• Home
  • Independent Voter News
  • Quizzes
  • Election Dissection
  • Sections
  • Events
  • Directory
  • About Us
  • Glossary
  • Opinion
  • Campaign Finance
  • Redistricting
  • Civic Ed
  • Voting
  • Fact Check
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Subscriptions
  • Log in
Leveraging Our Differences
  • news & opinion
    • Big Picture
      • Civic Ed
      • Ethics
      • Leadership
      • Leveraging big ideas
      • Media
    • Business & Democracy
      • Corporate Responsibility
      • Impact Investment
      • Innovation & Incubation
      • Small Businesses
      • Stakeholder Capitalism
    • Elections
      • Campaign Finance
      • Independent Voter News
      • Redistricting
      • Voting
    • Government
      • Balance of Power
      • Budgeting
      • Congress
      • Judicial
      • Local
      • State
      • White House
    • Justice
      • Accountability
      • Anti-corruption
      • Budget equity
    • Columns
      • Beyond Right and Left
      • Civic Soul
      • Congress at a Crossroads
      • Cross-Partisan Visions
      • Democracy Pie
      • Our Freedom
  • Pop Culture
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
      • American Heroes
      • Ask Joe
      • Celebrity News
      • Comedy
      • Dance, Theatre & Film
      • Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging
      • Faithful & Mindful Living
      • Music, Poetry & Arts
      • Sports
      • Technology
      • Your Take
  • events
  • About
      • Mission
      • Advisory Board
      • Staff
      • Contact Us
Sign Up
  1. Home>
  2. Voting>
  3. voter suppression>

GOP congressman says minorities are 'gullible' in buying talk of voter suppression

Our Staff
February 26, 2020
GOP congressman says minorities are 'gullible' in buying talk of voter suppression

Rep. Doug Lamborn, who appeared with President Trump at a rally Feb. 20, said Democrats "want to stir up minorities who are gullible and believe that garbage," referring to voter suppression.

Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

Minority-group voters are so "gullible" they believe fabrications about voter suppression concocted by Democrats, one of the most combatively conservative Republicans in Congress maintains.

"The Democrats lie when they say, 'Oh, this is to suppress votes,' or 'This is to hurt minorities.' It's just a lie," Rep. Doug Lamborn said on a recent conservative radio broadcast getting some decent recirculation on social media, from both fans and foes of his thinking. "They want to stir up minorities who are gullible and believe that garbage."

The comments are a sharp rhetorical escalation in one of the most intense partisan disagreements over how to improve American democracy: Republicans maintain that their interest in strict rules surrounding voter registration and access to the polls is all about preventing voter fraud, and Democrats counter that the GOP sees its easiest path to victories in contests where turnout is held down by such rules.


Interviewed Feb. 20 on KVOR, a conservative talk station in the congressman's home town of Colorado Springs, Lamborn said he believes the state government is not working hard enough to maintain an accurate roll of eligible voters.


"It's legitimate for Republicans or anyone for that matter to make sure that county clerks and secretaries of state clean up their acts and really have transparent and accountable records, paper trails, and all of the above have cyber security," said Lamborn, who's in his seventh term. He is now among just three Republicans in a House delegation of seven, Colorado having shifted from purple to a pretty bright blue on the national map in the past 15 years.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

"Saying that 'minorities' are gullible for believing reports of voter suppression adds insult to the injury of this injustice," Rosemary Lytle, who runs the NAACP chapter for Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming, told the Colorado Times Recorder. "We have states like Colorado where robo calls targeting people in Pueblo once said, 'Don't forget to vote on Wednesday' when elections are held on Tuesday. And Doug Lamborn dares to call Black and Brown people 'gullible'? We are only gullible if we believe the lies of the so-called congressman who was elected to represent us."

This is not the first time Lamborn has sounded racist on talk radio. In 2011, Lamborn made national news for telling a conservative host that being associated with President Obama's policies is like "touching a tar baby." He later apologized.

From Your Site Articles
  • Partisan tussle interrupts House probe of midterm voter suppression ... ›
  • Voter suppression claims undermine important causes and ... ›
  • Corruption and voter suppression leave a paper trail - The Fulcrum ›
Related Articles Around the Web
  • Voter-Suppression Tactics in the Age of Trump | The New Yorker ›
  • Voter Suppression Efforts By Republicans Target Minorities ... ›
  • Rep. Doug Lamborn (@RepDLamborn) | Twitter ›
  • Congressman Doug Lamborn | Representing the 5th District of ... ›
voter suppression
Get some Leverage Sign up for The Fulcrum Newsletter
Follow
Contributors

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Anushka Sarkar

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Debilyn Molineaux

Caught in a draft

Lawrence Goldstone

Congress shows signs of bipartisanship with retirement benefits bill

Mario H. Lopez

Fair representation: More Black people needed in STEM today

Jennifer Stimpson

First instincts, second thoughts

Debilyn Molineaux
latest News

Democratic senators seek $20 billion in election funding

Reya Kumar
12h

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Our Staff
21h

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Reya Kumar
18 May

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Our Staff
18 May

Supreme Court continues to chip away at campaign finance laws

David Meyers
17 May

Podcast: Depolarizing America

Our Staff
17 May
Videos

Video: Helping loved ones divided by politics

Our Staff

Video: What happened in Virginia?

Our Staff

Video: Infrastructure past, present, and future

Our Staff

Video: Beyond the headlines SCOTUS 2021 - 2022

Our Staff

Video: Should we even have a debt limit

Our Staff

Video: #ListenFirstFriday Yap Politics

Our Staff
Podcasts

Podcast: Did economists move the Democrats to the right?

Our Staff
02 May

Podcast: The future of depolarization

Our Staff
11 February

Podcast: Sore losers are bad for democracy

Our Staff
20 January

Deconstructed Podcast from IVN

Our Staff
08 November 2021
Recommended
​Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Democratic senators seek $20 billion in election funding

Government
Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Podcast: A conversation with former Rep. Carlos Curbelo

Leadership
Supreme Court expansion protest

We’ve expanded the Supreme Court before. It’s time to do so again.

Judicial
North Carolina primary election workers

Elections require more consistent federal funding, per report

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Podcast: A new understanding of the right

Leveraging big ideas
Memorial for victims of Buffalo shooting

The ‘great replacement theory’ is nonsense

Media