The Hill reports: The House on Thursday approved a bill ending the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) that was set up to ensure states meet certain standards at the voting booth, and ending the public financing of presidential campaigns. The bill passed in a mostly partisan 235-190 vote.

On the same day that the House of Representatives voted to terminate the EAC as an agency, sources also confirm that one of the two remaining Commissioners, Donetta Davidson, will retire from the beleagured agency effective December 31, 2011.  Her resignation will leave the EAC with just one of the total four commissioners.  This retirement follows the recent resignation of Tom Wilkey, who served as Executive Director of the EAC.  

As expected, the debate was simply over the top with Democrats accusing Republicans of engaging in a voter suppression plan to in 2012 by eliminating an agency that enforces voting rights and protects voters. 

“There is no doubt that a voter suppression effort is underway in this nation,” Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) charged on the House floor. “Abolishing the Election Assistance Commission, an agency charged with ensuring that the vote of each American counts, is just another step in the voter suppression effort and would completely remove oversight of the most important process in our democracy.”  Another Democrat, Rep. William Clay (D-Mo.), said the only reason to want to end the EAC is to “suppress votes,” and said votes that would be lost are minority votes, “the same groups who were targeted by Jim Crow laws.”