The current Tea Party patriots (an oxymoron) are at it again with their enablers, the Republicans. Not content with their artificial tempest in a teapot about voter fraud (there has been statistically none, unless you count the corrupt Republican Secretaries of State Ken Blackwell (Ohio) and Katherine Harris (Florida) and the election results they oversaw), they are rushing to pass voter-restricting measures in all 33 states the Republicans control.
We have a shamefully low level of voting participation in this country, but a new plan to push it lower is on the tea cart drawing board. Judson Phillips, president of the Tea Party Nation group, has a horrific idea: “The Founding Fathers … put certain restrictions on … the right to vote … you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense.” The Founding Fathers also limited voting to white, free men. Is that the Tea Party’s next patriotic move? Phillips fears that someone who merely lives in, pays taxes in, has children attending school in, but does not own property in, a community isn’t sufficiently invested in it to vote. Real patriots would be working to increase voting and nonpartisan voter education, not the reverse.
William Sterr
Vancouver
