Only Property Owners Should Vote Says Fla. Congressman

By Brentin Mock May 21, 2014

Republicans have been bluffing lately about helping restore voting rights in the U.S. One of their party members in Florida may have given us a taste of why. Video of Rep. Ted Yoho of Florida, a Tea Party favorite, shows him saying in 2012 that voting should be like back in the day, when black people and women couldn’t vote. 

"I’ve had some radical ideas about voting and it’s probably not a good time to tell them, but you used to have to be a property owner to vote," Yoho said in a video posted this week by Right Wing Watch.

It’s not the first time Yoho talked this crazy. As reported in Huffington Post, this is the same guy who questioned whether the Civil Rights Acts is constitutional and who said granting in-state tuition for immigrant students was rewarding "bad behavior." He’s also that Congressman who said the tax on tanning salons in the Affordable Care Act was racist

The Democratic Party seized in on Yoho, responding through Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, also of Florida, who said:  

"Ted Yoho’s comments aren’t just from a different decade, they harken back to another century when Americans were denied their basic rights as citizens. Yoho’s view is abhorrent and immoral and should be roundly condemned in the strongest possible terms. Unfortunately, Ted Yoho’s comments are just one example of what is wrong with today’s Republican Party that thinks the problem in our democracy is that there are too many people participating and is systematically trying to make it harder for eligible citizens to participate in the electoral process." 

Meanwhile, Yoho’s thoughts on voting fit snuggly with his fellow Tea Party compatriots, like Tea Party leader Judson Phillips and Mississippi Tea Party state leader Janis Lane who said that women shouldn’t be able to vote