Jim Crow's Adventures in the 21st Century

The New Republic has on online-only article (subscription required) that I'd call a must-read. Although there have been tons of stories about Republican efforts to minimize black and Hispanic voting in elections from Gore in Florida to Kerry in Ohio, it somehow only gets attention as some sort of left-wing conspiracy.

Over the last 14 months, Republicans have backed bills and initiatives in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Indiana, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and Ohio that would require voters to present special kinds of identification at polling places or in order to register. These sorts of requirements inordinately affect black and Hispanic (and in South Dakota, Native American) voters who are less likely than whites to have government-issue photo IDs. And the Bush administration isn't just looking the other way as these efforts unfold. It's actively aiding and abetting them.

In Georgia last spring, the Republican legislature passed, and Governor Sonny Perdue signed, a bill that would require voters who don't have a driver's license to obtain a $20 ID at the state's Department of Motor Vehicles. The measure was clearly aimed at black voters. The state has only 56 DMV offices, none of which are in predominately black Atlanta. And the bill's chief sponsor, Republican State Representative Sue Burmeister, explained that if blacks in her district "are not paid to vote, they don't go to the polls." In October a district court judge, comparing the law to a Jim Crow-era poll tax, issued an injunction against it. But Republicans in Georgia's legislature are threatening to introduce a new version of the bill this year that would not include the $20 fee.

This should be in the pages of the magazine. Maybe they could postpone their next story on how mean ol' Democrats are picking on the White House again. But at least someone's writing about it.