State Rep. Michael Schraa wrote an editorial today in the Oshkosh Northwestern in which he advocates for a quick judicial ruling on Wisconsin's Voter ID law.
The editorial can be found here:
http://www.thenorthwestern.com/...
Given recent revelations that U.S. Sen. Rand Paul doesn't know how to express his own thoughts and opinions, and doesn't believe he has to attribute other's thoughts and opinions to their proper source, I thought it wise to see if Rep. Schraa might have problems with intellectual theft. Sure enough. . .
Two paragraphs from Rep. Schraa's editorial:
To us, this is unacceptable. The voter ID law is too important to be held up in the court system for years on end. Wisconsin needs to have a law in place now to prevent voter fraud because undermining the validity of elections ultimately undermines our model of government.
There are three acceptable reasons for not having proper identification under our bill: the voter cannot afford to get an ID or obtain the required documents; the voter has religious objections to being photographed; or the voter cannot obtain the original documents to get an ID, such as a birth certificate (for example, if it were lost in a courthouse fire). This proposal does not affect registration in any way.
I quickly found this article written by WI Rep. Joel Kleefisch:
http://www.wisopinion.com/...
Quotes from the article (see if they sound familiar)
This bill will have some challenges to face, but the voter ID law is too important to be held up in the court system for years on end. We can't sit around and wait for the courts to make their decision. Wisconsin needs to have a law in place now to prevent voter fraud because undermining the validity of elections ultimately undermines our model of government.
Under the proposed legislation, there are three acceptable reasons for not having proper identification: the voter cannot afford to get an ID or obtain the required documents; the voter has religious objections to being photographed; or the voter cannot obtain the original documents to get an ID, such as if a birth certificate were lost in a fire. This proposal does not affect registration in any way.
Given this, I decided to point it out on
Rep. Schraa's Facebook page.
After a quick back and forth, Rep. Schraa deleted my comments and blocked me from commenting. Luckily, I screen-capped the exchange (these guys are really too predictable).
Yep, there's Rep. Schraa claiming that it was actually Rep. Kleefisch who is plagiarizing. Amazing.