Here is the link at Roll Call as Emanuel Cleaver and Artur Davis spar over voter ID laws: In the column posted Oct. 17, Davis wrote: “When I was a congressman, I took the path of least resistance on this subject for an African American politician. Without any evidence to back it up, I lapsed into the rhetoric of various partisans and activists who contend that requiring photo identification to vote is a suppression tactic aimed at thwarting black voter participation.” Davis continued, “The truth is that the most aggressive contemporary voter suppression in the African American community, at least in Alabama, is the wholesale manufacture of ballots, at the polls and absentee, in parts of the Black Belt.”
“I have heard many Democrats criticize Republicans for imposing litmus tests on their membership,” he said. “I certainly hope that Congressman Cleaver and others are not suggesting that if a Democrat does not hold a certain position that he is no longer fit to be a Democrat. Since I am not a candidate for office, I don’t have to grapple with the question of what party label to wear, but I know that the quickest way for an organization to lose a member is to suggest that he is no longer welcome.”