voted for him if they’d known that.”
What? I paused to process her calm declaration and realized that what I hear -- and discount -- as political potshots in a presidential campaign have become in the ears of some voters reliable truth.
That surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. The old saying that “the first casualty of war is truth” also applies to political warfare.
The barrage against President Barack Obama started before he took office and has continued nonstop. Obama’s decision largely to ignore the charges just allows them to fester.
Newt Gingrich’s latest attacks on Obama as “the greatest food-stamp president in American history” are classic. Gingrich portrays Obama as socialist in chief, and Obama refuses to knock down the notion that he favors encouraging dependency on the state.
No wonder that 10 months before the election, half the voters surveyed in the latest New York Times and CBS News poll said Obama doesn’t have the same priorities for the country that they do.
The economy remains the country’s No. 1 issue, and 60 percent think Obama has done nothing to improve it. Most Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
And, confirming my holiday conversation, the poll also found that better than one in four voters -- 26 percent -- believe Obama’s policies are socialist. Twenty-two percent say his policies are liberal and 28 percent moderate.
If you’ve listened to the Republican presidential contenders sniping at each other, you know it’s now a supreme knock to call someone running for president a moderate.
Despite all this, polls consistently find that Obama would beat all the Republican presidential hopefuls -- except one. He ties with Mitt Romney, who’s most likely to be his rival in November.
And here’s where it gets really interesting. Obama ties with Romney even though most voters say they lack a clear idea about what Obama wants to accomplish in a second term.
In his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Obama will outline his policy goals for the coming year, but implicit will be his plans for a second term. Hoping to rekindle the sparks of 2008, he’ll appeal to the middle class and ally himself with the 99 percent.
It’s a tough sell for a president who seems more professorial than populist. But the best thing Obama has going for him is the contrast with Romney, whose comments this week that he probably paid a 15 personal tax rate set him even farther apart from ordinary people than Obama.
For whatever reason, Obama has been reluctant to mention poverty, even as the ranks of the poor expand. He could use his primetime speech to explain why everyone benefits from a strong safety net. He could tell about policy changes in the George W. Bush presidency that led to increases in the food stamp rolls and trace how the economic slump intensified need. He could call on the Republicans to help, rather than demonize, the poor.
In 2008, voters were willing to buy the promise of hope and change. When Caroline Kennedy endorsed Obama in an op-ed in the Times on Jan. 27, 2008, she wrote:
“I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.”
That’s still a good job description for president in 2012.
Ms. Kennedy also wrote that Obama would inspire in people “a sense of possibility” that they have the power to shape their own future. It hasn’t worked out that way. Yet.
To shape his own future, Obama needs to inspire a new sense of individual possibility, not imply dependency that his enemies will call socialism.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Court sets clash between religious liberty and workplace fairness -- Jan. 12, 2012 column
By MARSHA MERCER
If only angels ran churches, the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that ministers may not sue for job discrimination would be less troubling.
Unfortunately, ordinary mortals are in charge of religious institutions, and, mortals sometimes need a nudge to do the right thing. That’s why we have federal, state and local laws prohibiting employment discrimination.
But in the most significant church-state ruling in years, the court on Wednesday said all government – and that includes the courts – must stay out of religious groups’ decisions to hire and fire ministers and other leaders. The court also left the decision of who qualifies as a minister to the religious groups themselves.
Religious organizations and their allies claimed a great victory for religious liberty.
“If ministers were allowed to sue for employment discrimination, judges and juries would wind up deciding who is a good minister, worthy of retention, and who is not,” University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock wrote on CNN’s Belief Blog. “These cases end with a jury deciding whether the employer had a good enough reason to justify its decision.”
Laycock represented Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran School in Michigan in the Supreme Court case. Cheryl Perich, a teacher, complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that she was wrongly fired.
Ms. Perich was hired as a lay or contract teacher and became a spiritually “called” teacher. She took a series of religious courses and was commissioned as a “Minister of Religion.” She mostly taught secular classes and spent about 45 minutes a day in religious duties, such as leading her pupils in prayer.
