“Never let a disgraceful idea die a quiet death” must be on the masthead over at the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance because it is ramping up its shameful voter suppression campaign. It poses this question for candidates for chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party: will they bow to MassFiscal’s campaign to intimidate minorities or stand tall for Asian American, Black, and Latino voters?
Readers will recall that MassFiscal sent a letter to Secretary of State William Galvin in October asking that its’ “Voter Integrity Project” be taken seriously. (This was an early clue: no one has ever used the word integrity and Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance in the same sentence). The Voter Integrity Project was nothing but a voter suppression campaign designed to intimidate Latino voters from voting in the Third Congressional District. Just by coincidence, MassFiscal founder Rick Green was the Republican nominee running for that seat.
MassFiscal’s “methodology” for the project was a replica of a technique the GOP used in the 1980s to suppress Black votes in Louisiana. Boston College historian Heather Cox Richardson wrote about it in ‘Voter fraud’ is a myth that helps Republicans win, even when their policies aren’t popular. The Louisiana effort was designed to “eliminate at least 60-80,000 folks from the rolls,” one GOP operative wrote. “If it’s a close race, which I’m assuming it is, this could keep the black vote down considerably.”
Secretary Galvin responded to MassFiscal by warning the right wing front that he would protect minority voters against MassFiscal. So perhaps MassFiscal was misreading the Secretary with this recent tweet from its spokesman:
That prompted @RWWatchMa to respond that a hearing might be a very good idea. I agree, a public hearing on MassFiscal’s voter intimidation efforts would be quite a show. Professor Richardson would be an excellent witness.
That won’t happen but what is going to happen is an election for a new chairperson of the Massachusetts Republican Party. Governor Charlie Baker has campaigned in every neighborhood of the commonwealth including minority precincts where few Republicans go. Outgoing Massachusetts GOP chair Kirsten Hughes has always stressed that the party should bring its message into Black, Latino, and Asian American communities. Will MassFiscal’s “Voter Integrity” campaign become an issue in the campaign for the next chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party? If so, the Republican State Committee will have to decide whether or not to repudiate Chair Hughes and Governor Baker in order to stand with the odious Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money – and sometimes, minority voter suppression.]