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| (GA) 2/06 - State: Bradley Heard / Ca... |
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From the Mailbag
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 36
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? 
Votes: 1 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 4, 2006 - 4:20 pm: | 
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A news editorial / blog debate, if you will. Here is the initial editorial by Bradley Heard:
Cathy Cox backtracks on ID law
Ga. election chief's actions belie words
By BRADLEY E. HEARD
Published on: 02/03/06 Atlanta Journal Constitution
 At the King Day ecumenical service this year, as in years past, I saw on television the usual parade of Georgia public officials, including Secretary of State Cathy Cox.
Ga. Secretary of State Cathy Cox, a Democrat, voted to seek funds to defend the GOP's voter ID law.
African-Americans are a very important constituency to any Southern Democrat. So it might surprise many black Georgians to know what Cox did two days later, when the cameras weren't rolling. She cast the tiebreaking vote on the Republican-controlled State Election Board she chairs, to ask the Legislature to appropriate $2.5 million to defend the voter ID law — a law a federal judge recently equated to a Jim Crow-era poll tax.
This is the way of the new Southern resistance movement, in which a politician says one thing in public to placate her political base, and then says something else behind closed doors to curry favor with power brokers and swing constituencies.
The Republican-controlled Legislature recently tweaked the voter ID law after a federal judge ruled that the earlier version likely violated several provisions of the U.S. Constitution and federal Voting Rights Act.
When the voter ID bill was debated in the Legislature last year, Cox predicted it would spur untold legal challenges and bring "unnecessary cost and embarrassment to our state." She was right, of course.
As Georgia's chief election official, Cox was required to defend the law during the initial court challenge, which has already cost taxpayers $186,500. Now that the law has been ruled to be presumptively unconstitutional, as Cox herself argued that it was, there was absolutely no need for her to defend it further.
I have come to know Cox's modus operandi all too well while representing a small charitable foundation. Cox rejected several voter registration applications the foundation collected in predominantly African-American south DeKalb County because her office's restrictive procedures essentially prohibited private, nondeputized individuals from collecting and submitting applications.
A federal judge ruled her policies violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. True to form, instead of modifying her office's procedures to comply with the judge's order, Cox appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She lost, yet Cox continues to this day to contest this issue in the courts — at taxpayer expense. She should learn to stop talking out of both sides of her mouth when it comes to voting rights.
Bradley E. Heard is an Atlanta attorney. |
From the Mailbag
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 37
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 4, 2006 - 4:23 pm: |
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Here is Cathy Cox's Communications Director's response:
From Peter Jackson, Communications Director | Cathy Cox for Governor:
In today’s edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an opinion authored by Bradley E. Heard blatantly disregards Cathy Cox’s strong record on civil rights and voting rights. Cathy and her staff protested the AJC’s decision to print this column, but the only relief they were offered was the opportunity to respond with an op-ed of their own sometime next week. In the interim, we wanted to be sure that you had the facts about Cathy’s record and a point-by-point refutation of this smear campaign.
Below you will find excerpts from the column and Cathy’s response:
Mr. Heard: African-Americans are a very important constituency to any Southern Democrat. So it might surprise many black Georgians to know what Cox did two days later, when the cameras weren't rolling. She cast the tiebreaking vote on the Republican-controlled State Election Board she chairs, to ask the Legislature to appropriate $2.5 million to defend the voter ID law < a law a federal judge recently equated to a Jim Crow-era poll tax.
The same federal judge that issued the injunction against the Republican Photo ID law and equated it to a "Jim Crow-era poll tax" relied upon Cathy Cox’s testimony throughout his 123-page order decrying the law’s effect on minority, low-income and elderly voters. Indeed, much of the judge’s reasoning for overturning the law was based upon Cathy’s clear and strong public testimony concerning the discriminatory impacts of this legislation.
She has been a consistent and vocal opponent to this bill, even making appeals to the governor and the U.S. Department of Justice to prevent its passage. She joined with groups as diverse as the AARP, the NAACP and the League of Women Voters in opposing these new barriers to voting.
While the author would have you believe that her so-called "tiebreaking vote" had an evil intent and was cast in secret, nothing could be further from the truth. This was an open meeting in open session. Unfortunately, Cathy has been put in the unenviable position as Secretary of State of defending a law with which she fervently disagrees. Her vote was not a vote to continue the lawsuit; there is nothing whatsoever she can to do end the lawsuit because she is the defendant. Instead, she voted to hold the politicians who control the state budget accountable for the mess they created with the photo ID bill and make the state pay its bills.
Mr. Heard: As Georgia's chief election official, Cox was required to defend the law during the initial court challenge, which has already cost taxpayers $186,500. Now that the law has been ruled to be presumptively unconstitutional, as Cox herself argued that it was, there was absolutely no need for her to defend it further.
