A Washington Post reporter asked whether Republican legislators passed election laws to require voter I.D.s and limit early voting to keep African Americans from voting.  

Back in 2010, before Republicans redrew the State House and Senate districts, there were 98 Democrats in the State Legislature.  After redistricting, there were 60. 

Before redistricting, 33 African-Americans were elected to the State House and Senate. After redistricting, 34 African-Americans were elected.

The number of Democrats dropped. The number of African- Americans went up. Those two numbers tell the whole story.

So I explained to the Post’s reporter Republican legislators didn’t sit in a back-room and say, How do we keep African -Americans from voting? – they sat in the back-room and said, How do we keep Democrats from voting? The reason for passing the laws wasn’t race it was politics.

A day or so after the Post’s story another reporter for a political website – it may have been Vox – went on the Internet and ‘tweeted’ I’d said the Republicans laws were justified because they helped elect Republicans. Next on Twitter a horde of enraged liberals charged over the horizon in my direction.

There was hollering. And that was the end of it. No one was looking for a way to fix the problem.

Political parties passing laws to give themselves an edge at the ballot box shouldn’t happen but it does and neither party has clean hands. And whether we elect Republicans or Democrats this fall it’s a safe bet history will repeat itself.