Thread: Tancredo Blasted for Poll Test Idea

Tancredo blasted for poll test idea

By Lynn Bartels
The Denver Post

Posted: 02/06/2010 01:00:00 AM MST
Updated: 02/06/2010 09:30:54 AM MST

Tom Tancredo wants voters to have to pass a civics and literacy test.

Former congressman Tom Tancredo took heat Friday for remarks at the national Tea Party convention that critics viewed as calling for a return to Jim Crow laws.

But Tancredo said he wasn't targeting a specific group when he suggested in Nashville there should be a "civics-literacy" test before someone could vote.

"People who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House," Tancredo said in his opening-day speech Thursday.

"His name is Barack Hussein Obama."

Tests were used to prevent blacks from voting during segregation and were banned by the Voting Rights Act in 1964.

Tancredo said Friday that his call for a civics-literacy test dates to 2007, when he was a Republican presidential candidate and was impressed with how much an immigrant he met on the trail knew about America.

Told his remarks were creating an uproar — particularly among liberal bloggers — Tancredo laughed and joked that they were "quoting me accurately again." He then bemoaned what he called "the left's obsession with race."

State House Speaker Terrance Carroll, the first black speaker in Colorado history, said there's a reason Tancredo's remarks are being viewed racially.

"He's saying them in relationship to Barack Obama," said Carroll, a Denver Democrat. "What does he expect people to think?"

Tancredo represented Colorado's 6th Congressional District for a decade before retiring in 2008. He is best known for his anti-illegal-immigration stance and speaking his mind.

At the convention, he railed against Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential nominee, and said it was a good thing he lost because Obama's win has inspired activists.

"He's calling for things that, thank God, were banned and were part of Jim Crow life," said Heidi Beirich, research director at the Southern Poverty Law Center. "To me, it's an incredible thing to say. We've been down this road before. It's not a good history for us to follow."

Carroll said that as a former social studies teacher, Tancredo should know "how hateful those tests were and how hateful that period of history was."

But Tancredo said his call for a test is strictly based on his desire to get participation only from voters who understand the government.

"Because if you can't answer the same questions an immigrant has to answer in order to become a citizen, what the hell right do you have to vote?" he said.

Lynn Bartels: 303-954-5327 or lbartels@denverpost.com

http://www.denverpost.com/politics/ci_14345675

I agree with him.

Let's get the tests started.....

Tancredo states civics literacy test not racially biased
February 8, 12:44 PM
Denver Conservative Examiner
Kathleen Baker

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo is calling for a civics literacy test for Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo is asking Colorado House Speaker Terrance Carroll to retract his statements to the Denver Post he made on February 6 and to “speak honestly about the genuine problem of civic illiteracyâ€

Perhaps instead of wasting time in our schools with some of the silly courses we require kids to take a civics course should be taught?