She became sick with what eventually was diagnosed as narcolepsy and took disability leave. When she was ready to return, the school told her she no longer had a position. She threatened to sue, which went against Lutheran principles to resolve disputes internally, and was fired. She went to the EEOC, alleging she had been discriminated against under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The EEOC brought suit against the school, alleging that Perich had been fired in retaliation for threatening to sue.
The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the “ministerial exception,” a legal doctrine long ago accepted by federal appeals courts that says the First Amendment protects the right of religious organizations to make decisions to hire and fire clergy and grants them an exception to laws that prohibit job discrimination.
For example, the Catholic Church has the right to decide who can and can’t be a priest, and a woman who wants to be a priest can’t sue for gender discrimination.
The Hosanna-Tabor decision went farther, saying the exception applies to employment discrimination laws on all levels.
Thus the court has put the country to a test of values. Employment discrimination laws that protect other workers will not apply to employees in religious schools, colleges, hospitals and social service agencies – if employers deem the workers to be ministers, priests, rabbis, imams or other leaders. What now?
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and other civil rights advocates worry that the ruling will make fighting discrimination in the workplace that much harder.
“Blatant discrimination is a social evil we have worked hard to eradicate in the United States,” Lynn said.
Even some who support the ministerial exception, like University of Alabama law professor Paul Horwitz, say religious groups should use their power carefully and be sensitive in their behavior toward ministers.
There are good reasons “to avoid thinking of the state as the font of all power and the solution to all problems, but taking that step requires us to think much more carefully about institutional responsibility,” Horwitz wrote in a September draft of an article for Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy.
Virginia’s Laycock concedes that some churches will use power wisely and some won’t, but overall he says religious freedom demands that churches make the choices.
The Supreme Court has affirmed the autonomy of churches and other religious groups. It’s up to the mortals in charge to call on their better angels for guidance in the workplace.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
If only angels ran churches, the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling that ministers may not sue for job discrimination would be less troubling.
Unfortunately, ordinary mortals are in charge of religious institutions, and, mortals sometimes need a nudge to do the right thing. That’s why we have federal, state and local laws prohibiting employment discrimination.
But in the most significant church-state ruling in years, the court on Wednesday said all government – and that includes the courts – must stay out of religious groups’ decisions to hire and fire ministers and other leaders. The court also left the decision of who qualifies as a minister to the religious groups themselves.
Religious organizations and their allies claimed a great victory for religious liberty.
“If ministers were allowed to sue for employment discrimination, judges and juries would wind up deciding who is a good minister, worthy of retention, and who is not,” University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock wrote on CNN’s Belief Blog. “These cases end with a jury deciding whether the employer had a good enough reason to justify its decision.”
Laycock represented Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran School in Michigan in the Supreme Court case. Cheryl Perich, a teacher, complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that she was wrongly fired.
Ms. Perich was hired as a lay or contract teacher and became a spiritually “called” teacher. She took a series of religious courses and was commissioned as a “Minister of Religion.” She mostly taught secular classes and spent about 45 minutes a day in religious duties, such as leading her pupils in prayer.
She became sick with what eventually was diagnosed as narcolepsy and took disability leave. When she was ready to return, the school told her she no longer had a position. She threatened to sue, which went against Lutheran principles to resolve disputes internally, and was fired. She went to the EEOC, alleging she had been discriminated against under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The EEOC brought suit against the school, alleging that Perich had been fired in retaliation for threatening to sue.
The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the “ministerial exception,” a legal doctrine long ago accepted by federal appeals courts that says the First Amendment protects the right of religious organizations to make decisions to hire and fire clergy and grants them an exception to laws that prohibit job discrimination.
For example, the Catholic Church has the right to decide who can and can’t be a priest, and a woman who wants to be a priest can’t sue for gender discrimination.
The Hosanna-Tabor decision went farther, saying the exception applies to employment discrimination laws on all levels.
Thus the court has put the country to a test of values. Employment discrimination laws that protect other workers will not apply to employees in religious schools, colleges, hospitals and social service agencies – if employers deem the workers to be ministers, priests, rabbis, imams or other leaders. What now?
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and other civil rights advocates worry that the ruling will make fighting discrimination in the workplace that much harder.
“Blatant discrimination is a social evil we have worked hard to eradicate in the United States,” Lynn said.
