A little over a week ago, right-wing Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado announced legislation to repeal sections of the federal Voting Rights Act that require ballots in languages other than English. In response, former Colorado Sen. Polly Baca wrote in The Denver Post, "Coffman's actions suggest that he would like to roll the clock back to the time when voters of Hispanic, Asian and Indian heritage were not represented in the political process and the U.S. Congress."
Repealing bilingual ballot requirements for legal citizens? Keep reading: it gets much worse.
Last week, Rep. Coffman told a right-wing AM radio talk show that the Obama administration is "taking a very aggressive move in the people that have illegal status and moving them through citizenship and waving all the fees and waving anything they can to get the process done in time for 2012."
Today, local media critic Jason Salzman, as well as the influential Mother Jones Magazine, picked up on these remarks--and easily proved that they are malicious and groundless lies.
"As Salzman notes, undocumented immigrants can't be moved through the citizenship process, because a prerequisite of applying for citizenship is that you have to be living here legally. The number of fee waivers that have been granted have increased, but again, there's no way to grant a fee waiver to someone who isn't a lawful resident so that's kind of moot; the change is due to the fact that there wasn't previously an easy way to apply. And most crucially, there hasn't actually been an increase in the number of naturalized citizens..." [1]
Rep. Mike Coffman of Aurora has not only proposed legislation deliberately attacking the voting rights of legal American citizens and voters, now he's fabricating false accusations about immigrants who are legally working to become American citizens in a shameless attempt to undermine confidence in our elections--and suppress the vote.
This is an outrage. It's pure and simple bigotry. It's not what Colorado stands for. In fact, Colorado's Constitution was originally published in three languages!
Please don't let Coffman speak for Colorado on voting rights. Send a message right now to Rep. Coffman, demanding that he retract his false statements about legal immigrants to our country--and withdraw his hateful legislation targeting the right of legal American citizens to vote. We'll share your message and comments with Rep. Coffman, the press, and other public officials in the coming days.
There is perhaps no higher ideal in American progressive politics than defending the rights of American citizens to vote. That's why the Voting Rights Acts were written into law decades ago. It's almost unthinkable in this day and age that a politician would call for impeding the access of any citizen to their right to vote.
Not in my state--I hope you agree.
Leave a comment