MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A second judge on Tuesday declared Wisconsin’s voter identification law unconstitutional, further guaranteeing that the ID requirement won’t be in place for this fall’s elections.

Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan ruled that the state’s requirement that all voters show photo ID at the polls creates a “substantial impairment of the right to vote” guaranteed by the state Constitution.

In March, Flanagan issued an injunction temporarily blocking the law, finding that the groups challenging the ID requirement — the Milwaukee branch of the NAACP and the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera — were likely to succeed in their arguments. He made that injunction permanent in Tuesday’s 20-page decision.

Another Dane County judge, Richard Niess, permanently blocked the voter ID law in March in a separate case brought by the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. Voter ID proponents would need to get both orders lifted to get the law reinstated.

Continue reading Second judge rejects Wisconsin voter ID law →

Below is today’s coverage by the Los Angeles Times of the ACLU lawsuit against the voter restriction law passed by PA Republicans.

A state-wide coalition of voting rights and civil rights activists is holding a rally at the state Capitol on Tuesday July 24th to express the public’s support for the lawsuit against voter restriction.

Buses leave the IBEW Hall in Vanport, PA at 6:00am on Tuesday the 24th and will return at 3:00pm after the rally. There is no charge. Please call Progressive Democrats of America chairperson Tina Shannon at 724-683-1925 to reserve a seat.

Buses leave Philadelphia from 1619 Cecil B. Moore Ave. at 9:00am and return at 3:30pm.  To reserve a seat from Philadelphia call John Jordan, Director of Civic Engagement for the PA NAACP at 215-978-7500.

Pennsylvania’s strict voter ID law faces ACLU lawsuit

The law could stop hundreds of thousands of voters, many of them minorities, from casting ballots despite their efforts to obtain an ID. The outcome may affect the presidential election.

By David G. Savage, Washington Bureau

PHILADELPHIA — At age 93, Viviette Applewhite proudly lives on her own in a high-rise apartment just a few blocks from where she was born. A widow, she has never driven a car, but she has had many jobs, including work as a welder during World War II. She marched withMartin Luther King Jr. in Georgia.

She cast her first vote for PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt. On election day four years ago, Applewhite went across the street to vote. “I was waiting there when they opened the door,” she said. “I didn’t vote for [Barack] Obamabecause he was black. I voted for him because he was a Democrat.”

But her record of faithfully voting for Democrats will be more difficult to maintain, thanks to a strict voter identification law adopted this year by Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Legislature. Now she is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the new law.

Applewhite is among more than 186,000 registered voters who lack a valid driver’s license in this heavily Democratic city. Many of them are minorities. And to vote in Pennsylvania in November, they will need to produce a government-issued ID or driver’s license.

Continue reading Pennsylvania’s strict voter ID law faces ACLU lawsuit →

Saturday, July 7, 2012
Civic groups urge delay in

Pennsylvania’s voter-ID law
By Bob Warner
Inquirer Staff Writer READER FEEDBACK

Pa. says 758,000-plus voters lack PennDOT photo ID
 
Groups appeal for delay on voter ID; Corbett refuses
 
Voters without PennDot ID: 9.2%
 
Voter ID law may hit more in Pennsylvania
Spurred by the disclosure that 758,000 registered voters do not have Pennsylvania drivers’ licenses, six civic groups called on Gov. Corbett on Friday to delay implementation of a new voter-ID requirement for at least a year. The administration immediately rejected the request.
“Our goal since the law was signed is to reach out to all voters to make them aware of the law so all eligible voters are able to get ID if needed and cast ballots in November,” said Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, in charge of the state election machinery.
Ruman said Corbett did not have authority on his own to delay the photo-ID requirement and would not ask the Republican-controlled legislature to change the law, passed and signed by the governor in March.  “The administration supports the law,” Ruman wrote in an e-mail, “because it protects the integrity of every vote and voter by giving Pennsylvania for the first time a reliable way to verify the identity of each voter at the polls. This will help detect and deter any illegal voting.”

Continue reading Civic Groups Urge Corbett to Delay Voter Restriction Law →

by Randy Shannon

Two years ago we showed that the current crisis was unavoidable as long as the banks controlled state power in the major industrial countries. In “Japan’s Lost Decades: the US Sequel” the political and economic way out of this crisis was set forth on this blog. This agenda is still relevant and waiting to be fulfilled by popular action.

The US economy has begun a new cyclical downturn. This is the first recession since 1937 that has occurred before a full recovery. As in 1937, part of the reason for this second dip is the growth of political power among the reactionary bankers and the Republican Party. This group has thrown roadblocks in the way of real economic stimulus.

The article below shows that the political leaders and the financial media finally are face to face with the reality that the current course is unsustainable. The central banks cannot break out of their narrow mind-set. Their only solution is to print money and lower interest rates. As bankers, they see the solution as saving the banks at the cost of a stable and prosperous society.

We must move forward with nationalizing the zombie banks, imposing a carbon tax and a financial speculation tax, investing in a green new deal to rebuild and solarize the infrastructure, end the wars and retool the military industrial complex to build mass transportation.

Every day that passes without action is lost. This results in lost lives, lost hopes, and a lost future generation. The graphic of construction employment shows the gravity of the situation.

Central Banks Commit to Ease as Threat of Lost Decades Rises

By Simon Kennedy and Rich Miller
Jun 25, 2012 11:11 AM ET

Central bankers are finding it easier to support their economies than to spur expansion as the prospect of Japanese-like lost decades looms across the developed world.

Continue reading Confronting a Future of Lost Decades →

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.”

Major General Gordon Granger, United States Army

June 19, 1865, Galveston, Texas

By Len Barcousky / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Divided along party lines, Allegheny County’s election board voted this afternoon to file a lawsuit challenging the state’s new Voter Identification law.

Board chairman John DeFazio and county Executive Rich Fitzgerald, both Democrats, voted to sue, while Heather Heidelbaugh, the lone Republican on the three-member board, voted against the measure. Both Mr. DeFazio, of Shaler, and Ms. Heidelbaugh, of Mt. Lebanon, serve on the election board because they are at-large members of county council.

“We should be making it easier to vote,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “This legislation [the Voter ID law] is trying to deny that right and make it more difficult for people to vote.”

The measure, which takes effect with the Nov. 6 general election, requires that all voters have some form of state-approved photo identification when they come to the polls.

Ms. Heidelbaugh noted that the bill was passed by two houses of the state Legislature and signed by Gov. Tom Corbett.

“This suit is sour grapes by an elected official who doesn’t like the new law,” she said.

County solicitor Andrew Szefi said the lawsuit likely would be brought on behalf of both the election board and the county.

The heart of the county’s argument would be that the state constitution sets just four requirements for voting eligibility: minimum age, U.S. citizenship, residence in Pennsylvania and a specific election district.

The new requirement that voters show photo identification before they can cast ballots should have been imposed via constitutional amendment, he said.

Mr. Szefi estimated it would take the county law department about a week to prepare the lawsuit, which will be filed in Commonwealth Court.

The county has standing to bring the suit, because it pays elections costs and will have to spend additional money to train poll workers to enforce the photo ID rule, Mr. Fitzgerald said.

Len Barcousky: lbarcousky@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1159.