Even some who support the ministerial exception, like University of Alabama law professor Paul Horwitz, say religious groups should use their power carefully and be sensitive in their behavior toward ministers.
There are good reasons “to avoid thinking of the state as the font of all power and the solution to all problems, but taking that step requires us to think much more carefully about institutional responsibility,” Horwitz wrote in a September draft of an article for Northwestern University Law Review Colloquy.
Virginia’s Laycock concedes that some churches will use power wisely and some won’t, but overall he says religious freedom demands that churches make the choices.
The Supreme Court has affirmed the autonomy of churches and other religious groups. It’s up to the mortals in charge to call on their better angels for guidance in the workplace.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Lightning strike or impersonating a voter -- which is more likely? -- Jan. 5, 2012 column
By MARSHA MERCER
The next big test of conservative muscle is the Republican presidential primary Jan. 21 in South Carolina, but a more important battle there has already been won.
The U.S. Justice Department last month rejected South Carolina’s strict new voter ID law, which requires voters to show a valid, government-issued photo ID. Justice said the state’s law would block qualified blacks from exercising the right to vote.
South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Nikki Haley vows to fight the ruling. South Carolina is among about a dozen states that tightened up on voting laws last year by passing no-photo-no-vote laws, limiting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting periods and other measures.
Proponents insist that strict new photo ID laws are needed to combat widespread election fraud. People are so disillusioned these days that they’re inclined to believe the claims. But where’s the beef?
“The only possible sort of fraud photo ID laws could stop is if someone fraudulently impersonated someone at the polls,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Levitt studied cases of voter fraud nationwide for a paper he wrote in 2007 titled, “The Truth About Voter Fraud.“
And how common is voter impersonation? “It’s more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls,” Levitt told me.
South Carolina, which had a history of discrimination in voting, is required under the federal Voting Rights Act to submit changes in voting law for review by the Justice Department. The state must show that the changes have “neither the purpose nor the effect” of denying or abridging someone’s right to vote because of race, color or membership in a language minority.
The state failed to present “any evidence or instance of either in-person voter impersonation or any other type of fraud that is not already addressed” by existing law, Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general, wrote in a letter to state officials.
Under state law in effect since 1988, South Carolinians can vote after showing a driver’s license or non-driver photo ID card or after showing a voter registration card without a photo and signing the poll list.
Photo ID laws have become a rallying point for Republican politicians. GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum called Attorney General Eric Holder “about as biased as any attorney general.”
“You need photo ID to buy a drink. You need photo ID to get on an airplane. You need photo ID to buy cigarettes. So I'm assuming none of their people either drink or smoke,” Santorum said in Iowa, McClatchy reported.
But, Santorum and others who make that argument are forgetting one thing. There’s a fundamental difference between voting and flying, drinking or smoking. Americans have a constitutional right to vote.
Rival GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich questioned why Holder is “so determined not to identify if people are not eligible to vote.” Gingrich charged that the Justice Department is trying desperately “to retain the ability to steal elections.” What?
To be sure, for most Americans, having a photo ID is routine. But many black Southerners who were born at home before birth certificates were always recorded face obstacles to obtaining birth certificates so they can get photo IDs.
Ten percent of non-white registered voters in South Carolina lack the necessary photo ID and could be barred from voting, the state told the Justice Department. Yes, that’s people who already were registered to vote and have been voting for years.
South Carolina first said nearly 240,000 people lacked photo ID cards but later submitted a revised number of about 80,000. The Department of Motor Vehicles said the others had allowed their licenses to expire, had moved or had died.
The push among Republican-controlled state legislatures around the country to tighten up on voting law represents a change in America, where the trend for decades has been to expand voting rights.
Most reports about the new laws focus on how blacks, the poor and students -- who tend to vote Democratic -- could be disenfranchised. An Associated Press analysis found that in South Carolina thousands of older, white, well-to-do voters who live in coastal retirement communities -- and vote Republican -- also could be affected.
Seniors who give up their driver’s licenses may let their passports expire as well and then find themselves without a valid, government-issued photo ID. Under the new law, these voters also could be turned away from the polls.
