Yesterday, the Do-Nothing Republican Congress tried to solve a problem that doesn't exist. The U.S. House, by almost entirely a party-line vote, passed a bill that would disenfranchise thousands of voters by requiring them to obtain and produce government issued photo ID proving their citizenship before they could vote.

Laws like this one have been ruled unconstitutional by courts in Missouri and Georgia in the last week.

All North Carolina Republicans--Representatives Charles Taylor, Robin Hayes, Virginia Foxx, Patrick McHenry, Walter Jones, and Howard Coble--supported this attempt to disenfranchise voters.

Today's New York Times editorial called the Republicans' bluff: "One of the cornerstones of the Republican Party's strategy for winning elections these days is voter suppression, intentionally putting up barriers between eligible voters and the ballot box. The House of Representatives took a shameful step in this direction yesterday, voting largely along party lines for onerous new voter ID requirements. Laws of this kind are unconstitutional, as an array of courts have already held, and profoundly undemocratic... The bill was sold as a means of deterring vote fraud, but that is a phony argument. There is no evidence that a significant number of people are showing up at the polls pretending to be other people, or that a significant number of noncitizens are voting. ..America has a proud tradition of opening up the franchise to new groups, notably women and blacks, who were once denied it. It is disgraceful that, for partisan political reasons, some people are trying to reverse the tide, and standing in the way of people who have every right to vote." [New York Times, 9/21/2006]

"North Carolina Republicans have tried to play politics to hinder the most basic of American rights: the right to vote. This bill would be the equivalent of a national poll tax. This shouldn't come as a surprise, though, since Republicans like Virginia Foxx and Patrick McHenry even voted against the Voting Rights Act," said North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jerry Meek. "Thankfully, all North Carolina Democrats in Congress were united in their opposition. As Democrats, we believe that no American should have to pay in order to vote and we will continue to fight for meaningful election reform that ensures every citizen has access to the ballot and that those votes are accurately counted. While the Republicans play politics at the ballot box, Democrats will continue to work with state and local officials to help avoid voting problems like those in 2000 and 2004."