The SPT bemoans "affront to voters"

A bylineless editorial from The St. Petersburg Times this week criticized GOP lawmakers in Florida for making certain types of personal identification unsuitable for confirming one's identity at the polls and for moving to make public referendum more difficult.

Those moves were supposedly an "affront to voters."

The editorial is an affront to readers of the newspaper, unless they happen to possess the type of ideological bias that might qualify them for a place on the editorial board.

It is not an affront to voters to require identification. Yes, it arguably shrinks the number of votes for Democrats. It affects primarily those who take their voting rights so lightly that they don't bother to obtain legally required identification. It also affects those who might not be eligible to vote. Responsible voters from either party should not expend too much worry over an affront to those who either place little value on their voting rights or lack voting rights altogether.

The Times' statement on the power of referendum was so priceless that I half expect it to turn up in a credit card advertisement:

The bill would make it harder for a citizens' referendum to reach the ballot and easier for elected officials to keep one off.

Why is it bad to make it harder for a citizens' referendum to reach the ballot? Our anonymous editor doesn't say. And who should decide whether a citizens' referendum ought to reach the ballot? If the decision is based on the law, then elected officials effectively decide which referenda make the ballot and which do not. The end effect is a step backward from direct democracy, a system the framers of our federal Constitution found abhorrent for its vulnerability to mob influence, and an affirmation of representative government. The latter, coincidentally, was the form of government the framers explicitly advocated.

The Republican form of government? An affront to voters in the eyes of the Times.

Anybody with me in getting a referendum on the ballot to liquidate the Times? Perhaps it would make an effective point with the editors of that port-listing publication.