That’s something I’ll bet Santorum, Gingrich and the rest of the GOP gang haven’t even considered.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
The next big test of conservative muscle is the Republican presidential primary Jan. 21 in South Carolina, but a more important battle there has already been won.
The U.S. Justice Department last month rejected South Carolina’s strict new voter ID law, which requires voters to show a valid, government-issued photo ID. Justice said the state’s law would block qualified blacks from exercising the right to vote.
South Carolina’s Republican Gov. Nikki Haley vows to fight the ruling. South Carolina is among about a dozen states that tightened up on voting laws last year by passing no-photo-no-vote laws, limiting voter registration drives, curtailing early voting periods and other measures.
Proponents insist that strict new photo ID laws are needed to combat widespread election fraud. People are so disillusioned these days that they’re inclined to believe the claims. But where’s the beef?
“The only possible sort of fraud photo ID laws could stop is if someone fraudulently impersonated someone at the polls,” said Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Levitt studied cases of voter fraud nationwide for a paper he wrote in 2007 titled, “The Truth About Voter Fraud.“
And how common is voter impersonation? “It’s more likely that an individual will be struck by lightning than that he will impersonate another voter at the polls,” Levitt told me.
South Carolina, which had a history of discrimination in voting, is required under the federal Voting Rights Act to submit changes in voting law for review by the Justice Department. The state must show that the changes have “neither the purpose nor the effect” of denying or abridging someone’s right to vote because of race, color or membership in a language minority.
The state failed to present “any evidence or instance of either in-person voter impersonation or any other type of fraud that is not already addressed” by existing law, Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general, wrote in a letter to state officials.
Under state law in effect since 1988, South Carolinians can vote after showing a driver’s license or non-driver photo ID card or after showing a voter registration card without a photo and signing the poll list.
Photo ID laws have become a rallying point for Republican politicians. GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum called Attorney General Eric Holder “about as biased as any attorney general.”
“You need photo ID to buy a drink. You need photo ID to get on an airplane. You need photo ID to buy cigarettes. So I'm assuming none of their people either drink or smoke,” Santorum said in Iowa, McClatchy reported.
But, Santorum and others who make that argument are forgetting one thing. There’s a fundamental difference between voting and flying, drinking or smoking. Americans have a constitutional right to vote.
Rival GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich questioned why Holder is “so determined not to identify if people are not eligible to vote.” Gingrich charged that the Justice Department is trying desperately “to retain the ability to steal elections.” What?
To be sure, for most Americans, having a photo ID is routine. But many black Southerners who were born at home before birth certificates were always recorded face obstacles to obtaining birth certificates so they can get photo IDs.
Ten percent of non-white registered voters in South Carolina lack the necessary photo ID and could be barred from voting, the state told the Justice Department. Yes, that’s people who already were registered to vote and have been voting for years.
South Carolina first said nearly 240,000 people lacked photo ID cards but later submitted a revised number of about 80,000. The Department of Motor Vehicles said the others had allowed their licenses to expire, had moved or had died.
The push among Republican-controlled state legislatures around the country to tighten up on voting law represents a change in America, where the trend for decades has been to expand voting rights.
Most reports about the new laws focus on how blacks, the poor and students -- who tend to vote Democratic -- could be disenfranchised. An Associated Press analysis found that in South Carolina thousands of older, white, well-to-do voters who live in coastal retirement communities -- and vote Republican -- also could be affected.
Seniors who give up their driver’s licenses may let their passports expire as well and then find themselves without a valid, government-issued photo ID. Under the new law, these voters also could be turned away from the polls.
That’s something I’ll bet Santorum, Gingrich and the rest of the GOP gang haven’t even considered.
© 2012 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Happy New Year: It's finally about the voters -- Dec. 28, 2011 column
By MARSHA MERCER
President Huckabee.
Hold that thought when you see reporters all aflutter about the power of Iowa as Republicans gather in schools and firehouses Tuesday night to back their favorite presidential candidates.
Four years ago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was the toast of Iowa Republicans – before he became just plain toast. John McCain limped to fourth place in the Hawkeye State.
It’s worth remembering that often when it comes to choosing presidential nominees, as Iowa goes, so goes Iowa.
