Indiana Upholds Photo ID Law....

Supreme Court upholds photo ID law for voters in Indiana
By MARK SHERMAN – 51 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.

In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to prevent fraud.

It was the most important voting rights case since the Bush v. Gore dispute that sealed the 2000 election for George W. Bush. But the voter ID ruling lacked the conservative-liberal split that marked the 2000 case.

The law "is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting 'the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,'" Justice John Paul Stevens said in an opinion that was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy. Stevens was a dissenter in Bush v. Gore in 2000.

Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas also agreed with the outcome, but wrote separately.

Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented, just as they did in 2000.

More than 20 states require some form of identification at the polls. Courts have upheld voter ID laws in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, but struck down Missouri's. Monday's decision comes a week before Indiana's presidential primary.

The decision also could spur efforts to pass similar laws in other states.

Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, said he hadn't reviewed the decision, but he was "extremely disappointed" by it. Falk has said voter ID laws inhibit voting, and a person's right to vote "is the most important right." The ACLU brought the case on behalf of Indiana voters.

The case concerned a state law, passed in 2005, that was backed by Republicans as a way to deter voter fraud. Democrats and civil rights groups opposed the law as unconstitutional and called it a thinly veiled effort to discourage elderly, poor and minority voters — those most likely to lack proper ID and who tend to vote for Democrats.

There is little history in Indiana of either in-person voter fraud — of the sort the law was designed to thwart — or voters being inconvenienced by the law's requirements. For the overwhelming majority of voters, an Indiana driver license serves as the identification.

"We cannot conclude that the statute imposes 'excessively burdensome requirements' on any class of voters," Stevens said.

Stevens' opinion suggests that the outcome could be different in a state where voters could provide evidence that their rights had been impaired.

But in dissent, Souter said Indiana's voter ID law "threatens to impose nontrivial burdens on the voting rights of tens of thousands of the state's citizens."

Scalia, favoring a broader ruling in defense of voter ID laws, said, "The universally applicable requirements of Indiana's voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not 'even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting.'"

Stevens said the partisan divide in Indiana, as well as elsewhere, was noteworthy. But he said that preventing fraud and inspiring voter confidence were legitimate goals of the law, regardless of who backed or opposed it.

Indiana provides IDs free of charge to the poor and allows voters who lack photo ID to cast a provisional ballot and then show up within 10 days at their county courthouse to produce identification or otherwise attest to their identity.

Stevens said these provisions also help reduce the burden on people who lack driver licenses.

Philly event on Sunday brought Hip Hop folks out

Rap power to vote
By DAMON C. WILLIAMS
Philadelphia Daily News

williadc@phillynews.com 215-854-5924

JUST AS THE MTV generation helped rock the vote two decades ago, organizers of yesterday's "National Hip-Hop Team Vote Campaign" hope the rap generation has the same impact on the current political landscape.
The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, which has led youth voter drives in the city before, hopes to pull at least 10,000 new voters into this year's election by way of an event yesterday in North Philadelphia's Liacouras Center as well as others like it throughout the country.

"Two days before the Pennsylvania primary, there is no better place to be," said Dr. Benjamin Chavis, co-chairman of HSAN. "Philadelphia's young people are into hip-hop, and they feel the media hasn't paid too much attention to them."

"Young people want to get out of poverty, and they want more access to getting a good education," Chavis said. "Hip-hop has brought back that entrepreneurial spirit, with the Jay-Z's and Diddy's of the world, and the way for these young people to get money is through their vote."

But it's one thing to have a mission; it's an entirely different matter to get young people to come out to hear it. So to that end, HSAN invited many of today's best-known celebrities - rappers T.I. and Flo-Rida, BET host Terrance J and newcomer O'Neal Alexander, to name a few - to perform and offer comments, hoping that their presence and words will leave an impression on the minds of young voters.

"I want to encourage the youth to take advantage of the opportunity to vote," T.I. said. "We already know where not voting gets us, and a lot of people don't take the time to vote."

"If you give up your right to vote, you also give up your right to complain," T.I. continued. "This is the most important election in hip-hop's lifetime."

T.I., a rapper who has dug himself out of a recent arrest on gun charges, said he is hoping to rehabilitate his image.

Chavis thought it a good idea that T.I. is on board with this effort.

"T.I. has gone through a lot of trials and tribulations, and he's someone the streets look up to," Chavis said. "Street cred in hip-hop is real, and T.I. has that. He's willing to say, 'I made those mistakes, and God has given me another opportunity to go on the right path.' " *

Pennsylvania primary in 4 days!

