In case you missed it, another Democrat magically switched positions on voter ID. This time it was the third in charge House Democrat, James Clyburn. As recent as last year, Clyburn called requiring voters to present ID, "voter suppression."
JIM CLYBURN: "We are always for voter ID. We are never for disproportionate voter ID. When you tell me…a photo for a student for an activity card is not good but for a hunting license it is good that's where the rub is. I don't know of a single person…against ID-ing themselves" pic.twitter.com/gd4qVZCYnt
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) July 4, 2021
Fox News reported:
While Clyburn now says that he has always supported a voter ID requirement, which is widely supported by the public, his past comments indicate otherwise. In October, he tweeted that voter ID laws, long lines at polling sites, and closed polling locations were "all voter suppression."
Clyburn has also been critical of Manchin and his proposed voting reform compromise. After the West Virginia Democrat suggested stripping away some of the more controversial elements of his party's For the People Act in favor of something that might be more palatable to conservatives, Clyburn rejected the attempt at a compromise.
The Washington Post gave Clyburn "Four Pinocchios" for for his assertion that “No Democrat has never been against voter ID.”
Clyburn is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He routinely decries “voter ID” laws, but at the same time he insisted on Fox News that he has never opposed such laws — and that every Democrat has supported them. In reality, he appears to be against many types of voter ID laws — ones that require photos, or a fee for a photo or which favor one voting group over another.
I guess Democrat leadership is finally starting to accept the fact that most Americans support voter ID requirements. As Jim Geraghty explained:
Perhaps the evidence was mounting that Democrats were expending energy and political capital to prevent measures that created no measurable disadvantage to their party or candidates. On May 22, the Quarterly Journal of Economics unveiled the results of an extensive study:
U.S. states increasingly require identification to vote—an ostensible attempt to deter fraud that prompts complaints of selective disenfranchisement. Using a difference-in-differences design on a panel data set with 1.6 billion observations, 2008–2018, we find that the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation… Overall, our findings suggest that efforts to improve elections may be better directed at other reforms.
This deep dive into the data suggested that Democrats were taking an unpopular stand for no real benefit. In that situation… why wouldn’t Democrats try to use voter ID as a bargaining chip to win other policy concessions?
The Democrats are after one thing—power. Now that opposing voter ID no longer serves their interests, Democrats like Clyburn are attempting to rewrite history.