In contested Democratic and Republican caucuses since the 1970s, Iowans have picked the eventual party nominees roughly half the time. In 2008, Barack Obama launched his flight to the White House by beating Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in Iowa.
The 2012 GOP contest already has gyrated more than a hoola hoop on a 8-year-old, and polls currently have Mitt Romney and Ron Paul battling for first place.
Mike Huckabee predicts a Ron Paul win – if the weather is foul. Paul’s supporters are “fanatical,” Huckabee says, and won’t let snow and ice derail their crusade.
Alas for Paul, the forecast favors fair-weather fans of Romney. Tuesday in Des Moines will be sunny with a high of 36 degrees, according to weather.com.
A line from Winston Churchill in 1942 seems appropriate as we say goodbye to 2011 and welcome the new political year: “Now is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
January marks the end of the 2012 presidential pregame show. For the last year, the focus has been on the collective “them” – politicians, pundits, pollsters and money men. The New Year is about “us” -- the voters.
“This election is really about you,” Rick Perry told young people in Muscatine, Iowa, the other day. “It’s not about me.” Now he tells us – after spending $2.86 million on TV ads in Iowa in December.
A so-called Super PAC that supports Romney poured only slightly less into ads in Iowa during the month, $2.85 million.
A week after Iowa, on Jan. 10, New Hampshire will vote in its first-in-the-nation primary. People in New Hampshire sometimes say that Iowa picks corn and New Hampshire picks presidents.
From 1952 to 1992, no candidate won the White House without first winning the New Hampshire primary. In ’92, Clinton declared himself the “Comeback Kid” after losing to Paul Tsongas and went on to the win the nomination and the presidency. In 2008, Hillary Clinton came back from her Iowa loss to win New Hampshire, but it wasn’t enough.
Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts with a home in New Hampshire, is leading in Granite State polls. The question is how big a win he gets.
Should we care? Iowa and New Hampshire are hardly microcosms of the United States. Iowa skews older, and Iowa and New Hampshire are whiter than the country as a whole. New Hampshire is also richer and better educated than the United States.
Still, every four years the two states successfully battle to keep their roles as first deciders. They argue that their voters are more engaged and more knowledgeable about the candidates. Besides, someone has to start culling the field.
If Iowa and New Hampshire leave doubts, South Carolina and Florida follow with primaries on Jan. 21 and 31, respectively. Nevada’s caucuses are Feb. 4. And, on March 6, Super Tuesday, 10 states will hold contests, including Virginia, which has a primary. On March 13, Alabama and Mississippi weigh in with primaries.
And, in case you were worried, the candidates are slated to keep debating. Six GOP candidate debates are scheduled in January.
Some analysts predict the process for Republicans to pick their presidential nominee will be long and drawn out. Others say it will be quick work. And then comes the general election campaign.
If we learned anything in 2011, it’s that we don’t know – until the voters have their say.
Happy New Year.
30
President Huckabee.
Hold that thought when you see reporters all aflutter about the power of Iowa as Republicans gather in schools and firehouses Tuesday night to back their favorite presidential candidates.
Four years ago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was the toast of Iowa Republicans – before he became just plain toast. John McCain limped to fourth place in the Hawkeye State.
It’s worth remembering that often when it comes to choosing presidential nominees, as Iowa goes, so goes Iowa.
In contested Democratic and Republican caucuses since the 1970s, Iowans have picked the eventual party nominees roughly half the time. In 2008, Barack Obama launched his flight to the White House by beating Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in Iowa.
The 2012 GOP contest already has gyrated more than a hoola hoop on a 8-year-old, and polls currently have Mitt Romney and Ron Paul battling for first place.
Mike Huckabee predicts a Ron Paul win – if the weather is foul. Paul’s supporters are “fanatical,” Huckabee says, and won’t let snow and ice derail their crusade.
Alas for Paul, the forecast favors fair-weather fans of Romney. Tuesday in Des Moines will be sunny with a high of 36 degrees, according to weather.com.
A line from Winston Churchill in 1942 seems appropriate as we say goodbye to 2011 and welcome the new political year: “Now is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
January marks the end of the 2012 presidential pregame show. For the last year, the focus has been on the collective “them” – politicians, pundits, pollsters and money men. The New Year is about “us” -- the voters.