It was not Cathy, but the Republican-controlled State Elections Board, Republican members of the legislature and Governor Perdue that insisted that the federal court’s ruling be appealed. Mr. Heard deliberately distorts the truth to give the impression that her vote continued the defense of the voter ID law. In fact, her vote forced those who would support such discriminatory -- and, as she argued, unconstitutional -- legislation to pay the bills themselves.
Mr. Heard: I have come to know Cox's modus operandi all too well while representing a small charitable foundation. Cox rejected several voter registration applications the foundation collected in predominantly African-American south DeKalb County because her office's restrictive procedures essentially prohibited private, nondeputized individuals from collecting and submitting applications.
As Secretary of State, Cathy made it a priority to reach out to those too often left out of the electoral process, targeting the poor, minorities and our youth for voter education and registration outreach. She hired the late, legendary Earl Shinhoster, former head of the NAACP and a man revered for his effectiveness in expanding voting rights, to head up the state’s first-ever registration outreach program. It is no coincidence that minority voter registration has never been higher.
The author refers to rules put in place long before Cathy became Secretary of State to prevent individuals from collecting voter registration forms.
What he doesn’t want you to know is that his own lawsuit now makes your social security number available to anyone who takes up your voter registration form and Cathy and her staff designed three simple steps to try and protect voters from the huge problem of identity theft. Of course, he would have you believe that this was a malicious attempt to suppress African-American voters when the exact opposite is the case.
The record is crystal clear: Cathy Cox has, is, and always will be a consistent and vocal supporter of voting rights. Cathy Cox is being attacked because she’s taking on the insider politicians and special interests. She’s laid out a reform agenda to make our Government work for all Georgians. The column is just one more campaign attack from her opponents who don’t want to see her agenda succeed. I see through it. I hope you will, too.
Peter Jackson
Communications Director
Cathy Cox for Governor
www.cathycox.com |
From the Mailbag
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Mailbag
Post Number: 38
Registered: 10-2005
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 4, 2006 - 4:24 pm: |
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Here's Bradley Heard's response:
February 4, 2006
Dear Mr. Jackson:
I happened to notice your statement on behalf of your boss, Cathy Cox, in response to my recent op-ed piece in the AJC. I welcome Secretary Cox’s comments and response to these issues. Indeed, I believe she owes such a response to the people of Georgia, given the positions she has taken on voting rights issues during her term as Secretary of State.
I would strongly disagree with your assertions that my article is part of some “smear campaign” or that it is “just one more campaign attack from her opponents who don’t want to see her agenda succeed.” My objective was simply to lay out the facts and to describe what I believe to be a very disturbing pattern reflected in Secretary Cox’s record. I have nothing personal against Cathy Cox. I’ve had the opportunity to meet her on a few occasions, and each time I have found her to be a very affable person. She has even personally called me in the past to solicit campaign contributions. My problem with her is that she seems to be taking the completely wrong approach to federal civil and voting rights issues.
Other than the broad and perennial concept of “ethics reform,” which is what her campaign website emphasizes, I’m not even quite sure what Secretary Cox’s “agenda” is. But I do know what her record has been on voting rights issues during her term as Georgia’s chief election official. Time after time, she has chosen to resist the mandates of federal laws designed to safeguard citizens’ rights to vote and/or to register to vote.
Despite your efforts to defend and “spin” your boss’s vote to request $2.5 in funding to defend the Voter ID bill, Secretary Cox cannot run away from that vote. It was her vote, and she needs to accept responsibility for it. It is simply not true that “there is nothing whatsoever she can to do end the lawsuit because she is the defendant.” She could have said: “Hey, I told you all in the beginning that this Voter ID law was illegal and unconstitutional. Someone brought a challenge to the law, and we defended it in court, as we were required to do. Now, a federal judge has agreed with me that the law is akin to a poll tax. Therefore, as Georgia’s chief election official, I cannot in good conscience continue to defend this illegal and unconstitutional law. Instead, I suggest that we agree to a consent order that resolves this case by bringing our state’s Voter ID laws into compliance with federal mandates.” Regrettably, however, Secretary Cox voted to continue defending the law by requesting $2.5 million in funding to pay outside lawyers to continue their appeal of the case to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Talk is cheap. Action is what counts. While all of her statements in opposition to Voter ID during and after the initial legislative debates were welcomed, in some respect, her statements didn’t require any risk on Secretary Cox’s part. It was clear the Republican-led legislature and the Republican governor were never going to agree to her overtures to kill the bill. However, when Secretary Cox actually could have used her influence to stop this ridiculous appeal of the Voter ID law, she voted instead to fuel the fire with an additional $2.5 million. That just doesn’t make sense. You can’t be against something one day and then vote in favor of the same thing the next day. (Remember how John Kerry got bashed in the polls in 2004 with his “I actually voted for the war, before I voted against it” statement?)
