The Speaker of the House appeared on Fox News yesterday to complain about Gov. Snyder’s veto of Republican voter suppression bills, and received effusive praise from other Republican politicians for his comments. In reality, it was nothing more than an irrational attempt to gin up fear of a widespread plot to steal elections through fraud – despite numerous studies debunking these claims and firm opposition to GOP voter suppression efforts in the pages of the conservative Michigan View.
But the Speaker’s casual relationship with the facts wasn’t the most outrageous part of his appearance:
Suggesting that Voter ID laws don’t unfairly target minorities because of the race of one Republican judge is quite possibly the worst argument that could be made for these laws – and just happens to be transparently false.
By now it’s clear that Lansing Republicans have the wrong priorities. They’ve spent the last two years cutting funding for schools and new taxes on seniors and middle class families in order to pay for huge tax breaks for big corporations that ship jobs overseas: and they’re upset because that still isn’t enough for them.
Once again, Lansing Republicans have proved that they are unable to accept when an issue is settled. Whether it be accepting the ruling of the Supreme Court or Gov. Snyder’s veto, they would rather throw temper tantrums than move Michigan forward.
But after back-to-back bad weeks, maybe it’s Lansing Republicans who really need a timeout.