“This election is really about you,” Rick Perry told young people in Muscatine, Iowa, the other day. “It’s not about me.” Now he tells us – after spending $2.86 million on TV ads in Iowa in December.
A so-called Super PAC that supports Romney poured only slightly less into ads in Iowa during the month, $2.85 million.
A week after Iowa, on Jan. 10, New Hampshire will vote in its first-in-the-nation primary. People in New Hampshire sometimes say that Iowa picks corn and New Hampshire picks presidents.
From 1952 to 1992, no candidate won the White House without first winning the New Hampshire primary. In ’92, Clinton declared himself the “Comeback Kid” after losing to Paul Tsongas and went on to the win the nomination and the presidency. In 2008, Hillary Clinton came back from her Iowa loss to win New Hampshire, but it wasn’t enough.
Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts with a home in New Hampshire, is leading in Granite State polls. The question is how big a win he gets.
Should we care? Iowa and New Hampshire are hardly microcosms of the United States. Iowa skews older, and Iowa and New Hampshire are whiter than the country as a whole. New Hampshire is also richer and better educated than the United States.
Still, every four years the two states successfully battle to keep their roles as first deciders. They argue that their voters are more engaged and more knowledgeable about the candidates. Besides, someone has to start culling the field.
If Iowa and New Hampshire leave doubts, South Carolina and Florida follow with primaries on Jan. 21 and 31, respectively. Nevada’s caucuses are Feb. 4. And, on March 6, Super Tuesday, 10 states will hold contests, including Virginia, which has a primary. On March 13, Alabama and Mississippi weigh in with primaries.
And, in case you were worried, the candidates are slated to keep debating. Six GOP candidate debates are scheduled in January.
Some analysts predict the process for Republicans to pick their presidential nominee will be long and drawn out. Others say it will be quick work. And then comes the general election campaign.
If we learned anything in 2011, it’s that we don’t know – until the voters have their say.
Happy New Year.
30
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
On politics, religion and the Jefferson Bible -- Dec. 21, 2011 column
By MARSHA MERCER
Earlier this year, when presidential candidates claimed that God had “called” them to run for the White House, some people were offended. I couldn’t help thinking that God has a sense of humor.
But I wondered how people would react if the president – any president -- were sitting up nights in the White House, cutting out parts of the Bible he or she didn’t like. Many would find such handiwork a sacrilege and an outrage. I’d figure Thomas Jefferson had reached out for a chat.
Barack Obama is not busily reconstructing the New Testament, as far as we know. But in the White House in 1804 Jefferson started editing the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with a pen knife or similar sharp instrument and carefully began pasting passages of Christ’s teachings by topic on paper.
Decades later, when he was 77 and living at Monticello, Jefferson produced an edited text of the Gospels. He created an 86-page volume of the life of Christ, parables and teachings by cutting and pasting passages from the New Testament in Greek, Latin, French and English. Jefferson left out the miracles and supernatural events, including the annunciation, angels, virgin birth and the Resurrection.
He titled his version “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” had it bound in red leather and read it regularly.
The first volume Jefferson made has been lost, but the Smithsonian Institution bought the Jefferson Bible in 1895. It deteriorated over years, but after a year of restoration is on display at the National Museum of American History.
Like most people, I’d heard about the Jefferson Bible, but seeing the book that Jefferson himself made scrapbook style was a highlight of my museum experiences this year.
The exhibit, open through May 28, does what a visit to a museum should: It makes you think.
In our age, a presidential candidate’s ability to speak a foreign language is fodder for ridicule -- check out YouTube. Our politicians too often feel obliged to wear their faith on their sleeve.
Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain both claimed that God called them to run for president. Anita Perry, wife of Rick, said God spoke to her about a presidential bid, but her husband needed to see a “burning bush,” a reference to God’s first appearance to Moses.
Mitt Romney tells stories about his year spreading Mormonism in France. Newt Gingrich talks about converting to Catholicism after marrying his third wife, Callista, a Catholic. Gingrich admits to past extramarital affairs but says he has repented to God.
Gingrich even sent a letter to the head of a major evangelical group in Iowa recently, pledging “to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.”
