First, here’s the context. Cavuto noted that Clyburn seemed open to a proposal by Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) to require voter ID laws in every state. He seemed to couch it as a shift by Clyburn. But it should be noted that Manchin would not require a photo ID, unlike many of the laws passed by Republican lawmakers. A person could vote using a utility bill. Critics say that would be easy to forge.
CAVUTO: So, congressman, when you said you were absolutely open to Joe Manchin’s proposed voter ID requirement, which did seem to represent a significant pivot on your part, is that your way of saying, ‘let’s get past the ID thing, and on to other matters to get this law done?’
Clyburn appeared irritated by the question. Here’s his full response.
CLYBURN: You know, Neil, I don’t know why people keep misrepresenting stuff. There’s not a single time that I have ever voted in my entire life — and I’m going to be 81 years old next week — there’s not a single time that I have voted that I did not ID myself. What I spoke about was allowing an ID, a picture ID of a hunter’s license to be good, but of a student activity card to be no good. That’s the kind of voter ID law that I’m talking about that’s unfair. I have said that all of my life. I don’t know why you guys keep misrepresenting what I said. I have never said that you should not have voter ID. When I got my voter registration cards, I keep them in my wallet. And when I go to vote, I presented that every time. And I said to them, I am Jim Clyburn, this is my ID, and I want to vote. I have always had voter ID. And that’s why the representative earlier who voted — no Democrat has never been against voter ID.
Many voter registration cards do not have photos, but under a law effective in 2013, in South Carolina, one can obtain a voter registration card with a photo, free of charge, and use that to vote. You can also use a South Carolina driver’s license, an ID card issued by the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles, federal military ID or U.S. passport. Someone without a photo ID can still cast a provisional ballot after signing an affidavit explaining why a photo ID could not be obtained. A person may list any “obstacle you find reasonable.”
That last element is why Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh as an appeals court judge wrote an opinion that declared the South Carolina law constitutional: It allowed people who did not have photo IDs to vote.
In other words, it really was not a photo ID law after all. Kavanaugh noted that for decades, South Carolina has had a voter ID law, just not one that required a photo. “South Carolina’s new law, Act R54, likewise does not require a photo ID to vote,” Kavanaugh wrote in 2012.
That seems to be what Clyburn is referring to when he presented a voter registration card every time he voted. He does not mention that now it needs to have a photo (unless he decided to cast a provisional ballot).
Clyburn had been a strong opponent of the South Carolina law. “The congressman compared the voter photo ID law that Gov. Nikki Haley signed last month and similar laws in other states with the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow laws that Southern states enacted, imposing poll taxes, literacy tests and other hurdles to prevent blacks from voting,” McClatchy News reported in 2012.
Clyburn has continued with that theme about voter ID laws. In 2019, he tweeted a video with these words: “55 years ago, the 24th Amendment was ratified, eliminating poll taxes. Yet we are still seeing evidence of poll taxes today in the form of voter ID laws. In a democracy such as ours, we must not have any impediments to voting.”
In the video, he outlined his view that laws that require purchasing an ID would be a form of poll tax. (As we noted, voter IDs are free in South Carolina.)
In 2020, Clyburn tweeted: “Long voting lines. Closed polling locations. Voter ID laws. They’re all voter suppression.”
These are broad-brush statements against voter ID laws. But in his comments on Fox, Clyburn indicated that he was not against voter ID laws requiring photos per se, just what he considered unfair ones — favoring hunters (who might lean Republican) but not students (who might favor Democrats).
Clyburn said something similar to CNN earlier in July: “I don’t know of a single person who is against ID’ing themselves when they go to vote. But we don’t want you to tell me my ID is no good because I don’t own a gun and I don’t go hunting.”
We repeatedly sought an explanation for Clyburn’s pretzel-twisting, via email and phone, from his communication director, Hope Derrick, over a 24-hour period. We also tweeted that she had not answered requests for comment. But she and her deputy did not respond to our queries.
A total of 37 states had laws in 2020 requesting or requiring voters to show some form of identification at the polls, 35 of which were in force in that year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. It said seven states had what it called “strict” photo ID requirements in place; South Carolina was not among them. A Monmouth University poll in June found that 80 percent of Americans (including 62 percent of Democrats) support requiring voters to show photo identification.
The Pinocchio Test
Clyburn is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He routinely decries “voter ID” laws, but at the same time he insisted on Fox News that he has never opposed such laws — and that every Democrat has supported them. In reality, he appears to be against many types of voter ID laws — ones that require photos, or a fee for a photo or which favor one voting group over another.
In other words, he’s playing word games. He supposedly is for voter identification but against most of the voter ID laws being adopted by states. Perhaps his contradictory response may be related to the broad support photo ID requirements have in public polling. He appears to want people to think he agrees with the majority even when he is fighting against such laws.
The fact that his spokeswoman will not explain what he meant suggests that his staff knows he ended up with an untenable talking point. You cannot claim one day that voter ID is a new kind of poll tax and then, on another day, say every Democrat is for voter ID.
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