Posted: Wed, Mar. 28, 2012, 9:01 PM

Lawmaker chastised for wearing hoodie in House

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Rep. Bobby Rush donned a hoodie during a speech on the House floor Wednesday deploring the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, receiving a reprimand for violating rules on wearing hats in the House chamber.

The Illinois Democrat spoke out against racial profiling and, as he removed his suit coat and pulled the hood on the sweatshirt he was wearing underneath over his head, saying "just because someone wears a hoodie does not make them a hoodlum."

Rush was interrupted by the presiding officer, Mississippi Republican Gregg Harper, who reminded him that the wearing of hats was not allowed and "members need to remove their hoods or leave the floor."

On Tuesday the 17-year-old Martin's parents spoke on Capitol Hill at a Democratic-sponsored panel on racial profiling.

Rush founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers in 1968 and served six months in prison for illegal possession of weapons when he was in his 20s. He went on to get a political science degree from Chicago's Roosevelt University, won a seat on Chicago's city council in 1983 and was elected to Congress from Chicago's South Side in 1992. In 2000 he defeated Barack Obama, then a state senator, in a primary battle for Rush's seat.

Rush lost a son to a shooting in 1999 and has been a strong advocate for victims of gun violence.

This series of handout frame grabs from video, provided by House Television shows Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., taking off his jacket to wear a a hoodie and sunglasses as he speaks on the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 28, 2012. Rush donned a hoodie during the speech on the House floor deploring the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, receiving a reprimand for violating rules on wearing hats in the House chamber. (AP Photo/House Television)

Science Technology Engineering Mathematics (STEM) Workshops for Girls in grades 6-10!

Please find information below regarding upcoming STEM Workshops for Girls in grades 6-10 interested in pursuing careers in the STEM fields. Workshops such as these are imperative to increasing female minority participation in the STEM fields.

      Please click the link below to visit the website which offers more details.   
                                 www.STEMgirlsAcademies.info

When are we going to do more than just talk about jobs in Pa?

Published: Thursday, March 22, 2012, 5:00 AM

By Patriot-News Op-EdThe Patriot-News

by Rep. Dwight Evans

With all the talk nationwide about jobs, jobs, jobs, one has to wonder why so many public officeholders or holder-wannabes are so determined to undermine any potential for job, job, job creation. In Pennsylvania, it has taken an odd turn.

Rep. Dwight Evans

Despite a year-old set of recommendations from his own transportation advisory commission, Gov. Tom Corbett has yet to put forth any kind of plan to maintain or repair our state’s crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges, transit systems and other critical avenues needed for an economy that involves moving people and goods on a daily basis.
We are facing a $3.5 billion transportation crisis in the commonwealth, yet there is no plan in sight for a sustainable funding source for all the work that needs to be completed.

Last summer, I introduced House Bill 1834 to set in motion the steps needed to create as many as 30,000 of the jobs, jobs, jobs that would result from this endeavor. Just recently in the House, we debated the existence of a community economic development program that has helped restore the crumbling infrastructure of buildings through the commonwealth.

Some form of the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program has been in place since 1986. It is a matching grant program, funded through government-issued bonds. It has helped to provide critical matching funds to rebuild public structures such as libraries, courthouses, medical facilities, educational institutions, urban business corridors and even sports stadiums and arenas. Dozens of communities statewide have reaped the benefits of this program.

However, legislation to reduce the amount of debt allowed for the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program was approved recently by the House. The proponents of the legislation have completely ignored the fact that not all debt is bad debt. In fact, when government issues bonds for various projects, that money jump-starts the economy, adding jobs, jobs, jobs and prolonging the life of the critical infrastructure needed to attract private industry to invest in our communities.

Government cannot create jobs, jobs, jobs, but it certainly can have an influence on those who do. If Pennsylvania is to be the business-friendly destination that the governor and my colleagues claim they desire, we need to do more, not less, to entice the private sector to invest its dollars and manpower in the commonwealth.

We need to take action on the four-bill (H.B. 2181, H.B. 2182, H.B. 2183 and H.B. 2184) package I introduced this year — Made in PA — to retain, create and stimulate jobs, jobs, jobs.

Instead of cutting dollars to basic and higher education, the incubators of the commonwealth’s future workforce, we must consider more creative ways to invest those dollars, not eliminate them. We must provide additional incentives so private industry is willing to take the entrepreneurial chances necessary to stimulate the imagination and that result in family-sustaining and rewarding jobs, jobs, jobs. It is time to act, act, act.

Rep. Dwight Evans is a Democrat representing Philadelphia.

© 2012 PennLive.com. All rights reserved.

Questions about what's needed to apply for a PA ID? See below!

Pennsylvania

Posted: Fri, Mar. 16, 2012, 3:01 AM

What to bring with you when applying for an ID

WANT A FREE ID to be able to vote? Head to a PennDOT office prepared with:

* Social Security card

* AND one of the following:

• Certificate of U.S. citizenship
• Certificate of naturalization
• Birth certificate with raised seal
• A valid passport

* AND two proofs of residency, such as:

• Mortgage documents
• A valid passport
• W-2 Form
• Current weapons permit
• Current utility bills (cellphone bills don't count)

* If you live with another person, bring the person whose name appears on the bills to the PennDOT office, as well as one piece of official mail (i.e. magazine subscription) with your name and the same address.

State test to limit food stamp access

 

Friday, March 16, 2012

By Karen Langley, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG -- Advocates for the poor testified on Thursday against the reinstatement of a test restricting food stamps to people with limited assets.

Starting May 1, older people and the disabled with more than $9,000 in household assets will no longer qualify for food stamps, while people younger than 60 will no longer qualify if they have household assets of $5,500. While food stamps are a federal program, states can impose asset tests, and the Corbett administration has moved to reinstate a test the state dropped in 2008.

Representatives of groups that work with the poor, along with an organization of food merchants, spoke against the asset test on Thursday at a hearing held by the House Human Services Committee. Many said reinstating the test would burden caseworkers charged with reviewing documentation of household assets and intimidate people from asking for help.

"More red tape means more needy families without help or food," said Louise Hayes, an attorney with Community Legal Services.

Rochelle Jackson, a welfare advocate with Just Harvest, a Pittsburgh organization that addresses poverty and hunger in Allegheny County, spoke about her own experience receiving food stamps.

"Most people who utilize the food stamp program are also very honest and very grateful for the assistance they receive," she said.

