Sheila Jackson Lee: Voter ID Law Supporters 'Misrepresent' Voter Fraud in 2008 Election

Chronic race baiter Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee is at it again.

On Monday night the Congressional Black Caucus went to the House floor to discuss state voter ID laws suggesting that legislation requiring someone to have government identification on hand in order to vote, was a means to possibly keep minorities away from the polls and in doing so hinder President Barack Obama's reelection.

Rep. Lee remarked that supporters of these laws have made the "misrepresentation" that there was fraud in the 2008 election, "maybe because we elected the first African American president."

Yet the chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party was forced to resignation in December as investigators probed allegations of election fraud during the state's 2008 Democratic presidential primary. CNN reported in October 2008 that more than 2,000 voter registration forms filed in northern Indiana's Lake County by a liberal activist group turned out to be bogus. The chairman rescinded his resignation one week later, but New York Post columnist Michael A. Walsh writes that voter fraud is no myth:

"The Commission on Federal Election Reform, created after the 2004 election and co-chaired by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, uncovered examples of vote-buying, repeat voting and absentee-ballot fraud. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in upholding Indiana’s voter-ID law in 2008, 'flagrant examples of such fraud have been documented throughout this nation’s history by respected historians and journalists.'"

NPR reports that in 2008, the Supreme Court upheld a voter-identification law in Indiana, saying that requiring voters to produce photo identification is not unconstitutional and affirming that states have a "valid interest" in improving election procedures and deterring fraud. 31 States now require voters to show some form of identification at the polls. Fifteen of them require photo IDs.

New voter ID laws were implemented in 2012 in Kansas, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wisconsin. NPR notes that legal battles on the issue are heating up in South Carolina, Mississippi and Texas.

Rep. Jackson Lee's irritated mood could perhaps be explained with the redistricting going on in her state, which she has testified hurts minority seats. Critics say that Rep. Jackson Lee is really upset that the redistricting may loose her key financial backing from the downtown Houston business community within part of her Congressional district.

Rep. Jackson Lee on voter ID laws Monday night: