Texas' Voting Law: Second Verse, Same as the First
Imagine we live in a world governed by sweet reason. One where politicians would rather have solutions to problems than issues to run on. A world where the media lives up to its “just the facts ma’am” self-image. Now forget all that because we live in a stupid world where none of it is true.
After the completely irrational tantrum over Georgia’s voting law merely a few months ago, now it’s Texas' turn. About the Lone Stat State’s proposed election reform law, Joe Biden recently gave a delightfully demagogic speech calling it “the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War,” in his trademark brand of nutty hyperbole.
First of all, literal Jim Crow was the law of the land between the civil war and today. Does Joe Biden mean to suggest that the prohibition of drive-thru voting is worse than literal Jim Crow? Or is he saying that extended early voting hours are more despicable than segregated water fountains? The last poll tax wasn’t repealed until the 1960s, but that pales in comparison to prohibiting unsolicited absentee ballot applications?
The idea that Texas' modest roll-back of pandemic-induced emergency measures is some earth-shaking attack on democracy is just batty.
That’s not to say that there aren’t proposals we ought to be gravely concerned about. The original Texas bill lowered the threshold required to overturn election results based on concerns of fraud. That is a serious and dangerous proposal. But it’s not even in the bill under consideration. And the Texas Republicans I talked to were glad the original bill died specifically because it contained that provision.
The fact is simple: the Texas bill will result in a net liberalization of voting rules.
But “something, something Jim Crow” insist the Democrats in the Texas Legislature who, last week, fled to the warm embrace of Washington, D.C.
I agree with Jonah Goldberg’s argument that calling these voting laws “Jim Crow” profoundly undermines the serious evil of Jim Crow. Whatever these laws are, it’s morally ludicrous to compare them de jure segregation and discrimination. But I think I’ve made that point already.
When they’re not calling the proposals “Jim Crow,” you’ll often hear Democrats asserting, with unquestionable certainty, that Republicans wouldn’t be proposing any of these measures if not for “the Big Lie.” (Why is it that we cannot make an argument that something is bad without alluding to some historical infamy?) Which is even dumber than the “Jim Crow” talking point.
That’s not to say that Republicans' motivations aren’t deserving of some scorn. Some subset of the proposals are designed to reassure Republican voters who have bought Donald Trump’s calumny against American democracy. And some number of Republican dead-ender politicians have also bought those lies and are motivated by them. Those motivations deserve to be criticized. But the motivations of those proposing legislation are of little bearing on the rightness of the legislation itself.
That being said, the idea that “the Big Lie” is the only reason these laws are being proposed is obviously not true. All of the pandemic accommodations adopted last year vanish if not ratified by the legislature in most states. In other words, if Republicans had refrained from legislation on voting altogether all of these innovations (ballot drop boxes, extended early voting, no-excuse absentee voting, etc.) disappear.
I want to be on the Democrats' side here. The Republicans' steadfast refusal to tell their voters the truth is deserving of near-limitless scorn. But the Democrats are acting equally disgracefully at the moment. So I find myself, once again, standing outside both parties wishing a pox on them both. A position I’m growing more and more comfortable with.