"Birmingham, Alaska" (Voter ID Migrates North)

Editorial panel first appearing in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on December 16th, based on photographer Bill Hudson's iconic 1963 image from the Birmingham Campaign, where hoses and dogs were deployed against civil right protesters.

Fresh from wallowing in the results of their gerrymandering the last election, and having solved all the other problems facing Alaska, the new Republican majority is addressing a Very Serious Issue. Okay, no not really, they're simply making shit up.

Not just pole-vaulting over a moose nugget: this is bald-faced lying, right out in the open, in plain sight. Assuming that a populace that was ignorant enough to elect them in the first place is also stupid enough to not know or really care what they do, the first important legislation they will champion this legislative session will apparently be to fix the problem of completely non-existent voter fraud.

Two different desktops

As evidenced by several prominent confessions from Republican operatives, their ulterior motives are plainly obvious (see here, here and here for the more recent, brazen examples), it's just that Alaska is a little behind on doing everything it can to keep those irksome brown people from doing basic things like exercising their right to vote. One might suppose a legislator's fundamental job is to make things easier for folks, but evidently the concept of "citizenry" plainly just doesn't extend to, say, non-whites. Not surprisingly, some folks will have a problem about that.

Why is this racist? Because, lie as hard as they try, there just isn't any other rational reason for advancing or supporting such legislation (and this will be the first of many, many other such initiatives to issue forth from Juneau). In all honesty we should be grateful for politicians such as Rep. Bob Lynn (R-Anchorage) who allow us to see the raw, unfiltered motivation behind the party of Angry White Guys. The demographics of deliberate and strategic voter suppression tactics and the erosion of civil liberties is a hallmark of Outside moneyed interests such as ALEC, whose agenda is being furthered by the GOP members in the Alaskan Legislature carrying their water snow.