Former CBC Chair Barbara Lee: GOP ‘Turning the Clock Back to the Days of Jim Crow’ With Voter ID Laws

(By Madeleine Morgenstern, The Blaze) - A Democratic congresswoman and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus charged Republicans with “turning the clock back to the days of Jim Crow” in a fiery speech Wednesday decrying voter identification laws.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said in a speech on the House floor that the GOP is trying to deny blacks the right to vote, saying “it’s no coincidence that a disproportionate number of these affected voters come from communities of color as well as the poor, the elderly and students,” The Hill reported.

“Having been born and raised in Texas, this certainly looks like a poll tax to me, which those of us remember as a way to prevent African Americans from voting. These voter ID laws have a partisan agenda: seeking to disenfranchise and deny specific populations of voters before they have the opportunity to elect their representatives in government,” Lee said.