Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R-NC) said on Thursday it was “preposterous” and “insulting” for Democrats to frame black Americans as incapable of obtaining a photo ID to comply with voter-ID laws.

Robinson was invited to testify as a witness before the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing entitled, “Oversight of the Voting Rights Act: The Evolving Landscape of Voting Discrimination.” Democrats and the broader left regularly frame voter-ID laws as racially discriminatory against blacks, including comparisons between such regulations and Jim Crow laws.

Robinson said:

Am I to believe that black Americans — who have overcome the atrocities of slavery, who were victorious in the civil rights moment, and now sit in the highest levels of this government — cannot figure out how to get a free ID to secure their votes?

They need to be coddled by politicians because they don’t think we can figure out how to make our voices heard

Are you kidding me? The notion that black people must be protected from a free ID to secure their votes is not just insane, it is insulting.

Robinson observed the subtext of Democrat narratives regarding voter-ID laws:

My father-in-law was in prison for 43 years — a black man in prison for 43 years — very first thing he did when he got out of prison was get a driver’s license. Where is this no access to IDs that exists?

Why do we look at poor people and brown people and think that they’re less than, and that they can’t figure out how our systems work, they can’t figure out where the DMV is, they can’t figure out where this agency is to go down and get this ID that is being offered?

I can’t express to you how insulting this is for someone to look at me and actually say that the reason why we don’t need IDs to vote is because you and your people can’t find your way down to get one.”

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) asked if “rampant voter discrimination” took place in North Carolina or the broader United States.

Robinson said, “A systematic effort to suppress the votes of black people, that is preposterous, just as preposterous as the notion that as a black American, I can’t get a free ID to vote.”

He described Democrats’ push for federalization of elections as “a partisan unconstitutional power grab.”

Robinson noted Clarence Henderson, who participated in a sit-in protest against racial segregation laws at a Woolworth lunch counter in 1960 in Greensboro, NC, was not invited to join an event on Monday headed by Vice President Kamala Harris to commemorate the demonstration.

Robinson shared:

This is doesn’t have anything to do with justice. This has everything to do with power. Just a few days ago, the vice president went to the very place that I mentioned, the Woolworth counter in Greensboro. But you know who wasn’t there, you know who wasn’t invited? My good friend Clarence Henderson, who is a civil rights icon.

He sat at that counter and endured the suffering and pain to make sure that black voices were heard, and why was he left out? Because he’s of a different political persuasion.

You might ask why this is so and I’ll tell you plainly. The goal of some individuals in government is not to hear the voices of black Americans, at all. It is to hear the voices that fit their narratives, and ultimately help keep power with one group, and that’s what this all is all about. It’s about power.

Robinson addressed H.R. 1’s — Democrat legislation dubbed the For the People Act — proposed changes to election laws.

“H.R. 1 [is] despicable,” he stated. “The entire thing is designed to keep one party in power and make sure they stay there indefinitely. … They plan to do that by taking away the rights of states given by the Constitution to govern their own elections.”

He concluded, “[H.R. 1 would use] government dollars to fund campaigns in order to give an advantage to one party, mandating that felons are allowed to vote — including illegal immigrants on voter rolls — and of course, trying to banish states from having voter ID.”

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