The PA primary is in 4 days y'all!! (April 22)
Black Youth Vote had a debate watch party on Wed. april 16, in Pittsbugh and in Philly, and the turn out was off the chain. More folks that we expected showed up, to watch the debates and throw in their own 2 cents/sense on the issues and the election.
BYV is also passing out literature throughout the week, in the form of bookmarks, providing the 5 Things You Need to Know Before Election Day to Protect Your Vote:


1. TAKE YOUR PHOTO ID WITH YOU. First time voters and voters voing in an election district for the first time mush show ID in Pennsylvania. If you moved and are voting for the first time at a new poll location, you MUST present your ID.

2. VERIFY your registration status Before election day--make sure you are listed on the registration rolls with you local board of elections office.

3. VERIFY your poll location Before election day. Call 1-866-MYVOTE-1 to find out.

4. YOU HAVE A RIGHT to request help from poll workers. If you are at the wrong polling place, ask an election official for your correct polling place.

5. DON'T LEAVE YOUR POLLING PLACE WITHOUT VOTING! If you need legal assistance call 1-866-OUR-VOTE.

Black youth in PA will most definitely be showin up to the polls, and vote HARD, and you know this, mannn!!

ALL BLACK DEBATE TEAM NATIONAL CHAMPS!!

First team of African-American debaters to win a national championship honored in Annapolis
by Simone Johnson
Baltimore Times
Originally posted 4/18/2008

Towson University students win the Cross Examination Debate Association's 2008 National Tournament

The first team of African-American debaters to ever win a national debate championship was honored by Governor Martin O'Malley this week. Towson University students Deven Cooper and Dayvon Love won the Cross Examination Debate Association's 2008 National Tournament, held March 20-24th at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. Nearly 200 teams from colleges and universities across the nation participated in over 90 debates during the competition. Adam Jackson and Deverick Murray, also Towson students, were also winners: They were double-octofinalists, losing to the team that Cooper and Love beat in the final round.

This year, the debate topic was titled “The United States' constructive engagement with the Middle East.” During the final round of the competition, Cooper and Love presented their argument with a unique, outside-of-the-box strategy: Instead, they criticized the practices of the debate community that they believed “purveyed white supremacy” and instructional inequalities in society. They also presented to the competition judges what they felt were disadvantages debaters face when they separate their own sentiments from their arguments and solely rely on academic authors.

“We talk about specific practices that the debate community engages in, and our argument is that until we fix those practices, then we can't have effective conversations about Middle East policy,” Love explains. “And that's why we used hip hop and personal experience as another way to legitimize claims.”

Chris Baron, a co-coach of Towson's debate team, describes the win as groundbreaking.

“It's sort of an exclamation mark on their win,” says Baron. “They broke records, but they did it in a way that challenged prevailing methodology. So, to me, this is kind of a breakthrough in debate, itself.”

Both Cooper, a senior political science major, and Love, a junior philosophy major, have been debating since their high school years. Cooper, a graduate—and valedictorian—of Lake Clifton High School in Baltimore, says a free trip to Atlanta to attend a debate camp at Emory University fueled his interests in joining the debate team at Lake Clifton.

“I had a lot of fun there,” Cooper says. “In the camp, there was a tournament, and I won 5 out of 6 rounds.”

During his senior year of high school, Cooper became the top speaker in Baltimore Urban Debate League. He attended the University of Louisville before transferring to Towson University on a scholarship.

Love says he developed an interest in debating by accident. “A friend of mine kept telling me to join the debate team,” he says. “I kept telling him no. Forest Park had practices in the morning. I went in one morning, met my coach and started debating.”

At Towson, Cooper and Love meet with their debate team for two hours, two days a week. Outside of their meetings—and between classes and homework—they find creative ways to prepare constructive arguments and a skeleton of ideas for their debates.

“There's a lot of reading that goes into preparing,” Love says. “We talk about a lot of personal experiences in debate rounds. “

Cooper uses not only real life experiences but also hip-hop music to prepare for his speeches. “I'm the first speaker (on the team), so my speech has to be the most creative.”

Describing the win as a team effort, Baron says Cooper and Love received a lot of support from the entire Towson University Debate Team, which consists of 20 debaters.

“Students are kind of in charge of their own learning and direction,” Baron says. “They ultimately decide what needs to be done. So a lot of people right now are very interested in where we are going next as a result of this win. They see it as significant from a symbolic perspective, that we may be kind of facing a turning point in the practices of debate, which, to me, based on the impact that the debate activity has on the larger world, has a potentially large ramification, which is very exciting.”

