'You Don't Need Papers to Vote'

Tammany Hall revisited?

Published on June 5, 2006 By singrdave In US Domestic

Apparently the Democrats are pandering to the Hispanic community for votes in new ways: telling them it's their right as "people in our country" to vote, regardless of their legal citizenship status.

From Sign On San Diego:

If an election can turn on a sentence, this could be the one: "You don't need papers for voting."

On Thursday night, Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate for the 50th Congressional District, was speaking before a largely Latino crowd in Escondido when she uttered those words. She said yesterday she simply misspoke. But someone taped it and a recording began circulating yesterday.

Oops, accountability. 'I didn't mean what I said, when I said that I really meant this...' Uh huh, yeah...

Busby said she was invited to the forum at the Jocelyn Senior Center in Escondido by the leader of a local soccer league. Many of the 50 or so people there were Spanish speakers. Toward the end, a man in the audience asked in Spanish: "I want to help, but I don't have papers."

It was translated and Busby replied: "Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can all help. You don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help."

Bilbray said at worst, Busby was encouraging someone to vote illegally. At best, she was encouraging someone who is illegally in the country to work on her campaign.

"She's soliciting illegal aliens to campaign for her and it's on tape -- this isn't exactly what you call the pinnacle of ethical campaign strategy," Bilbray said. "I don't know how she shows her face."

I will tell you what is wrong with this, other than this asshat's blatant encouragement of illegal residents to vote and become politically active. If any Tom, Dick, or Harry can now vote... oops, I mean Juan, Pablo, and Diego... regardless of his or her legal status, what's to stop activists and underhanded people to start stuffing ballot boxes with the now-legitimate votes of fake illegal immigrants? If "you don't need papers for voting", expect a new, Latino Tammany Hall, where corrupt immigrants, legal or otherwise, start influencing elections both overtly and covertly.

Oh yeah, and don't forget the Democratic Party , just salivating at this new constituency just waiting to be courted, accommodated, and pandered to.

Comments

Dr Guy

on Jun 05, 2006

What is to stop them from stuffing the ballot boxes with fake illegal immigrants? Stuffing them with dead people is easier, cheaper, and of course dead men tell no tales.

bakerstreet

on Jun 05, 2006

I have no doubt about this. They are now making a big stink about Ohio in teh 2004 election, but I bet that at least a single digit percent of voters in some states that votes Dem were illegals bused to the polls by the Dems themselves, just like they do in the projects and for homeless people everywhere.

ParaTed2k

on Jun 05, 2006

Here in Wisconsin, King Doyle has vetoed every bill that would require a person prove they are eligible to register to vote. Lying through his rotting teeth about how it would disenfranchise the poor.

The same hypocrite WROTE the bill the became a law requiring a state issued photo ID when buying over the counter meds such as Robitussin....

I guess by his twisted logic, you should have to be a citizen to suppress a cold, but not to vote.

Island Dog

on Jun 05, 2006

This is huge. I can't believe a democrat would do this. I bet this will be on all the news channels tonight.

stutefish

on Jun 05, 2006

To be fair, the entire quote in context makes it clear that she was actually saying that you don't need voting papers in order to participate in the campaign effort. I.e., you may not be able to vote, but you can still get involved in "get out the vote" activities, you can still staff a voter registration booth, etc.

The phrasing she used was unfortunate, but I strongly recommend vilifying politicians based on the really stupid things they say, not the perfectly reasonable things that sound stupid when taken out of context.

I hate it when the opposition perpetrates out-of-context shenanigans on me, but I'm always embarrassed and ashamed when I see the same shenanigans being perpetrated against the opposition.

bakerstreet

on Jun 05, 2006

It isn't really as out of context as you are making it out to be. She said:

"Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can all help. You don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help.

She said she was referring to people under 18, but that doesn't explain the voting part.

It sounds to me as if she was saying that if the standard for voting is so low that you don't need papers, you most certainly don't need to be a registered voter to help in the campaign. I don't think that voter registration is really the "papers" the guy was asking about, and the help a candidate gets from campaign volunteers is most certainly regulated if I am not mistaken.

singrdave

on Jun 05, 2006

To be fair, the entire quote in context makes it clear that she was actually saying that you don't need voting papers in order to participate in the campaign effort.

To be fair, she was responding to a question posed to her in Spanish, too.

My umbrage is that Democrats are trying to champion illegal immigrants' voting rights so they can suddenly have 12-15 million more voters throughout the US.

Island Dog

on Jun 05, 2006

My umbrage is that Democrats are trying to champion illegal immigrants' voting rights so they can suddenly have 12-15 million more voters throughout the US.

Why would you think that? Oh wait.....

Dr Guy

on Jun 05, 2006

"Everybody can help, yeah, absolutely, you can all help. You don't need papers for voting, you don't need to be a registered voter to help.

Uh, she may be a moron (in which case glad she was nailed) or she was speaking from the heart. But the context is fair. She did say it. And lost the election in doing so. How much you want to bet that line is used in 435 races this fall?

Daiwa

on Jun 06, 2006

stutefish -

You can't get her out of this with the "out-of-context" defense. It hasn't worked for Republicans and it won't suddenly start working for Democrats. Besides, the context is pretty damn clear, even to this stupid conservative.

The amazing thing is that it made the mainstream news at all.

Daiwa

on Jun 06, 2006

My umbrage is that Democrats are trying to champion illegal immigrants' voting rights so they can suddenly have 12-15 million more voters throughout the US.

You mean they don't already? LW is correct - it's a fait accompli & the whole controversy is simply an after-action discussion.

Island Dog

on Jun 06, 2006

Foreign-born people living in the region are paying their fair share of taxes, but illegal aliens and those with temporary protected status aren't, according to a study released yesterday.

In 1999, the year studied by the District-based Urban Institute, foreign-born households accounted for 17.7 percent of all taxes paid by area residents -- a figure nearly identical to their share of the total population in 2000, which was 17.4 percent.

But the average illegal alien household and those with temporary protected status paid less than 2 percent of the region's taxes, even though they made up more than 4 percent of households.

Illegal aliens "pay fewer taxes because they have lower incomes and because their compliance rate [voluntarily filing of income taxes by themselves or by employers] is somewhat lower than our other immigrant groups," said Michael Fix, vice president of the Migration Policy Institute. "And their incomes are lower in large part because many have low levels of education and limited English skills."

Randolph Capps, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, estimates that about 55 percent of illegal aliens are paying into Social Security and Medicare by using fake Social Security numbers. The remaining 45 percent are not paying those taxes because their employers, who are not filing income taxes, are paying the illegals under the table, he said.

However, researchers yesterday said illegal aliens do contribute to state and local taxes -- such as sales tax on cigarettes and alcohol, auto taxes, property taxes and utility taxes -- which help pay for schools and hospitals.

But some observers said the study is flawed because it does not attempt to weigh tax payments against the cost of social services, education and other expenses linked to immigration.

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