The number of people receiving food stamps in Pennsylvania is in line with the state's rates of unemployment and underemployment, said Ellen Vollinger, legal director of the national Food Research & Action Center. She said the decision to reinstate the test is counter to a trend of states to eliminate the tests or allow recipients to accumulate more assets.

Representatives of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association said the asset test would impose a hardship on poor people while cutting into the business of Pennsylvania grocery and convenience stores.

The state will count savings and checking accounts, cash, stocks, bonds and secondary vehicles toward the asset limit, but not a person's home and the surrounding land, household goods, burial plots, life insurance or pension plans. Until the asset test was eliminated in 2008, the state restricted food-stamp recipients to $2,000 in household assets, or $3,250 for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Recipients will not have to provide documentation of their assets until their regularly scheduled review, said Carey Miller, a spokeswoman for the Department of Public Welfare.

"The asset test is being imposed to ensure that individuals first deplete all readily available resources before relying on public assistance, and as a result preserve the benefit for those who have no additional means," Ms. Miller said.

The Department of Public Welfare estimates 4,000 households will lose food stamps because of the asset test. Across the state, 1.8 million people receive the benefit.

 

Karen Langley: klangley@post-gazette.com or 1-717-787-2141.

PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE

GOP makes a phony case for voter ID law

March 16, 2012 12:00 am

By Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette /

Republican-dominated statehouses are rushing to pass beefed-up voter ID legislation ahead of the November presidential election. Republican governors are rushing to sign them while droning, in solemn tones, that "voter integrity" is at stake.

Pennsylvania's new law signed this week by Gov. Tom Corbett requires voters to show photo identification at the polls, just in time for the April primary and the November election. Funny how as Pennsylvania's former attorney general, Mr. Corbett never found the time to prosecute a case of the voter fraud his fellow Republicans insist is rampant in the state.

So how did the integrity of the voter rolls move to the top of his agenda?

First, let's eliminate some misconceptions about the governor's motives: You can be sure that despite having 900,000 fewer registered voters than the Democrats in this state, the last thing the Republicans running Harrisburg want to do is discourage the turnout of likely Democratic voters. Just banish that paranoid thought from your pointy little heads.

In fact, it's indisputable that every piece of voter ID legislation passed in 13 state legislatures and fast-tracked in 21 others is aimed at increasing the turnout of university students, minority and elderly voters, despite the fact that they're more likely to vote Democratic. To say otherwise is to -- quite frankly -- acknowledge an overrated thing called reality.

So we have to ask ourselves: When has the Republican Party been anything less than magnanimous, especially when it comes to Democratic voters? Why can't liberal activist groups like the ACLU, AARP and NAACP, let alone the U.S. Department of Justice, see that voter ID laws increase political participation, especially in states like Pennsylvania where the overwhelming majority of citizens qualified to vote stay home on Election Day?

Admittedly, only four cases of voter fraud of some kind have been litigated in Pennsylvania since 2008, but that doesn't mean poll-watchers in Zimbabwe aren't looking to us for tips on how to handle the inconvenient expectations that one is entitled to a vote.

Republicans point to registration errors and fake names on petitions as evidence of probable voter fraud, though there is no evidence that there's a correlation between the two. Still, whether tightening voter ID requirements is a good or bad thing, when the majority of qualified citizens have opted not to participate in the most fundamental ritual of democracy, depends on how one looks at the world. 

For instance, there is a widespread belief that a right to privacy is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and that women, as citizens, are entitled to its protections.

Some consider the mandatory ultrasound exams imposed on women who want to end their pregnancies to be a clear violation of a woman's right to privacy. But from the perspective of the male legislators introducing ultrasound legislation across the country, it is about imparting information to expectant mothers. It's not about ending abortion, per se. How could anyone question the purity of their motives?

This brings us back to the irresponsible notion that the lack of actual widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania is somehow evidence that poor, elderly, minority citizens and college students should be left to bask in their enfranchisement unmolested. In the grand tradition of fixing things that ain't broke, the Republicans have come up with a process that increases the aggravation factor when it comes to voting.

None of the requirements for a photo ID will be impossible to meet, but it will make voting inconvenient. While the Republicans aren't erecting literal barriers to voting, they can't say with a straight face that they aren't introducing an element of unprecedented Election Day hassle. That is the point.

In a nation already cursed with low turnouts, there is a fiendish elegance to voter ID laws. It's a tactic exclusively designed to reduce the number of Democratic voters, who will be discouraged by long lines in their precincts caused by the new screening procedures.

The GOP estimates that only 90,000 citizens across the state will have trouble getting the required photo IDs to prove their identities. Liberal groups, meanwhile, estimate that as many as 700,000 might be discouraged from voting under the new protocol.

The point is that Republicans are willing to risk seeing at least 100,000 fewer voters at the polls in November -- most of whom presumably lean Democratic -- all in the name of "voter integrity." Whoever said voting should be easy in America must have been a Democrat.

PA passes controversial voter id law

Below please find a link to an interview with PLBC Vice Chair, Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown on the CBS Evening News which aired on Thursday, March 15, 2012 regarding House Bill 934.


http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7402217n&tag=contentMain%3BcontentBody

Challenges loom for Pennsylvania's new voter ID law

Published: Thursday, March 15, 2012, 6:00 AM

By The Associated PressThe Associated Press

Constituents cast their votes.

Pennsylvania became home to one of the nation’s toughest voter-identification measures Wednesday, a prelude to a likely legal challenge just as judges at various levels move to analyze a number of other new state laws that make similar demands of voters.

Republican-controlled legislatures in Pennsylvania and around the country have actively pursued photo ID laws ahead of the 2012 presidential election in what supporters say is an attempt to prevent voter fraud.

Although Democrats and many county officials say there have been no instances of voter fraud that justify such a law, Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed the bill Wednesday night, a few hours after it was approved by the state House.

The new law will be in effect for the Nov. 6 general election. The April 24 Pennsylvania Primary will be treated as a test run — ID will be requested but not required. The Department of State plans to send out postcards in September and air radio and TV ads, state secretary Carol Aichele said.

Corbett pledged that state agencies will add extra hours to transport people, particularly the elderly, to get identification cards from PennDOT’s service centers.

In the signing ceremony at his Capitol offices, Corbett called the new law a preventive measure, but he could not offer examples of voter fraud to back up his contention that the crime has occurred in certain precincts in the past.

“I believe we need to ensure that our elections are fair,” Corbett said.

Now, Pennsylvanians will need to show a photo ID that meets the law’s guidelines every time they vote.