You also try to distance Secretary Cox from her office’s restrictive voter registration procedures that prohibited private groups from collecting voter registration forms, in violation of federal law. You claim that these policies were “put in place long before Cathy became Secretary of State.” In fact, the policy was put in place in 1995, right after the effective date of the federal law that allowed private groups to conduct registration drives. But Ms. Cox has been Secretary of State since 1999 and has never chosen to rescind the policy — even after being urged to do so by others on several occasions. Goodness knows, if she disagreed with the restrictive and illegal policy, she certainly could and should have abandoned it at any time. Instead of doing so, however, she has spent the last 19 months (and untold amounts of taxpayer funds) defending the policy in court. Even after 15 judges have looked at the issue, with four of them specifically ruling that her policies were illegal and the rest declining her request to reconsider those rulings for a third time, she still won’t give up. Again, that just doesn’t make sense, and she owes Georgians an explanation for her stubborn-headed behavior.
Your boss has tried to scare people into believing that allowing private groups to collect voter registration applications necessarily means that those groups will have to have access to the social security number of applicants. Of course, what Secretary Cox leaves out of her “horror story” is the fact that another federal judge has already ruled that she was violating federal law by requiring the social security number on the application in the first place. Most states have gotten along just fine without requiring SSNs on their voter applications. The judge ordered Ms. Cox over a year ago to revise Georgia’s voter registration forms so as not to require the SSN. But instead of doing so, she filed an appeal to the 11th U.S. Court of Appeals — yet another example of her resistance to the protection of federal laws.
So, Mr. Jackson, I simply can’t agree with you that “Cathy Cox has, is, and always will be a consistent and vocal supporter of voting rights.” I wish I could, but the record just doesn’t bear that out. However, I do hope that she will rethink her approach to these issues and that, in the last few months of her term, she will demonstrate to Georgians — young and old; black, white, and brown; rich and poor — that she indeed takes federal voting rights protections seriously. Only time will tell.
Very truly yours,
Bradley E. Heard
Original AJC editorial
Cox Rebuttal and Heard response
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Bradley Heard
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Bheardesq
Post Number: 1
Registered: 02-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 4, 2006 - 7:53 pm: |
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And for those of you who are interested, the lengthier, unedited version of my article (from which the AJC edited the version that appeared in the newspaper) may be found on VoteLaw at: http://www.votelaw.com/blog/blogdocs/Commentary_Cathy_Cox.pdf
Brad Heard |
Jill Livingstone
Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Jill122
Post Number: 4
Registered: 01-2006
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Saturday, February 4, 2006 - 11:09 pm: |
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Dear Brad -- thanks for all your efforts. I hope that we win the battle on Photo Voter IDs. As I understand it the senate passed the bill, and it went to Justice. I wrote a letter to AG Gonzalez asking him not to sign off on it because it is inherently prejudiced against the poor, especially those in nursing homes, those without transportation and students who live in our state from between 9 and 12 months but who retain driver's licenses in their "home" states for insurance purposes. (As you might imagine I have not heard back! LOL!)
Because the "problems" which the Court found with the original bill have been addressed (no fee, 200 plus DMV will make the ID) it's not clear to me whether another try at the court will re-buff the bill again.
Another problem we face is the lack of a PAPER TRAIL.
The voting sytem is broken and can no longer be trusted. We must win the paper trail demand or I fear democrats will not win at the national level for a long time.
I hope you will stay in touch.
Jill Livingstone
jillianlivingstone@yahoo.com |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1670
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 3:18 am: |
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Brad,
Thanks for the link to the unedited article.
Your articles are a breath of fresh air for being so clearly and logically expressed and yet not backing down one inch.
It is also a breath of fresh air that the Atlanta Journal Constitution had this debate--particularly that they gave you space to rebut Cox's spin. This is the crucial step that is too often missing.
Too often, the sequence is 1) activist allegations; 2)official/corporate spin to "balance"; 3) end of story. What is needed is the opportunity to point out the inaccuracies of the spin, rather than allowing the spin to be the last word.
Keep speaking out and writing! |
Catherine Ansbro
Frequent Voting Rights Forum Participant
Username: Catherine_a
Post Number: 1671
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 3:52 am: |
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Brad, your original, unedited piece is absolutely superb. Thanks again for sharing the link.
I hope that anybody who reads this thread will follow your link to see what you originally submitted for publication.
It is crucial that people become more aware of typical political tactics and how this plays out. It needs to be spotted and named, called for what it is. And then public representatives need to be lobbied for a higher ethical standard as regards matching their actions to their easily spoken words. |
Bev Harris
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 3533
Registered: 12-2004
Best of Black Box? N/A
Votes: 0 (A keeper?) | | Posted on Sunday, February 5, 2006 - 7:04 pm: |
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Thanks, Bradley, for supplying that link. When I tried to follow the original one from your email it didn't work for me, but the one you included here does work --
The original version is the best -- by all means, folks, do follow that link. |
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