Tuesday Open Thread [2.24.15]

There is a compelling argument that voter suppression is the primary force that keeps Republicans in power in the south. Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice.

In the North Carolina Senate race, state house speaker Thom Tillis beat Senator Kay Hagen by a margin of 1.7 percent, or about 48,000 votes. At the same time, North Carolina’s voters were, for the first time, voting under one of the harshest new election laws in the country — a law that Tillis helped to craft. Among other changes, the law slashed seven early voting days, eliminated same-day registration, and prohibited voting outside a voter’s home precinct — all forms of voting especially popular among African Americans. While it is too early to assess the impact of the law this year, the Election Protection hotline and other voter protection volunteers reported what appeared to be widespread problems both with voter registrations and with voters being told they were in the wrong precinct yesterday.

Some numbers from recent elections suggest that the magnitude of the problem may not be far from the margin of victory: In the last midterms in 2010, 200,000 voters cast ballots during the early voting days now cut, according to a recent court decision. In 2012, 700,000 voted during those days, including more than a quarter of all African-Americans who voted that year. In 2012, 100,000 North Carolinians, almost a one-third of whom were African-American, voted using same-day registration, which was not available this year. And 7,500 voters cast their ballots outside of their home precincts that year.

…The Florida governor’s race was decided by only a 1.2 percent margin, with Governor Rick Scott narrowly beating former Governor Charlie Crist by just under 72,000 votes.

Florida has passed a host of new voting restrictions over the past few years. Perhaps the most significant for this election was a decision by Scott and his clemency board to make it virtually impossible for the more than 1.3 million Floridians who were formerly convicted of crimes but have done their time and paid their debt to society to have their voting rights restored. Under Florida’s law, the harshest in the country, one in three African-American men is essentially permanently disenfranchised. Ironically, Scott had rolled back rights that were expanded under Governor Crist, who had established a path for people with past convictions to more easily get their voting rights restored. Under that process, more than 150,000 citizens had their rights restored before Scott changed the rules. This is part of a pattern this year of candidates benefiting from voting restrictions they helped to pass.

…It is little solace to the more than 600,000 registered voters in Texas who could not vote this year because they lack IDs the state will accept that the governor’s race was decided by more than 600,000 votes. For one thing, there are far more races — from state legislator to justice of the peace — that affect voters’ day-to-day lives and that could have been impacted by those lost votes. But more importantly, those citizens — a number of whom were long-time voters who were turned away from the polls this year — were denied their basic right of citizenship, their ability to hold their politicians accountable, and their ability to join their friends and family to have a say over what happens in their communities. The dignitary harm comes through loud and clear when you read their stories.

When you factor out voter suppression laws, Republican majorities in the south and elsewhere become shaky indeed. There will be a blue wave election eventually, and much of the gerrymandering and voter suppression will be reversed.

Rick Klein on whether Jeb Bush can ever be his own man:

“Can you be your own man while sharing a last name with other men with complicated legacies inside and outside your own party? Can you be your own man while talking to the same men (and some of the women) who advised those other men during some of the low and high points of their foreign policies? These are central questions facing Jeb Bush, as he only starts to answer for how he plans to define himself as opposed to the Presidents Bush.”

“The fact is he can’t and won’t ever entirely be able to be his own man in politics. His name and family connections confer early front-runner status on him, making him something other than just another ex-governor. They also make him the fundraising juggernaut he will always be. (One wonders whether the money folks talking about the ‘shock and awe’ fundraising strategy remember what that phrase meant in George W. Bush’s Iraq war.) For big donors as for the foreign-policy establishment, the Bush name is a comfortable and powerful one. For voters and caucus-goers, it gets quite a bit more complicated. The next question inevitably becomes, does a man who once famously said he never disagreed with anything his brother did as president find a few areas where he parts ways?”

Philip Klein: “In a general election, nominating Bush would neutralize one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest liabilities (the idea that she, too, is a figure from the past trying to ride her last name to power). Instead of having the clear contrast that would be possible if Republicans were to name a fresh candidate, the 2016 election would devolve into a proxy battle over whether Americans want to restore the Bush or Clinton presidencies. Whether the GOP likes it or not, that isn’t a matchup that favors Republicans.”

Because we like and did better under Billy than the Georges.

Bloomberg reports that the “biggest entitlement legislation in a generation is causing barely a ripple in corporate America.” Probably because they are all benefiting from it.

A review of conference-call transcripts and interviews finds the Affordable Care Act “is putting such a small dent in the profits of U.S. companies” that many refer to its impact as “not material” or “not significant.”

“That’s even after a provision went into effect this year requiring companies with 50 or more full-time workers to provide coverage, and after more workers are choosing to enroll in existing company coverage because of another requirement that all Americans get insured.”

A CNN/ORC poll finds that only Hillary Clinton is viewed as a candidate of the future rather than the past, and I bet you it is because people view her as a potential first woman President, which of course is something that has not happened yet, and thus would be the future. This is why a “She’s part of the past” argument will not work against Hillary.

Asked in a new CNN/ORC poll whether seven possible candidates better represent the future or the past, 50% said Clinton evoked the future, more than said so of any other candidate. By contrast, Joe Biden and Jeb Bush, whose names have been in the political conversation even longer than Clinton’s, were each seen as representing the past by 64% of Americans.

43% say New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie represents the future, while 41% says its Rand Paul, while 39% says its Scott Walker.

Nate Cohn: “I remember that Mrs. Clinton was ‘inevitable,’ [in 2008] and I see why today’s discussions of Mrs. Clinton’s strength sound familiar. But there is no equivalence between Mrs. Clinton’s strength then and now. She was never inevitable eight years ago. If a candidate has ever been inevitable — for the nomination — it is Mrs. Clinton today.”

“No candidate, excluding incumbent presidents, has ever fared so well in the early primary polls as Mrs. Clinton. She holds about 60 percent of the vote of Democratic voters, a tally dwarfing the 40 percent she held this time in the last election cycle.”