Guest Blog: Stefanie Brown

Living the Dream – Our History, Heritage and Hope

Perhaps you have heard that there is a presidential election taking place in a few months. From Fox News and CNN to bossip.com and urbanconservative.com, every news outlet and self-proclaimed journalist has an opinion about this year’s elections. Oftentimes the key issues being discussed are the Iraq War, economy, healthcare and education; the so-called hot button topics. Unfortunately, what is not being asked of the candidates themselves are their solutions to the underlying race and class-related aspects behind these key issues. For instance…
Senator McCain – you pride yourself on fighting terror, but how will you address the domestic terrorism in the form of police brutality and racial profiling that plague Black and Latino communities?
Senator Clinton – you often taut your stance on healthcare, but what are you going to do about the inadequate presence of quality healthcare facilities in rural and urban communities?

Senator Obama – you say that you believe in a quality education, but how will you address the lack of equality in truth being taught in our public school systems; including the extreme misrepresentation and oftentimes no representation of the Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American contributions to America?
In fact, do any of you Presidential candidates have a plan to help the 13 million children living in poverty or those citizens who make up “lower class” America? Please quit going on and on about how you plan to strengthen the middle class! Instead, tell us how you will help the family that no longer relies on hope but is waiting for help!

In actuality, my friends, the question is not what are they going to say but what are we going to do?

The first thing we need to do is to STOP LIVING IN A DREAM! As a country we must realistic face the fact that our past experiences and perceptions will have a great impact on how we act today. We cannot run away from conversations and enacting solutions to combat racism, sexism, classism or homophobia. We must not be afraid to challenge the status quo and ask questions; to question the things of life is not an automatic rejection, but a way to learn, grow and seek truth. In addition, we must get off our soapbox and actually give a damn about each other! Everyone was so hyped up about the Jena 6 situation, but now most folks can’t even remember the names of those boys. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “a social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution”.

Lastly, we must hold our leaders accountable and not reward those who don’t speak to us or for us with continued support. But most importantly, we all must hold ourselves accountable. Black people can’t blame white people for all their problems and white people can’t blame everybody else for theirs. Together, we can learn from our history, embrace our heritage and realize our dreams through hope and action.

-Stefanie Brown
NAACP College and Youth Division

BYV! BLOG IS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED!

Welcome to the Black Youth Vote 2008 BLOGSPOT!

My name is Diallo Brooks, and I am the Co-Chair of the Black Youth Vote! Advisory Board. My sista in the struggle, BYV! Co-Chair Chancee Lundy, will be blogging on Saturday, April 12th to close out our official 12th Anniversary of Black Youth Vote!/BLOG LAUNCH WEEK. BYV! came to be a program of the National Coalition On Black Civic Participation in April 1996 because of a great need to give young black voters a collective voice, and a space to train to become political leaders.

Since 1996, hundreds of young people have been a part of BYV!, strengthening our movement in every election cycle, increasing turnout of black youth and the number of black elected officials nationwide. Additionally, BYV! continues to increase its presence in the black community, as more and more inspired young black folks reach out to us asking: "How can I get down? How can I bring Black Youth Vote to my area?"

So here we are in 2008, and it seem more than ever before that young black people are motivated because of the pressing issues in our community. Efforts of blatant racism seem to be restless across America, and the media has proven only to perpetuate it. Incidents of injustice continue to spur across northern and southern states, while presidential candidates largely ignore the problems of a flawed and at times racist justice system. We're in an economic recession (but black folks have been in an economic recession for much longer) that is affecting people of color disproportionately. Gas prices are off the charts and sadly, on the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, pundits continue to attack our most sacred institution, the Black Church.

Given all that is happening in the world, young black people still have power. With a political landscape shaped by the 2008 elections, the world's eyes are focused on our community. Historically our civic influence has changed the face of government and the politics of the country. So to commemorate our 12th anniversary along with Dr. King's assassination, we are officially launching our BLOGSPOT by publishing guest commentaries all week on Race, Politics, and the Youth Vote. Our guest bloggers will share their unique perspectives, and hopefully engage people worldwide in the discussion on the political and cultural significance of the POWER of young black people at the polls. The schedule:

4/7 Monday: Diallo Brooks, Black Youth Vote! Co-Chair
4/8 Tuesday: Hill Harper. Actor, "CSI NY" and Activist
4/9 Wednesday: Stefanie Brown, National Director of NAACP College and Youth Division
4/10 Thursday: Dr. Joe Leonard, Executive Director of Congressional Black Caucus
4/11 Friday: TBA SPECIAL GUEST
4/12 Saturday: Chancee Lundy, Black Youth Vote! Co-Chair

So stay tuned in! Please feel free to join us regularly from now on, comment on blogs that spark your interest, and holla at your folk! We've got many more great things to come.

In Solidarity,

Diallo Brooks, Black Youth Vote! Co-Chair