Appearing as a guest on Monday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, Washington Post political reporter Nia-Malika Henderson voiced agreement with comments by Hillary Clinton that a voting bill recently passed by the state legislature in North Carolina is "the greatest hits of voter suppression." Henderson:
So I think Clinton is right. Clinton was giving a speech on voter suppression just as this bill was being signed into law. She called it the greatest hits of voter suppression. It's so vast and broad. And it really covers so many different types of people, students, African-Americans as well.
The Washington Post reporter also dismissed concerns about voter fraud, and suggested that Republicans are being hypocritical for wanting to impose more restrictions on voting while being generally opposed to regulations for business:
And I think this whole idea of, you know, preventing voter fraud, I think there have only been two alleged cases of voter fraud in the last 10 years in North Carolina. So this law clearly going out of the scope of that whole idea of voter suppression. The irony here is that Republicans are the party of rolling back restrictions, right? Let, you know, let 1,000 markets bloom, freedom and all that stuff. And this one certainly puts more restrictions on people's ability to vote.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Monday, August 12, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC:
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: Nia, they are really trying to discourage students from voting. They say it has to be a government-issued ID, but they will not accept any IDs issued by their government-run universities and colleges in that state. They're not considering those to be government-issued IDs. No student IDs are acceptable. And the targeting there is pretty obvious, isn't it?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, WASHINGTON POST: It is. Lots of college students in North Carolina, they have Duke, UNC, North Carolina A&T, NC Central, as well, and one of the things they're also trying to do is say that 16 and 17-year-olds can't register early, you know, for when they turn 18. So I think Clinton is right. Clinton was giving a speech on voter suppression just as this bill was being signed into law. She called it the greatest hits of voter suppression. It's so vast and broad. And it really covers so many different types of people, students, African-Americans as well.
And I think this whole idea of, you know, preventing voter fraud, I think there have only been two alleged cases of voter fraud in the last 10 years in North Carolina. So this law clearly going out of the scope of that whole idea of voter suppression. The irony here is that Republicans are the party of rolling back restrictions, right? Let, you know, let 1,000 markets bloom, freedom and all that stuff. And this one certainly puts more restrictions on people's ability to vote.
It will be interesting to see what somebody like Kay Hagan says about this and her framing around it. She's up in 2014, and what all Southern Democrats sort of talk about when they talk about voter suppression.
-- Brad Wilmouth is a news analyst at the Media Research Center