In the spirit of bipartisanship, the White House has determined that black voters can’t vote the issues, black candidates are only viable if they’re in the democratic party, and that white voters don’t have to capacity to look past skin color.

From today’s Washington Times (emphasis mine)

Voters in this [Kinston, NC] 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.

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.

Did anyone in the DoJ Google Kinston, NC? It’s 65% minority; there is a very good chance blacks will be represented. And, what about this doesn’t sound race driven? “So that black voters can elect their ‘candidates of choice’…” Is the DoJ suggesting black voters can’t decide based on the issues, or even based on personal knowledge; it’s small town USA for Pete’s sake, everyone knows everyone. Oh, and what about black republican candidates, are they not legitimate?

And, by the way, why in the world is the DoJ concerned about the local elections in a town of 23,000? Shouldn’t the DoJ have it’s sites on right-wing extremists and would-be conservative lunatics?

Even the local NAACP thought it was a little over the top.

“To begin with, ‘nonpartisan elections’ is a misconceived and deceiving statement because even though no party affiliation shows up on a ballot form, candidates still adhere to certain ideologies and people understand that, and are going to identify with who they feel has their best interest at heart,” said William Cooke, president of the Kinston/Lenoir County branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Mr. Cooke said his group does not take a position on this issue and would not disclose his personal stance, but expressed skepticism about the Justice Department’s involvement.

Justice Department spokesman Alejandro Miyar denied that the decision was intended to help the Democratic Party. He said the ruling was based on “what the facts are in a particular jurisdiction” and how it affects blacks’ ability to elect the candidates they favor.

“The determination of who is a ‘candidate of choice’ for any group of voters in a given jurisdiction is based on an analysis of the electoral behavior of those voters within a particular jurisdiction,” he said.

Hmmm, sounds like affirmative action for elections. Hello, the city is 65% minority and a democratic stronghold! Even the residents couldn’t recall a GOP candidate, ever. What, does the White House think, if the elections were based strictly on the issues, that somehow the republicans would steal the election?

Critics on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights are not so sure. “The Voting Rights Act is supposed to protect against situations when black voters are locked out because of racism,” said Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “There is no entitlement to elect a candidate they prefer on the assumption that all black voters prefer Democratic candidates.”

Well, Ms. Thernstrom, I have to disagree with you here. The is always an entitlement for the democrats.

Kinston residents contributed to Barack Obama’s victory as America’s first black president and voted by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 to eliminate partisan elections in the city.

The measure appeared to have broad support among both white and black voters, as it won a majority in seven of the city’s nine black-majority voting precincts and both of its white-majority precincts.

Ms. [Loreta] King [head of the DoJ civil rights division] wrote that voters in Kinston vote more along racial than party lines and without the potential for voting a straight Democratic ticket, “the limited remaining support from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even more.”

Black voters account for 9,702 of the city’s 15,402 registered voters but typically don’t vote at the rates whites do.

As a result of the low turnout, Ms. King wrote, “black voters have had limited success in electing candidates of choice during recent municipal elections.”

“It is the partisan makeup of the general electorate that results in enough white cross-over to allow the black community to elect a candidate of choice,” she wrote.

It is demeaning and racist to suggest that blacks don’t have the capacity to know or care about the issues, and to assert their only option is ‘voting a straight Democratic ticket.”

Mrs. Thernstrom of the civil rights commission blasted the department’s interpretation of the law.

“The Voting Rights Act is not supposed to be compensating for failure of voters to show up on Election Day,” she said. “The Voting Rights Act doesn’t guarantee an opportunity to elect a ‘candidate of choice.’ … My ‘candidate of choice’ loses all the time in an election.”

Read more here…

cross posted at ConservativeNC