By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, Cleveland Urban News. Com and The Cleveland Urban News.Com Blog, Ohio's Most Read Online Black Newspaper and Newspaper Blog, Tel: (216) 659-0473
Kathy Wray Coleman is a community activist and 20 year investigative journalist who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Vice President Joe Biden (pictured) spoke to a crowd Wednesday at the annual NAACP convention in Las Vegas, Nevada and said that the effort by Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country in passing voter suppression laws in 29 states to restrict voting to vulnerable Americans, including Blacks and other minorities, is "pure politics, masquerading as an attempt to combat corruption when there is none."
The comments reference claims by the Republicans that voter identification restrictions and other requirements to vote that Democrats say disproportionately disenfranchise minorities, women, the elderly and the poor, are needed to deter voter fraud, though there is no conclusive data whatsoever that such state laws combat any such minimally applicable alleged fraudulent activities.
The 31 minute speech Wednesday morning came on the last day of the five-day convention that began July 19.
The gathering was replete with speeches and forums.
Biden's speech comes on the heels of a call by newly installed NAACP President Cornell William Brooks for a revolution of change around the issues facing Black America and a get-out-the vote speech by Congresswoman and Congressional Black Caucus Chairperson Marcia L. Fudge of Ohio at the convention on Monday.
The former U.S. senator from Delaware and Democratic vice president who has not ruled out a run in 2016 for the Democratic nomination for president also criticized the U.S. Supreme Court decision issued last year that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, specifically the provision that establishes a formula to identify states that may require extra scrutiny by the Justice Department regarding voting procedures.
The vice president said that after former segregationist Strom Thurmond voted to reauthorize the measure in the 1980s and Republicans continued to support the law, he just took for granted that the measure would be safe. He was wrong
"I thought we had finally won," said Biden.
Biden's speech to the nation's oldest and most renowned Civil Rights organization comes as he jockey's, some speculate, to win support from Blacks and other minorities over possible presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who has said that she will announce publicly in December whether she will run. He will speak to the National Urban League of Ohio at the Convention Center in Cincinnati on Thursday as will U.S. Sen Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, Democratic Kentucky Gov Steve Beshear and heads of the national GOP and Democratic parties, among others.
Later in the day on Wednesday, and after delivering his fiery convention speech, Biden talked to a group of community activists in support of Erin Bilbray, a Las Vegas Democrat in a heated race this year against incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Joe Heck. (www.clevelandurbannews.com) / (www.kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com