After three days of floor debate, the House passed the bill on a 104-88, vote, largely along partisan lines. Every Democrat opposed it, while three Republicans — Reps. Kurt A. Masser of Columbia County, Marguerite Quinn of Bucks County and Chris Ross of Chester County — broke ranks to oppose it. The Senate passed it 26-23 last week.

The law requires a photo ID, including many government employee photo IDs, student IDs from colleges and universities in Pennsylvania and IDs for people who live in elder-care institutions in the state, as long as they show a name, photo and expiration date that makes them current.

Democrats called it a thinly veiled attempt to defeat President Barack Obama in the November election, when Pennsylvania, historically a swing state, is again expected to be a high-profile battleground.

They summoned images of civil rights-era battles, such as the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march in Alabama, to protest what they view as a throwback to the now-unconstitutional poll taxes and literacy tests designed to discriminate against poor and minority voters.

“We’re about to turn back the pages of history to that era by imposing what is a poll tax, among other obstacles, for the most vulnerable people in our community that have the right today to vote. And tomorrow, who knows?” said Rep. Daniel Frankel, D-Allegheny County.

The Obama campaign criticized the measure as “a costly bill to address a nonexistent problem” while Democratic lawmakers and the American Civil Liberties Union vowed a court challenge.

Similar laws in other states face legal challenges.

On Monday, the Obama administration blocked a new voter ID law in Texas, drawing fierce criticism from Republicans. The Justice Department said the law harms Hispanic voters, who, it said, disproportionately lack driver’s licenses or other photo ID. The action followed a similar move in December to block a voter ID law in South Carolina that federal officials said adversely affects black voters.

Last week, a similar law in Wisconsin was stayed by a judge, preventing it from taking effect for that state’s April 3 primary. The judge acted after hearing testimony from 40 residents who described the costs and difficulties they encountered in trying to obtain an ID.

Corbett said he believes voter turnout will increase, and Republicans said they are confident the bill will withstand scrutiny.

“It’s simple, straightforward, it’s designed to ensure the integrity of everybody’s vote,” said House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny County. “It’s ‘Here is an ID, a photo ID, and if you need to get a photo ID, we’ll give you one for free.’¤”

Democrats contend that getting a photo ID from the state will not be free or easy, noting that applying for supporting paperwork such as birth certificates and passports costs money and that getting them takes months.

Also, the six-day window after the election allowed by the measure for a voter to supply photo ID to elections officials if they don’t have one at the polls is really shorter because state offices, such as state driver’s license centers and county elections bureaus, are typically closed on weekends, Democrats said.

The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania said systems are in place to prevent duplicate or erroneous registration. It also warned lawmakers that the additional step of requiring poll workers to check photo IDs will lengthen Election Day lines at polling places and create voter confusion but provide no extra security for ballots.

The bill also was opposed by AARP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, labor unions and good-government groups. Some of the groups, as well as the Obama campaign, pledged information campaigns to educate voters.

The new law:

A voter must show ID. The acceptable forms must be current, show the individual’s name, photograph, expiration date and be issued by:

—The U.S. government, state government or a municipal or county government in Pennsylvania.

— PennDOT.

— An accredited public or private institution of higher education in Pennsylvania.

— A nursing home, assisted-living home or personal-care home in Pennsylvania.

Exceptions include:

— Nonphoto driver’s license or ID cards issued by PennDOT for voters who have a religious objection to being photographed.

— A PennDOT ID that has expired within the last year.

— U.S. armed forces IDs that show an indefinite expiration date.

— Absentee-ballot voters, who may provide their driver’s license number or, if they do not have a license, the last four digits of their Social Security number.

People without proper ID may:

— Cast a provisional ballot on Election Day and within six days submit a valid photo identification to county elections officials in person or by e-mail or fax.

Sources: Pennsylvania Department of State, Pennsylvania Senate, House Bill 934

Visit the PLBC Website!

Check out the PLBC website's video center to hear members' floor remarks regarding House Bill 934. Please find the link below.

http://www.pahouse.com/plbc/Video.asp

	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
State Rep. Ronald Waters D-Delaware/Phila. www.pahouse.com/waters

Waters: Voter ID bill an attempt to suppress senior, minority, low-income vote

HARRISBURG, March 13 – State Rep. Ronald G. Waters, chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, said the Voter ID legislation passed by Republican leadership in the House and Senate is an attack on Pennsylvania's poor, senior and minority voters.

The legislation (H.B. 934) would require all voters in every single election to present an unexpired, valid government photo ID in order to vote. Current federal law only requires voters to present identification when they vote for the first time in a new election precinct.

"The very party which prides itself on fiscal conservatism and minimalist government can now take credit for one of the biggest wastes of money and government meddling in recent history," Waters said. "There is no voter fraud in Pennsylvania. This bill is the fraud -- there is no mass conspiracy to rig elections -- study after study proves that.

"This is nothing more than an attempt by Republican leadership to keep seniors, minorities and low-income citizens from their constitutional right to vote," Waters continued. "As other states like Wisconsin and Texas are ruling similar laws unconstitutional, Pennsylvania will have the distinction of moving backwards with this discriminatory bill. It is a waste of taxpayer dollars, and it will eventually be overturned at taxpayer expense."

Waters said the Corbett administration itself estimates it will cost more than $4 million.

"It astounds me that there is no money for public education, colleges and universities, the disabled or poor, but there's money for a non-existent voter fraud problem," Waters added. 

Waters said Pennsylvania already has effective systems in place to prevent voter fraud, including the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which allows the state to verify a voter's identity by:

• registering to vote at the same time that they apply for, or seek to renew, a driver's license;
• submitting their voter-registration applications by mail, using forms developed jointly by each state and the Election Assistance Commission; and
• requiring states to offer voter-registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance of any kind.

###

	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
State Rep. Ronald G. Waters D-Philadelphia/Delaware www.pahouse.com/Waters

PLBC endorses Battle as Commissioner of State Athletic Commission

HARRISBURG, March 9 – In a letter to Gov. Corbett, State Rep. Ronald G. Waters, D-Phila./Delaware, and members of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, recently proclaimed their support for Rudy Battle to continue his role as a Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission.

"Commissioner Battle has done a superb job in oversight of boxing and mixed martial arts events," Waters said. "His knowledge in the ring provides the appropriate level of constructive critique of referees and judges’ performances necessary to maintain proper professionalism, including implementation of a uniform dress code for officials at all events."

