Tea Party Speaker Tancredo Suggests Return To Literacy Tests

Former California representative Tom Tancredo urged a return to voter literacy tests on the opening night of the Tea Party convention. Such tests were used in the past to prevent African-Americans and in some cases, Latinos, from voting, prior to Johnson-era civil rights laws.

Tancredo said that President Barack Obama was elected because "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country." He went further and blaster his own party's John McCain, saying "Thank God John McCain lost the election. This is our country. Let's take it back."

It's hard to know if by "our country" he meant a country of white people. However, as he railed against what he called the "cult of multiculturalism," it's pretty obvious. Tancredo, who has been a long opponent of immigration, should remember who the real immigrants to North America are.

When the literacy tests were previously used, those who were white were often allowed to vote, even if they failed the test. Details on Alabama's program can be found here.

Here are a few of the questions they gave on the "test."

• "If a person charged with treason denies his guilt, how many persons must testify against him before he can be convicted?" (two)
• "If a president does not wish to sign a bill, how many days is he allowed in which to return it to Congress for consideration?" (10)
• "If the United States wishes to purchase land for an arsenal and have exclusive legislative authority over it, consent is required from [fill in the blank]." (legislature)

A few comments: considering that Sarah Palin, a woman in her 40's, did not know that Africa was a continent and not a country, it is obvious there's a good chance she would fail this test. Second, as a member of Mensa with a certified genius level IQ, I can't answer these, because my civics class was over 30 years ago.

And finally, what you need to be able to do to vote for a candidate is not understand the esoterics of the laws and information in that test. You need to be able to parse the rhetoric of candidates. That is something that many on the right, who still believe in "death panels," cannot doe.