Georgia Democrats are in for a fight at the state level this coming year. Georgia Republicans plan to stand firm defending a law that was past earlier this year which requires voters who do not have a driver's license to buy a state-issued ID card for as much as $35. This fee hurts the poor, the elderly and minorities.
Georgia state Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan, whom TBLJ has had the pleasure of meeting and working with has vowed to fight this law.
"I'm putting on the armor. Nothing they can do will fix the bill. It's a bad law and it needs to be repealed. We're not going backwards."In October a Federal Court blocked the passage of this law stating that it amounted to a poll tax. Black legislators, and Democrats that are fighting this law are not alone they are getting a lot of support from AARP, the League of Women Voters, the ACLU and the NAACP, and even Doonesbury.
Under the Voting Rights Act, Georgia and other states with a history of denying blacks the right to vote must get the U.S. Justice Department's permission to change their voting laws. In November, a Justice Department memo revealed a team of Justice Department lawyers and analysts who reviewed the Georgia voter-identification law recommended rejecting it because it was likely to discriminate against black voters, but they were overruled the next day by higher-ranking officials at Justice.
The Georgia General Assembly
Georgia Legislative Black Caucus
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