On Tuesday,The Raw Story published a recording of Dallas Tea Party leader Ken Emanuelson expressing his opinion about black voters. In the recording Emanuelson, in a meeting on May 20, is heard saying, “I’m going to be real honest with you, the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote if they are going to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.”
He is now receiving backlash for his statements from republicans and democrats alike.
After the recording was shared online, Emanuelson posted a response on Facebook apologizing for speaking in a general tone rather than making it clear that what he said was strictly his own opinion.
“What I meant, and should have said, is that it is not, in my personal opinion, in the interests of the Republican Party to spend its own time and energy working to generally increase the number of Democratic voters at the polls, and at this point in time, nine of every ten African American voters cast their votes for the Democratic Party,” he wrote on Facebook
Later he elaborated on his stance on the issue by posting, “That said, I’ve been very clear, time and time again, that the Republican Party absolutely must expand and build bridges into all communities,” Emanuelson added. “I reiterated that same opinion at the same meeting.”
Emanuelson along with many other Texas republicans have been trying to get Texas to adopt stricter voting laws in an effort to reduce alleged voter fraud. Last year, a federal court ruled against Texas implementing its voter identification laws ruling that they would negatively affect poor and minority voters.
Laws such as these have been on the NAACP radar for some time. According to NAACP CEO and President, Benjamin Jealous, “stricter laws in states like Texas, Delaware and Virginia have succeeded in disenfranchising minorities. In Delaware for example, after meeting with the Delaware state Legislature about House Bill 10 Jealous said as a reaction that, Voting is a right and reincorporating formerly incarcerated people back into civil society is a necessity.”
House Bill 10 was proposed to amend the constitutional law and to get rid of the five year waiting period that was to be completed after all terms of ones sentencing has been completed.
According to the NAACP felony disenfranchisement laws affect demographics disproportionately. Using Delaware as an example, just over one percent of residents are disenfranchised by these laws. However, Delaware laws disenfranchised more than five percent of eligible African American voters according to 2010 voting statistics.