Commissioner Battle is lauded by many athletic professionals throughout the world. He is a world champion, having been awarded championship belts from the International Boxing Federation, the World Boxing Organization and the World Boxing Union. He is a 1998 inductee of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame.

In addition to his athletic accomplishments, Commissioner Battle has pioneered efforts of inclusion and is responsible for the recruitment of the first minority Mixed Martial Arts judge in Pennsylvania.

"It is for these reasons, and many more, that my colleagues and I confidently offer our recommendations for Commissioner Rudy Battle’s re-nomination," Waters acclaimed. "His commitment and dedication to our state and to the sport are unwavering and well deserving of the continuation of his appointment."

The SAC operates under the Department of State and is responsible for oversight of over 900 professionals and sporting events including professional boxing, mixed martial arts, kickboxing and wrestling. 

Waters serves as Chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus.

###

Black Students Face More Discipline, Data Suggests

March 7, 2012 12:01 am
By TAMAR LEWIN / The New York Times

Black students, especially boys, face much harsher discipline in public schools than other students, according to new data from the Department of Education.

Although black students made up only 18 percent of those enrolled in the schools sampled, they accounted for 35 percent of those suspended once, 46 percent of those suspended more than once and 39 percent of all expulsions, according to the Civil Rights Data Collection's 2009-10 statistics from 72,000 schools in 7,000 districts, serving about 85 percent of the nation's students. The data covered students from kindergarten age through high school.

One in five black boys and more than one in 10 black girls received an out-of-school suspension. Over all, black students were three and a half times as likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.

And in districts that reported expulsions under zero-tolerance policies, Hispanic and black students represent 45 percent of the student body, but 56 percent of those expelled under such policies.

"Education is the civil rights of our generation," said Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, in a telephone briefing with reporters on Monday. "The undeniable truth is that the everyday education experience for too many students of color violates the principle of equity at the heart of the American promise."

The department began gathering data on civil rights and education in 1968, but the project was suspended by the Bush administration in 2006. It has been reinstated and expanded to examine a broader range of information, including, for the first time, referrals to law enforcement, an area of increasing concern to civil rights advocates who see the emergence of a school-to-prison pipeline for a growing number of students of color.

According to the schools' reports, over 70 percent of the students involved in school-related arrests or referred to law enforcement were Hispanic or black.

Black and Hispanic students -- particularly those with disabilities -- are also disproportionately subject to seclusion or restraints. Students with disabilities make up 12 percent of the student body, but 70 percent of those subject to physical restraints. Black students with disabilities constituted 21 percent of the total, but 44 percent of those with disabilities subject to mechanical restraints, like being strapped down. And while Hispanics made up 21 percent of the students without disabilities, they accounted for 42 percent of those without disabilities who were placed in seclusion.

"Those are extremely dramatic numbers, and show the importance of reinstating the civil rights data collection and expanding the categories of information collected," said Deborah J. Vagins, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office. "The harsh punishments, especially expulsion under zero tolerance and referrals to law enforcement, show that students of color and students with disabilities are increasingly being pushed out of schools, oftentimes into the criminal justice system."

While the disciplinary data was probably the most startling, the data showed a wide range of other racial and ethnic disparities. For while 55 percent of the high schools with low black and Hispanic enrollment offered calculus, only 29 percent of the high-minority high schools did so -- and even in schools offering calculus, Hispanics made up 20 percent of the student body but only 10 percent of those enrolled in calculus.

And while black and Hispanic students made up 44 percent of the students in the survey, they were only 26 percent of the students in gifted and talented programs.

The data also showed that schools with a lot of black and Hispanic students were likely to have relatively inexperienced, and low-paid, teachers. On average, teachers in high-minority schools were paid $2,251 less per year than their colleagues elsewhere. In New York high schools, though, the discrepancy was more than $8,000, and in Philadelphia, more than $14,000.

Many of the nation's largest districts had very different disciplinary rates for students of different races. In Los Angeles, for example, black students made up 9 percent of those enrolled, but 26 percent of those suspended; in Chicago, they made up 45 percent of the students, but 76 percent of the suspensions.

In recent decades, as more districts and states have adopted zero-tolerance policies, imposing mandatory suspension for a wide range of behavioral misdeeds, more and more students have been sent away from school for at least a few days, an approach that is often questioned as paving the way for students to fall behind and drop out.

A previous study of the federal data from the years before 2006, published in 2010 by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, found that suspension rates in the nation's public schools, kindergarten through high school, had nearly doubled from the early 1970s through 2006 -- from 3.7 percent of public school students in 1973 to 6.9 percent in 2006 -- in part because of the rise of zero-tolerance school discipline policies.

But because the Department of Education has not yet posted most of the data from the most recent collection, it is not yet possible to extend those findings. On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Duncan will announce the results at Howard Univerity, and from then on the data will become publicly available, at ocrdata.ed.gov.

Voter ID bill limits basic right, opponents say

By Karen Langley / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Opponents of a bill to require voters to show photo identification said this morning the measure would disenfranchise voters who are elderly, poor or minorities.

Hours before a Senate panel was scheduled to consider the proposal, state leaders of the AARP, the NAACP, the SEIU and the AFL-CIO urged lawmakers to defeat the bill. They unfurled a petition with 13,000 signatures down the steps of the Capitol toward 2nd Street and said they would deliver district-by-district petitions with at least 100 signatures to every senator.

Speakers said the effort to require photo identification at the polls is intended not to reduce voter fraud but to make it harder for certain groups of people to vote.

"It has nothing to do with voter fraud," said Richard Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO. "This is about trying to get failed ideas past the Legislature by keeping people from voting."

J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the NAACP Pennsylvania State Conference, called the bill racist and said his organization is prepared to challenge a photo identification law in court.

The bill would require all voters to show photo identification, where currently first-time voters must show identification with their name and address. The bill would also mandate that workers at polling sites for primary elections ask for photo identification, though people without identification could still vote.

The bill passed the House last year before a Senate committee amended it to allow the use of identification cards issued by universities and nursing homes.

The law would take full effect for the November general election.

Karen Langley: klangley@post-gazette.com or 717-787-2141.

First Published 2012-03-12 19:54:17   

Pennsylvania voter ID bill headed for 3rd day of House debate

Published: Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 6:31 PM Updated: Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 7:59 PM

Suzanne Trayer, in yellow, and husband John, behind her, sign
in to vote at Chambers Hill Fire Company in Swatara Twp.
With them are their children, from left, Kendall, 1, Aubrey, 7,
Caleb, 11, and Andrew, 13. Dan Gleiter, The Patriot News

By The Associated PressThe Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania's House of Representatives is delaying a vote on a measure to establish one of the nation's toughest photo identification laws for voters.

