MS Senator Defends Georgia’s Rollback of Sunday Early Voting By Claiming Policy Breaks One of the Ten Commandments
Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R) defended the rollback of early voting on Sundays in Georgia by citing the Ten Commandments and implying that voting on the Sabbath somehow broke the biblical code.
During a Senate hearing on campaign finance and voting rights Wednesday, Hyde-Smith asked chair Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) when she could respond to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s criticism of what he characterized as widespread voter suppression efforts in Georgia.
Schumer has decried the raft of new voting restrictions passed by Republicans in Georgia’s state legislature after that state flipped blue for Biden and elected two Democratic senators on a January runoff. Among the many new proposals, the Georgia GOP would end so-called “Souls to the Polls” Sunday voting and could have a significant impact on the role of Black churches in driving voter turnout.
According to the United States Election Project, Mississippi had the sixth-lowest eligible voter turnout rate in the country in the 2020 election, at 60.2%. By contrast, Georgia’s VEP turnout rate was 7.5 percentage points higher, and was 26th among all states. And despite the state’s much lower than average turnout and long voter lines in many areas, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) announced just 48 hours after Election Day that he would never permit early voting in his state.
“Earlier Senator Schumer, the Majority Leader, had requested a response from Republican members of this committee as to things that were happening in Georgia,” Hyde-Smith noted. “When is the appropriate time that i can respond?”
Klobuchar then gave her the floor to make a statement.
“Senator Schumer’s question was he was wondering why on Sundays Georgia would not participate in an electoral process of gathering signatures, registration and things on registration and things on Sunday,” Hyde-Smith said, recounting the exchange. “I would just like to respond to that. because Georgia is a Southern state just like Mississippi. I cannot speak for Georgia, but I can speak for Mississippi on why we would never do that on a Sunday or hold an election on a Sunday.”
Hyde-Smith then pulled out a dollar bill and made a point of noting that the currency includes the phrase “In God We Trust,” which is also engraved on the Senate chamber.
“When you swore in all of these witnesses, the last thing you said to them in your instructions was ‘So help you God,'” the Mississippi senator noted, before citing a Bible verse from Exodus as justification for the new voter restriction, not-so-subtly imply that any Christians voting on Sunday would run afoul of the Bible’s commandment to “remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.”
“That is my response to Senator Schumer,” Hyde-Smith concluded. However, she did not elaborate if getting sworn into the Senate on a Sunday, as she did back on January 3rd, was also a Biblical transgression.
Watch the video above, via C-Span 3.
