BREAKING NEWS – Washington, D.C. – House Majority Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., has expressed strong opposition to voter identification requirements in the past, but now that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-Va., is pushing for it in an effort to reach a voting reform compromise, he claims he has “always” been a fan.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union”, Clyburn asserted that he “absolutely” could back Manchin’s ID proposal.
While Clyburn now says that he has always supported a voter ID requirement, which is widely supported by the public, his past comments indicate otherwise. In October, he tweeted that voter ID laws, long lines at polling sites, and closed polling locations were “all voter suppression.”
He made an attempt to walk it back claiming it was a series of typos. “When I spoke into my phone to post the tweet, it got it all wrong,” Clyburn explained. “What should have been printed was not ‘all voter suppression’ but ‘of older soup rushing’. I was trying to explain that if you had some stew in your refrigerator that’s been in there for a while, take your time in heating it up, or it’ll taste awful. My words were in reference to a cooking tip, and not anything political.”