House Speaker Sam Smith said the debate would continue a third day Wednesday after almost six hours of debate Tuesday.

Approval by the Republican-controlled chamber would send the measure to Gov. Tom Corbett, also a Republican, who says he'll sign it immediately. A court challenge is expected.

Democrats criticize it as a veiled effort to defeat President Barack Obama by suppressing some traditionally Democratic voters, such as minorities and college students, while making it more difficult for the elderly and disabled.

Republicans say it'll combat voter fraud and protect the sanctity of elections through the use of widely available IDs. Counties warn of longer election day lines.

Pennsylvania House debates bill requiring IDs to vote

Published: Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 1:25 PM Updated: Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 4:00 PM

Protect Our Vote, a coalition of 45 organizations opposed to House
Bill 934, holds a rally at the state Capitol Rotunda. The Voter ID law,
if passed, would require every state citizen to present photo identification
as a condition for voting in primary and general elections. J. Whyatt Mondesire,
president of the conference of Pennsylvania's NAACP branches, speaks in the
Capitol Rotunda. 03/05/2012 DAN GLEITER, The Patriot-News

Republicans pressed against Democratic opposition for passage of a bill in Pennsylvania's House of Representatives that would require voters to show photo identification before voting, beginning with this year's presidential election.

Debate began before noon today and is expected to last for several hours. The Republican-controlled Senate approved the bill last week, and House approval would send the bill to Gov. Tom Corbett, also a Republican, who plans to sign it.

The bill, which would give Pennsylvania one of the nation's toughest voter ID laws, is touted by Republicans as a way to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats responded that Republicans have no evidence that voter fraud is a far-reaching problem that could be stopped by a photo ID requirement.

It may generate a court challenge by the ACLU or Senate Democrats, while other groups that oppose the bill, such as AARP and the Philadelphia-based Committee of Seventy, plan to mount public information campaigns to help voters understand the changes.

In particular, the elderly, disabled and poor will be hard-pressed to satisfy the ID requirement, Democrats said.
The County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania has said that, urban legends aside, there is no proof that voting fraud is a problem and it warned that the mandate will unnecessarily increase the length of lines at the polls, create confusion for some voters, and result in no greater security of the ballot.

But Republicans countered that IDs are used widely as part of daily interactions in society and that the law comes with adequate safeguards for them.

PennDOT will provide free photo IDs for those who have no ID that would satisfy the new requirement, and voters who show up at polls without proper ID could cast a provisional ballot and get a six-day grace period to get ID and submit it to election officials, they said.

Republican legislatures around the country are pressing voter ID bills, and Pennsylvania would become one of 16 states that either require or request photo IDs from voters, according to information from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department blocked a similar law designed to take effect in Texas this year, saying it could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of registered Hispanics. The move means that now a federal court in Washington will decide whether Texas, as well as South Carolina, will be allowed to enforce its new voter photo ID requirements.

Pennsylvania is not subject to the same federal review, required by Section 5 of the federal Voting Rights Act, because the state is not deemed to have a history of restricting the opportunity to register and vote.

© 2012 PennLive.com. All rights reserved.

Annette John-Hall: Voter ID bill: Shades of modern-day poll tax

Posted: Tue, Mar. 13, 2012, 3:01 AM

Annette John-Hall: Voter ID bill: Shades of modern-day poll tax

Brittany Edmonds of West Philadelphia
had to deal with a change-of-address card.
(DAVID M. WARREN/ Staff Photographer)

Is it just me or does Pennsylvania House Bill 934, the voter-suppression, I mean, voter-identification law, feel oppressively like a modern-day poll tax?

Today, the House is expected to pass the bill, which would require that every voter produce a government-issued photo identification at the polls. Gov. Corbett can't wait to sign it - just in time for the November election.

Hmmm. A law supposedly written to safeguard against unproven voter fraud smells like obstructionist trickery to me.

It wasn't that long ago that African Americans were subjected to a series of voter-suppression tactics that prevented them from even registering in the Jim Crow South. Included were straight-up intimidation, literacy tests, and a "poll tax" imposed on any voter who dare try and cast a ballot.

Disenfranchised and defeated, black citizens were stopped before they could even start.

Which is the effect I fear that a voter ID law will have on the state's poor, minority, and senior voters.
Most of whom live right here in Philadelphia.

One more hurdle

How hard could it be? Just go down to the Department of Transportation and get an identification card. After all, the state will provide one free if you can't afford one.

Well, the prospect is daunting for poor residents without driver's licenses or passports who are used to operating on the fringe: whose lives consist of check-cashing places and SEPTA tokens, of money orders and cash-only economies, where a photo ID isn't asked for and required.

For people with mobility issues, just getting to the Department of Transportation means one more hurdle they must clear.

"Folks who don't have an ID may not take the time and effort to get a government-issued one," says Ken Smukler of InfoVoter Technology, operator of the largest voter hotline in the nation. "So it has the effect of suppressing turnout of African Americans and Latinos, which is an overlay for Obama super voters."

Ding ding ding! Professor, I know the answer.

Think about it. Why, in a shaky economy, would Gov. Corbett be willing to shell out up to $4 million to enforce an unnecessary law supposedly designed to thwart voter-impersonation fraud - of which there is virtually none?

Not only that, it's no surprise that Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Mississippi - the states that passed the strictest laws since President Obama's election - are mostly red to the core.

Please. This isn't about policy. It's about politics. So much for small government.

New can of worms

State Rep. Vanessa Lowery Brown (D., Phila.) has fought against HB 934 since Daryl D. Metcalfe (R., Butler), known as the Assembly's staunchest conservative, introduced it last year.

Now that the legislation is close to passing, Brown is focusing on educating the constituents of West Philly's 190th District, which ranks among the top five poorest districts in the state.

The law opens a whole new can of worms, she says.

Because the economy has forced many to move from place to place, Brown worries that even if her constituents do get ID cards, "the addresses won't match the addresses on the voting roles, and they won't be able to vote."

Like 22-year-old Brittany Edmonds, a constituent who recently moved from her own place back to her mother's home. Edmonds' ID card lists her old address; Brown showed her how to fill out a change of address card.

(Edmonds sent in her change of address card in January. She told me last week that she hadn't received
it yet.)

