Trayvon Martin killing boosts Easter voter-registration drive

[Baitball Blogger]

On Palm Sunday, LaVon Bracy stood before the congregation of New Covenant Baptist Church in Orlando and announced plans to participate in an effort by 50,000 black congregations nationwide to register 1 million voters on Easter Sunday.

"All I'm asking for is any person willing to find one person to register to vote," said LaVon, wife of Pastor Randolph Bracy Jr. "We are trying to register as many people as possible. I expect great success next Sunday."

The mass voter-registration drive — calculated to take advantage of Easter's larger-than-normal Sunday attendance — is spearheaded by the Rev. Jamal Bryant, a Baltimore preacher. Bryant estimates there are as many as 5 million unregistered voters in the pews of America's black churches.

Bryant, who started organizing the drive before the Feb. 26killing of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, is among the black civil-rights leaders trying to transfer the indignation over the teen's death into action.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/os-easter-sunday-black-voter-registration-20120407,0,2027186.story

[spicegal]

1. Given the way the Republicans are working to suppress the vote, it's smart to start getting out

ahead of this. It means we have to do everything in our power to avoid a close election, a repeat of 2000, where the SCOTUS intervened, or where the GOP can challenge any close call.

[otohara]

2. Boy Are They

we've got a real doozy in CO - young guy with a smart-ass mouth - I don't think he cares if he goes down in flames as long as he can suppress Dem voters and turn CO red again. He's a real divisive piece-of-work too - this came out today on HuffPost

With his usual air of rational certainty, KOA talk-show host Mike Rosen told Secretary of State Scott Gessler Monday that the ASSET bill, which would give undocumented high-school graduates a lower in-state tuition rate for college, is "transparently part of a strategy to court Latino voters."

"Yeah," Gessler responded. "I think one of the challenges the Democrats have is Latino voters, in my experience and sense is that, I mean, they're fundamentally conservative folks. I mean, they're oftentimes very socially conservative. They're people who put their heads down and work hard and aren't looking for government handouts. And the Democrats' stock and trade is government handouts. So they sort of have to rile 'em up as a way to try and get their votes."

Snip

As Gessler should know, with all his knowledge of Latino voters, it's the GOP that's doing the riling. There'd be no issue here if Republicans took the advice of conservative Denver Post columnist Vincent Carroll and supported the ASSET bill. Then the GOP and Dems would be doing the right thing together for undocumented, mostly Hispanic, children.

If effective governments counts as courting, then I'd love to see the Democrats and Republicans do more of it.

But did Rosen even gently question Gessler's condescending and irrational comments, like he might have if a first-time caller was on the line? No.

So I called Ricardo Martinez, Co-Director of Padres y Jovenes Unidos, for his perspective on Gessler's comments.

"ASSET has passed in thirteen other states," Martinez told me. "Among them are Texas, Utah, Kansas, and Oklahoma, which are all Republican-controlled. They saw it as an economic benefit. They didn't let ideology stand in the way of common sense."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-salzman/gessler-asset-bill_b_1406136.html?ref=denver