[img]1969|right|Assemblyperson Mitchell (D-Culver City)||no_popup[/img]Given the ill-advised reason that state Assemblyperson Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City) ran for the Legislature, it is not surprising that she issued a hysterical, wildly irresponsible response after yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling regarding the Voting Rights Act.
She should have delivered it on the Comedy Channel.
Measured, she isn’t.
Not even close to her style.
Admittedly, the section of the Voting Rights Act directly affected, and the section secondarily affected, are clouded in the minds of, I should estimate, 85 percent of Americans. Instead of conducting herself as a grownup, defining and explaining what and why the Supreme Court was wrong, Ms. Mitchell took the easy out. She chose the role of a weeping little girl, sitting on a curb, crying uncontrollably because her ice cream cone melted.
How unhelpful.
What a disservice to her constituents.
In baseball, her shabby performance would have been called a rainout.
Ms. Mitchell’s lightning abandonment of control reminds me of someone who loses a game of Tic Tac Toe and shoots her opponent because she prevailed.
How can she expect her constituents to take her judgments seriously? She doesn’t even pretend that her radical emotions are defensible. With her ignorant reaction, she effectively drove the wrong way on the freeway, in the dark, with the lights off, at 100 mph, smiled and called out, “How am I doing?”
Deliberately, Ms. Mitchell disdained an explanation. Perhaps she does not understand the ruling.
As with many liberals yesterday, her self-control was enthusiastically sacrificed. Naturally, Ms. Mitchell is a Democrat. This is the party where such “registered” voters as Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Elmer Fudd, Roadrunner and Superman turn up in every election, one of the reasons the dreadful Acorn group was forced to the sidelines.
Ms. Mitchell is an extremely smart, astute woman. She could be an effective leader. But she will not be until she makes drastic adjustments instead of surrendering to her basest feelings and erupts in intemperate outbursts, a sad trademark.
Ms. Mitchell displayed an abysmal lack of reflection, even a trace of rhetorical discipline. She belonged with the red-nosed, polka-dot suited clowns cavorting all last evening on MSNBC. If you don’t want people to chuckle at you, don’t don polka dots.
Here is Ms. Mitchell’s response:
“The Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have declared with their ruling on Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act that state practices that could serve to deny minority citizens their lawful right to vote do not need to be scrutinized in advance of their implementation.
“It’s a sad day in America. The door to nefarious and biased voting requirements, such as the use of driver’s licenses as mandatory voting ID cards, has been swung wide open. The curtain to America's voting booths has been pulled shut in face of potentially hundreds of thousands of lawful African American voters across our nation who might now be fully denied their lawful right to vote through the application of invidious state-sponsored and legally sanctioned discriminatory voting practices.”
Speaking of fair-minded, impartial Americans, Ms. Mitchell was speaking as Chair of the Legislature’s Black Caucus.
Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, which was struck down, was an important provision that sought to prohibit discrimination in voting. It required states covered under the Act to obtain U.S. Justice Department approval before implementing any changes related to voting, such as relocating a polling place or redistricting.