Metcalfe insists that you can't "board a commercial airplane, cash a paycheck, operate a motor vehicle, or even purchase a season pass to an amusement park without displaying valid photo ID."

But it's a false comparison. Voting isn't some amusement-park dalliance done during spring break. It's a inalienable right that too many determined, disenfranchised citizens suffered and died for.

Sadly, they're the same kind of citizens that HB 934 seeks to suppress.

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Contact Annette John-Hall at 215-854-4986, Ajohnhall@phillynews.com or on Twitter @Annettejh.

Posted: Tue, Mar. 13, 2012, 3:01 AM

DN Editorial: Voter-ID bill paints ugly picture of democracy

                Voters cast their ballots inside the Mummers Museum
on Second Street during Election Day in 2010.
(David Maialetti/Staff Photographer)

Philadelphia Daily News

COMING SOON to a polling place near us?
In Aurora, Ohio, on March 6, an 86-year-old World War II veteran was prevented from voting at the same precinct he has lived in for 40 years: His driver's license had expired, and an ID from the Veterans' Administration wasn't acceptable under Ohio's new voter- ID law.
Stories like these are surely what's in store if a similar bill passed by the Pennsylvania Senate last week - and up for a vote in the House - becomes law.
In recent months, Republican-controlled legislatures in 34 states have decided that the threat of voter-impersonation fraud is growing, even though it has been measured in Pennsylvania at 0.00002 percent, as in two hundred-thousandths of a percent, as in four voter-fraud convictions compared with 20 million votes cast since 2004.
Registration fraud is not voter fraud - dogs, dead people and movie-star mice may occasionally be slipped onto registration rolls, but they don't show up to vote. Yet Pennsylvania's law could block tens of thousands of real, live and eligible voters from exercising their rights, voters that not so coincidentally are young, poor and minority, the ones most likely to favor the Democrats . . . and cost $4.3 million to enforce. Older Pennsylvanians who have voted regularly for decades also may find themselves disenfranchised.
Not coincidentally, Pennsylvania's law is nearly identical to model legislation drafted by a conservative think tank called the American Legislative Exchange Council, making it abundantly clear that Republican legislators are taking their inspiration, if not their orders, from the national Republican establishment - not their constituents.
The Republican National Committee even has tried unsuccessfully to get out of a 1982 settlement in which it had agreed to seek court approval before posting off-duty police officers in minority precincts, among other practices that Democrats had charged were attempts at intimidation. In ruling against the RNC on Thursday, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit Court wondered aloud why the RNC was so anxious to be released from the settlement if it didn't hope to take action that would violate it.
Just yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department blocked Texas from enforcing its voter-ID law because Hispanics are disproportionately less likely to have state-issued identification than other voters. Texas is one of 16 mostly Southern states that, because of history of voter discrimination, must get Justice Department or court approval before making changes to its local voting laws. Pennsylvania is not one of those jurisdictions, but its voter-ID law would have a similar effect on minorities and should be challenged in court.
The threat to voting rights now isn't as obvious as when Martin Luther King led the 1965 march to push for the Voting Rights Act, but it's just as real.

Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial: Voter ID effort is a ruse

Voter ID effort is a ruse

Even though the voter-ID bill is a fix in search of a problem, its otherwise cost-conscious Republican backers in Harrisburg are prepared to squander from $5 million to $11 million a year to set up the additional bureaucracy needed to provide non-drivers with special identification.

The state Senate’s supposed broadening of the forms of ID to be required at the polls doesn’t make this proposal any more acceptable, since the inevitable delays that will occur on Election Day while people’s documents are being checked could disfranchise other voters who will be turned away.

Similarly, the proposed option that would allow challenged voters to reappear within six days at their county board of elections bearing photo identification is no reassurance, since it’s hard enough for many people to get to the polls in the first place.

For Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) to link this outrageous version of a new poll tax to “the very foundation of our democracy” demonstrates a depth of cynicism that’s astounding.

Corbett earlier demonstrated there are limits to the extent to which he would join such a blatant power grab when he backed away from the goofy idea of apportioning the state’s Electoral College votes. He should show the same common sense by vetoing any version of a voter-ID law that reaches his desk.

If the governor won’t do that, let the legal challenges begin.

Veteran IDs problem with voter measure

Proposed bill wouldn't allow disabled veterans to use photo ID issued by VA not stamped with expiration date

Intelligencer Journal
Lancaster New Era

Mar 12, 2012 22:44

 

By TOM MURSE
Staff Writer

A controversial proposal requiring all Pennsylvania voters to show certain photo identification at their polling places could make it more difficult for many disabled veterans to cast ballots.
The legislation being debated by the state House would not permit disabled veterans to use photo ID cards issued by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that are not stamped with an expiration date.
Republicans who support the voter ID measure say the intention of the bill is to crack down on voter fraud, and they say requiring voters to produce a recent photo of themselves is crucial to the effort.
But critics say the legislation is a slap in the face to Americans who served their country and are merely seeking to exercise their civic duty.
"For me, it's the principle of the matter. … You know what they went through to get that ID? I don't think most people do," said Gary Schreckengost, a retired U.S. Army infantry major in the Army Reserve and veteran of wars in Bosnia and Iraq.
"For them to flippantly say, 'Oh, they can go get a driver's license' — you don't understand all the bureaucratic crap they've already gone through," said Schreckengost, who lives in Elm and alerted local lawmakers to the issue.
Ron Ruman, a spokesman for the Department of State, the agency that oversees election in Pennsylvania, said the bill would indeed require voters to show an ID that has an expiration date. IDs without an expiration date would not be accepted.
"The Legislature can amend this when it wants to. In the meantime, those folks could apply for a nondriver's license photo ID," he said. "They've got to get to the driver's license center, but that's a one-time thing that's good for four years."
State Rep. Scott Boyd, a Republican from West Lampeter Township, said the form of ID in question is a VA medical benefits card, which includes a photograph but no expiration date because the benefits are for life.
He confirmed that the voter ID legislation under consideration now would not allow those cards to be used at polling places. He said he will work to revise the law if it passes and is signed by the governor.
It is unclear how many veterans hold only those forms of ID, but Boyd indicated they are in the minority.
"It is important to note that most veterans who have this card have other forms of photo ID readily available, like a driver's license or a passport," Boyd said.
"In addition, the bill provides for any individual — not just a veteran — to apply for and secure a free photo ID from (the state Department of Transportation)," he said.
The bill has already passed the Senate and cannot be easily amended at this stage of the process, Boyd said.
"I will be working with staff to draft a revision to this act as soon as it becomes law," Boyd said. "Perhaps, with bipartisan support, the revision may well be adopted prior to my departure from the legislature."
Boyd is retiring at the end of 2012.
Gov. Tom Corbett has indicated he would sign the bill as is, which would give Pennsylvania one of the nation's toughest voter ID laws. A spokesperson, asked about concerns about the veteran IDs, said the governor did not have a position on that specific issue.
The legislation is opposed by Democrats, civil liberties advocates, labor unions, the AARP, the NAACP and a county commissioners association.
Pennsylvania Republicans say the requirement will prevent fraudulent votes. Their counterparts in other state houses across the country are pushing for similar measures ahead of this year's presidential election.
A spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which has been tracking the legislation here, said the agency does not have deep concerns about the bill because there are ways for veterans to obtain acceptable forms of identification so they can vote.
"We see a variety of ways that most people would be able to get a valid ID," Military and Veterans Affairs spokesperson Joan Nissley said.
State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Butler County Republican who authored the bill, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday. Lancaster County's director of veterans affairs also could not be reached for comment.
Schreckengost, in a letter to the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era, urged other veterans to boycott the election or use their VA cards to get turned away from the polls.
"I urge all Pennsylvanians to stand by those few who, for whatever reason, have only a VA photo ID card because it's the only one they have or think they should have," he wrote. "Trust me, they went through far more things than most people did to get said document. They stood by you when you needed them, and I urge you, in this little way, to stand by them."
tmurse@lnpnews.com