All this likely would seem strange to Jefferson, who held his faith close. Lambasted as a “howling atheist” during the brutal presidential campaign of 1800, Jefferson later described himself in a letter as “a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.”
Scholars say Jefferson, like George Washington, was a deist who believed that a supreme being created the world and then stepped back. Jefferson called the Bible “the best book in the world” but believed its zealous authors had embellished the story of Jesus Christ.
Jefferson described his Bible project in a letter to John Adams as “abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its luster from the dross of his biographers, and as separate from that as the diamond from the dung hill.”
The Smithsonian has published a facsimile edition of the Jefferson Bible, and versions are available from other publishers. The Jefferson Bible is available online at the Monticello site.
Jefferson’s views on religion were complex and he was reluctant to express them, says Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough in Smithsonian magazine. Clough quotes Jefferson: “I not only write nothing on religion,” he told a friend, “but rarely permit myself to speak on it.”
Smart man, that Jefferson.
© 2011 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
Earlier this year, when presidential candidates claimed that God had “called” them to run for the White House, some people were offended. I couldn’t help thinking that God has a sense of humor.
But I wondered how people would react if the president – any president -- were sitting up nights in the White House, cutting out parts of the Bible he or she didn’t like. Many would find such handiwork a sacrilege and an outrage. I’d figure Thomas Jefferson had reached out for a chat.
Barack Obama is not busily reconstructing the New Testament, as far as we know. But in the White House in 1804 Jefferson started editing the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with a pen knife or similar sharp instrument and carefully began pasting passages of Christ’s teachings by topic on paper.
Decades later, when he was 77 and living at Monticello, Jefferson produced an edited text of the Gospels. He created an 86-page volume of the life of Christ, parables and teachings by cutting and pasting passages from the New Testament in Greek, Latin, French and English. Jefferson left out the miracles and supernatural events, including the annunciation, angels, virgin birth and the Resurrection.
He titled his version “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,” had it bound in red leather and read it regularly.
The first volume Jefferson made has been lost, but the Smithsonian Institution bought the Jefferson Bible in 1895. It deteriorated over years, but after a year of restoration is on display at the National Museum of American History.
Like most people, I’d heard about the Jefferson Bible, but seeing the book that Jefferson himself made scrapbook style was a highlight of my museum experiences this year.
The exhibit, open through May 28, does what a visit to a museum should: It makes you think.
In our age, a presidential candidate’s ability to speak a foreign language is fodder for ridicule -- check out YouTube. Our politicians too often feel obliged to wear their faith on their sleeve.
Michele Bachmann and Herman Cain both claimed that God called them to run for president. Anita Perry, wife of Rick, said God spoke to her about a presidential bid, but her husband needed to see a “burning bush,” a reference to God’s first appearance to Moses.
Mitt Romney tells stories about his year spreading Mormonism in France. Newt Gingrich talks about converting to Catholicism after marrying his third wife, Callista, a Catholic. Gingrich admits to past extramarital affairs but says he has repented to God.
Gingrich even sent a letter to the head of a major evangelical group in Iowa recently, pledging “to uphold the institution of marriage through personal fidelity to my spouse and respect for the marital bonds of others.”
All this likely would seem strange to Jefferson, who held his faith close. Lambasted as a “howling atheist” during the brutal presidential campaign of 1800, Jefferson later described himself in a letter as “a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ.”
Scholars say Jefferson, like George Washington, was a deist who believed that a supreme being created the world and then stepped back. Jefferson called the Bible “the best book in the world” but believed its zealous authors had embellished the story of Jesus Christ.
Jefferson described his Bible project in a letter to John Adams as “abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its luster from the dross of his biographers, and as separate from that as the diamond from the dung hill.”
The Smithsonian has published a facsimile edition of the Jefferson Bible, and versions are available from other publishers. The Jefferson Bible is available online at the Monticello site.
Jefferson’s views on religion were complex and he was reluctant to express them, says Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough in Smithsonian magazine. Clough quotes Jefferson: “I not only write nothing on religion,” he told a friend, “but rarely permit myself to speak on it.”
Smart man, that Jefferson.
© 2011 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.
30
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