“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers!”
Dick Butler’s plan of action as revealed in Shakespeare’s play “King Henry IV” provides a humorous yet poignant reminder that insurrections begin with subverting the rule of law. A glaring example is the reincarnation of the Ringling Brothers Circus as the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings. The Left and Democratic Socialists are incensed that they can’t pick judges even though they lose elections.
U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., recently suggested the obvious: “If you want to pick judges, then you need to start winning elections.”
This they plan to do. But they have a problem.
You see, the vast majority of Americans aren’t buying what the Democratic Socialists are selling. It is axiomatic, however, that every problem has a solution. And the left has found what they believe is a solution.
According to a Washington Post story earlier this year, the Democrats “are focusing renewed attention and money on a statewide post once considered a sleepy political stepping stone,” the office of secretary of state.
The GOP currently holds 33 of these offices but the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State are “motivated by what it considers efforts by some GOP secretaries to limit voter participation,” according to the Post.
The DASS seeks to “modernize elections” by implementing vote-by-mail, universal automatic voter registration, same day registration and by blocking laws requiring voter identification at the polls.
In other words, the DASS and the Left’s goal is to make every vote count, no doubt early and often, regardless of its legitimacy. They would apply their same “open borders” mentality to voter registration ensuring rife conditions for voter fraud and election cheating.
Nothing new here.
But they’ll have to field like-minded secretary of state candidates in competitive states who, if elected, will implement that agenda.
Georgia, for example, is considered a state ready to lose some of its red pedigree in 2018 and turn blue or purple due to changing demographics. There is no SOS incumbent as the current occupant, Republican Brian Kemp, is running for governor.
The November contest pits conservative businessman and former Republican legislator Brian Raffensperger against Harvard law graduate and former five-term Democratic congressman John Barrow.
Barrow, like most Democrats, opposes purging voter rolls of voters who fail to vote in a specified number of elections and fail to respond to a notification of an intent to remove their name from the active voting list. While they can re-register if purged, Barrow, Democrats and the Left contend the action is discrimination.
Raffensperger’s position is that “clean, up-to-date and accurate voting rolls don’t discriminate” and supports the practice since maintaining current statewide voter registration lists is a major function of the secretary of state’s office and it’s a way to root out fraud and election cheating.
While Raffensperger also supports voter ID laws and an American citizenship requirement to register and vote, it is unclear where Barrow stands on these issues.
What is clear is Barrow’s mindset. He was a reliable vote for the House Democratic leadership (94% of the time according to a Washington Post analysis) in Washington and closely aligned himself with Barack Obama, noting in 2008 that he worked “hand-in-hand” with the former president.
If home is where the heart is, then Georgia’s secretary of state race is clearly a story of contrasts. And given the stakes, it demands close attention.
Gary Wisenbaker is a corporate communications and political consultant at Blackstone, LLC
