Tillis, bloggers Pow-wow on voter ID bill
Apparently, the Speaker of the NC House had a private meeting with some conservative bloggers to talk about the issue of voter ID in North Carolina elections. (Hmmm. My invitation must have been lost in the mail.)
The latest reports off of Jones Street suggest that Republicans were going to water down the voter ID bill so they could get Democrat votes to override Lame Duck Bev’s veto. (Utility bills could be accepted in lieu of actual government-issued photo IDs.)
Randy Dye published an account of the meeting over on NCRenegade:
Voter ID legislation does not have enough support in the House to override the Governor veto (originally stated that there were not enough votes in the Senate).Leaders from NC Listen, NC Fire, Randy’s Right, Feet to the Fire and NC Renegade were represented with Speaker Tillis today. Very informal, direct and get to know each other atmosphere.I believe Speaker Tillis gave an honest description of the reality on North Carolina politics with voter ID. The Speaker expressed that we do not have the seats in the House to get anther override for voter ID if they send the bill with the hardcore wording:(1) A North Carolina drivers license issued under Article 2 of Chapter 20 of the General Statutes, including a learner’s permit or a provisional license.
(2) A special identification card for nonoperators issued under G.S. 20-37.7.
(3) An identification card issued by a branch, department, agency, or entity of this State, any other state, or the United States.
(4) A United States passport.
(5) An employee identification card issued by any branch, department, agency, or entity of the United States government, this State, or any county, municipality, board, authority, or other entity of this State.
(6) A United States military identification card.
(7) A tribal identification card.
(8) A North Carolina voter identification card issued under G.S. 163-166.14.Bottom line, if no compromise is made, there will be no voter ID bill passed this election cycle, there’s just not enough votes in the House as it stands now. So we have a choice.
Either get some form of voter ID bill passed into law or wait till next election cycle. Then we take the chance of losing or gaining more conservatives seats, along with the possibility of getting another Democratic Governor.
I myself do not second guess elections, so there’s the facts of voter ID as it stands now.
Question: What is so “hardcore” about the current legislation vetoed by Bev? Look at all of the things you have to show a photo ID for in conducting everyday business. The only people opposed to this are those whose political fortunes are tied to machine politics — where ballot box stuffing and voter hauling are done with a wink and a nod.
It sounds like these guys were WAAAAAY too impressed with their private meeting in the Speaker’s office. (I would have asked Tillis for his account on the whole allegation of his reported bullying of a young woman at the NCGOP convention. THAT’S probably why I didn’t get invited to this meeting.)
It’s an election year, folks. Voter ID, in its current form, is a very reasonable measure that is overwhelmingly popular with the people. MAKE THEM VOTE ON THIS AS-IS, THOM. If they vote it down, it’s an issue to put in front of the voters in November.
You folks with the R next to your name were put into power in 2010 to stand up to this kind of nonsense and get our state back on track. Watering down this legislation to allow for utility bills makes it a joke. You will score PR points for passing a bill which is basically toothless.
It’s not about “getting something done.” It’s about doing THE RIGHT THING to protect the folks who sent you up there.
Voting to override Bev’s veto AS-IS is the right thing to do.
We need a scientific advance….the ability to clone and mass-produce more Scott Walkers. An old saying comes to mind here…there are noblemen and noble men….and seldom are they one and the same. We too casually call the ranking members of the Party “the leadership” when in fact they really aren’t leaders….at least in the sense that I learned that word during two decades of soldiering.
This just shows how spineless Tillis is. He would unfortunately fit right in with that surrender monkey Mitch McConnell, which is why we need to fight tooth and nail to see that he is NOT our US Senate nominee.
The polls show the public is overwhelmingly in support of real Voter ID. Hold their feet to the fire in an election year and make them vote on real Voter ID. Don’t give the Dems a useless and phony bill so they can claim they voted for Voter ID. That is the worst of all worlds.
We need to start pushing a conservative candidate for US Senate in 2014. Tillis is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE.
Tillis should have indeed been asked about his Bob Etheridge moment at the state convention, and even more so about his monkeying around in local candidate recruitment to push Democrat moles like Arthur Williams.
“….which is why we need to fight tooth and nail to see that he is NOT our US Senate nominee.”
I don’t disagree…Richard Burr has been a complete sell-out since he upgraded from the House to the Senate. Tillis is cut from the Burr mold. Frankly, I think we need to cut the term of a Senator back from six years, as that term length doesn’t serve its’ purpose anymore as it did when Senators appointed by State legislatures.
From David’s account, it does seem that the activists were more excited with having been given the opportunity to meet with Tillis than with the actual results of the meeting. I know David and he is on the right side, all the way, but I think even he may have been taken in by the trappings of power. Tillis showed off the veto override documents to the activists. My response to that is ‘so what’. The point was to get him to see that the voter id bill needs to pass as is or not at all. I don’t know if that objective was accomplished. I think not.
Seems it is getting to be a trend, you get elected then do what you want, not what the people wants. Wake up america we still have a say so don’t be scared tell them what we as citizens want and if we don’t get it VOTE THEM OUT!