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Feds Overrule Local Vote to End Partisan Politics
KINSTON, N.C. | Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party. Need I say more? The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black. The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want. Re-read that three more times. Either the department or the writer are morons. Or both. Several federal and local politicians would like the city to challenge the decision in court. They say voter apathy is the largest barrier to black voters' election of candidates they prefer and that the Justice Department has gone too far in trying to influence election results here. Why would black voters in Kinston be apathetic? Detroit and Chicago, sure, but Kinston? Stephen LaRoque, a former Republican state lawmaker who led the drive to end partisan local elections, called the Justice Department's decision "racial as well as partisan." "On top of that, you have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, D.C., overturning a valid election," he said. "That is un-American." But so Obaman. The decision, made by the same Justice official who ordered the dismissal of a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party in Philadelphia, has irritated other locals as well. They bristle at federal interference in this city of nearly 23,000 people, two-thirds of whom are black. Much more at link, but you've got the idea. Posted by: Bobby 2009-10-20 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=281425 |