Picture this: Voter ID law is about to pass

March 09, 2012|BY WILLIAM BENDER & MICHAEL HINKELMAN, Daily News Staff Writers

VOTER IMPERSONATION is for losers.
Labor-intensive with minimal results, it's typically a fruitless fraud, a laughably ineffective attempt to steal an election.
Perhaps that's why the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School calls voting in someone else's name "an occurrence more rare than getting struck by lightning."
But, hey, getting struck by lightning probably sucks, right?
Fear not, Pennsylvania.
Gov. Corbett and Republicans in Harrisburg are about to put a law on the books that will require all voters to produce state-approved photo identification before they can cast a ballot in November.
"It's gonna happen," Ellen Mattleman Kaplan, vice president of the Committee of Seventy government-watchdog group, said of the voter-ID bill approved Wednesday by the state Senate and expected to pass in the House on Monday.

Corbett's waiting to sign it.
If he does, election officials would use next month's primary to remind voters that a valid ID would be mandatory in the November election.
The state would provide free photo IDs for people who don't have one. Voters without an ID could cast a provisional ballot, but they must provide proof of identity within six days of the election.
In other words, it'll make voting more difficult for some residents.
Democratic politicians and election officials in Philadelphia are apoplectic, saying that the law targets a virtually nonexistent form of voting fraud.
Its ultimate goal, they say, is kicking President Obama out of the White House by reducing turnout among the city's low-income, minority and elderly voters.
"It's part of the Republican agenda to suppress the vote," said state Sen. Vincent Hughes. "That's why I call it the 'voter-suppression rule.' "
State Rep. Rosita Youngblood calls it a "sham." Councilman Wilson Goode Jr. calls it "ridiculous." State Sen. Anthony Williams calls it a "charade" and vows to challenge it in court.
"I think it's just a fear that Philadelphia, in particular, would turn out the way it turned out in the presidential election of November 2008," Goode said.
In Philadelphia in 2008, Obama defeated John McCain, 83 percent to 16 percent - a whopping margin of nearly 479,000 votes that state GOP Chairman Robert Gleason still describes as "almost statistically impossible."
Councilman Bill Green yesterday raised the specter of a showdown between city Democrats and Harrisburg Republicans, suggesting that the city could refuse to follow the voter-ID law altogether.

"Let them come enforce it," Green snarled. "We all take oaths to the Constitution of the state of Pennsylvania, and if we believe it violates the Constitution, we have the right to keep to our oath."
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware County, defended the bill, saying that it would "increase public confidence in the integrity of the voting process." Asked about the extent of the targeted voter fraud, or to cite a case of a Pennsylvanian impersonating another voter, Pileggi said: "I don't think anyone denies that the potential is there."

Kaplan said she couldn't recall a complaint of voter impersonation. "Not once," she said. "It's just very, very rare."
Of course, successful fraud goes undetected, but voter impersonation is uncommon for a reason: It's usually not worth the trouble.
"You would have to go in, know that somebody is on the rolls, know that the person is not going to come to vote, and take a gamble that somebody sitting at the table doesn't know who that person is, so they don't say, 'I know Joe Jones and you're not Joe Jones,' " Kaplan said. "Could you get away with it? Theoretically. But it's really far-fetched."
About 50 people - including community activists, politicians, ward leaders and others - attended a rally at LOVE Park yesterday with City Commissioner Stephanie Singer, carrying signs that read "Suppressing Votes Is Illegal" and chanting, "Save Our Votes Now."
"I'm trying to push back against the suppression of voting rights," said Nadina Patterson, of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project.
Carol Jenkins, a Democratic ward leader in University City who teaches political science at Temple University, said the legislation is "a solution looking for a problem."
Singer, chairwoman of the three-person panel that oversees voter registration and elections, said that she is unaware of a single instance of voter impersonation but that she's required to follow state law.
"It's a pretty major expansion of government power in terms of dictating what is and isn't acceptable," said Ari Berman, a contributing writer for The Nation who has written about the GOP's voter-ID push. "It's also a major expenditure. You have to provide free IDs to people that don't have them."
State lawmakers say the bill would cost between $1 million and $5 million to implement.
"Is the medicine worse than the illness?" asked Christopher Borick, a political scientist and director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion.
"Showing an ID sounds easy, and for most Pennsylvanians it is. But for many on the margin, that's not a trivial item. It'll take effort and some degree of inconvenience."
- Daily News staff writers John Baer and Josh Cornfield
contributed to this report.

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Contact William Bender at 215-854-5255 or benderw@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @wbender99

Pa. Senate passes voter ID bill

March 08, 2012|By Angela Couloumbis, Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG - The state Senate, along nearly partisan lines, passed a bill Wednesday that would make Pennsylvania the 16th state to require its residents to show photo identification at the polls.
After more than four hours of debate, senators voted, 26-23, to approve the so-called voter ID bill. Its Republican sponsors contend it is needed to protect the integrity of elections. Democrats counter that it is nothing more than a partisan attempt to suppress their side's votes in a presidential election year.
The bill now heads for the House, which passed a stricter version last summer. If approved there - as is expected in that GOP-controlled chamber as early as next week - it would go to Gov. Corbett, who has said he supports the concept, and would take effect in time for the Nov. 6 election.

"This bill is a simple, commonsense measure to protect the integrity of the voting process, which is the very foundation of our democracy," said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware) as debate on the bill commenced Wednesday.
One after another, Democratic senators rose to argue the exact opposite. Those senators, as well as the Pennsylvania chapter of the ACLU, said Wednesday night they would challenge the measure in court if it becomes law.
Democrats contended the bill would disproportionately hurt the elderly, the poor and the disabled, who make up the lion's share of voters who typically do not have photo IDs. Those groups also tend to vote Democratic.
Over the last year, Republican legislators in state after state have introduced similar voter ID bills - so many that the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks legislation nationwide, has called voter ID the hottest election-related topic.
The push for such laws, Democrats contend, is part of a national effort to skew state and federal races in favor of Republicans. "I call you a hypocrite today if you vote for this bill," State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (D., Phila.) said in Wednesday's debate.
Williams and other Democrats challenged Republicans to cite specific studies or evidence of voter fraud being rampant.
During the floor debate, Pileggi cited a 2005 report by an election commission headed by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker that supported the use of photo IDs - the two men called for standardized photo IDs in the states - as a way to ensure fair elections.
But neither Pileggi nor any other senator cited a specific example of fraud.

Fifteen states now require voters to present photo identification before voting, although there are court challenges against some of those laws.
In Pennsylvania, the bill would mandate that voters show a photo ID such as a driver's license; a student, county, or municipal card; or IDs from a personal-care home.
If voters show up without a photo ID, they would be allowed to cast a provisional ballot, and then would have six days to present election officials with an acceptable ID.

The state Department of Transportation would also be required to issue free identification cards to those who apply and swear they had no other acceptable proof of identity for voting.
"No voter will be turned away from the polls on election day," Pileggi said Wednesday. "That simple fact seems to get lost in some of the hyperbole surrounding this debate."
But State Sen. Shirley Kitchen (D., Phila.) noted that obtaining a "free" ID card from the state wouldn't be free - it would require applicants to first get documentation such as birth certificates, which cost money.
"We are cutting every program to make poor people more independent," said Kitchen, referring to steep cuts to health and social welfare in Corbett's proposed budget, "and we have the audacity to come up with this law. . . . It doesn't matter whether you are in Philadelphia or Berks County, poor people cannot afford to have these new laws costing them money."
Every Democrat in the Senate voted against the bill, along with three Republicans, including Sen. Stewart J. Greenleaf (R., Montgomery). He could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Aside from Democrats and a handful of Republicans, opponents of the measure include civil liberties organizations, labor unions, the AARP, the NAACP, and the county officials who would be tasked with implementing it.
The counties, in fact, have warned legislators that mandating the extra step of checking IDs will only lead to long lines and frustration at the polls - particularly in the relatively heavy turnouts that mark presidential elections.
The legislation calls for a "soft rollout" during the April 24 primary, when voters will be asked for a photo ID but can vote even if they do not have one on hand.
The bill's supporters estimate it will cost just under $5 million to implement, including educating voters and poll workers on the change. A Harrisburg-based liberal think tank places that number closer to $11 million.
State Sen. Larry Farnese (D., Phila.) asked his Republican colleagues, "Where the heck did you find this money?"

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Contact Angela Couloumbis
at 717-787-5934 or acouloumbis@phillynews.com, or follow on Twitter @AngelasInk.

Harrisburg slave billboard prompts State Rep. Ronald G. Waters to complain

Published: Friday, March 09, 2012, 4:46 PM Updated: Friday, March 09, 2012, 4:51 PM

By DIANA FISHLOCK, The Patriot-NewsThe Patriot-News
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A Harrisburg billboard showing a black man with a collar and the words, “Slaves, obey your masters,” compelled State Rep. Ronald G. Waters, chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, to write a letter condemning Lamar Advertising. Waters, a Democrat from Philadelphia, asked the company to avoid racially motivated images in the future.

The billboard went up this week at 13th and Paxton streets on

Harrisburg's Allison Hill then was torn down.

The billboard was sponsored by the American Atheists and Pennsylvania Nonbelievers to protest state legislators naming 2012 the Year of the Bible. Someone tore it down Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.
“Such an image does not assist in the progression of our capital city, commonwealth or nation,” Waters wrote. “This image and mere reminder of slavery are offensive to minority citizens in the city of Harrisburg. We are well aware of what occurred to blacks during the early history of this nation, a blatant billboard is unnecessary."
He asked the billboard company to uplift the community by promoting culturally enriching advertisement celebrating the diversity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

	FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
State Rep. Ronald G. Waters D-County www.pahouse.com/waters

PLBC chairman condemns Lamar Advertising for allowing slave billboard

HARRISBURG, March 9 – State Rep. Ronald G. Waters, chairman of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, has written a letter condemning Lamar Advertising for the Harrisburg billboard depicting an image of slavery and asking the company to avoid racially motivated images in the future.

The billboard was sponsored by the American Atheists and Pa. Nonbelievers organizations to send a message to state legislators who supported H.R. 535 naming 2012 the year of the Bible. Located at 13^th and Paxton streets, it featured a black male with a metal collar around his neck and the message, "Slaves, obey your masters."

Waters said that the negative depiction is an antiquated view that drew outrage and offended entire communities.

"Such an image does not assist in the progression of our capital city, commonwealth or nation," Waters wrote. "This image and mere reminder of slavery are offensive to minority citizens in the city of Harrisburg.

"We are well aware of what occurred to blacks during the early history of this nation, a blatant billboard is unnecessary.

"I would hope that your company would strongly consider setting a standard that would not allow this type of use of your billboards. Your company should support images that uplift the community by promoting culturally enriching advertisement celebrating the diversity present with the neighborhood of 13^th and Paxton streets and beyond, rather than ostracizing minorities and religious and God-fearing communities. Such billboards do no assist in moving our capital city of Harrisburg forward, our commonwealth as a whole or our nation. We must promote positive imagery that will invoke discussion and curiosity among citizens instead of violence, anger and confusion. It is my hope that your company will no longer participate in allowing racially motivated of defamatory imaging to stand in Harrisburg."

 View a copy of the letter here!