{"id":656349,"date":"2010-02-05T19:43:27","date_gmt":"2010-02-06T00:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=75937"},"modified":"2010-02-05T19:43:27","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T00:43:27","slug":"tom-tancredo%e2%80%99s-literacy-test-the-controversy-that-wasn%e2%80%99t-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/656349","title":{"rendered":"Tom Tancredo\u2019s Literacy Test: The Controversy That Wasn\u2019t (Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NASHVILLE &#8212; The closest thing to a controversy at the National Tea Party Convention has been the opening speech by former congressman Tom Tancredo, in which he complained that &#8220;we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.&#8221; That remark led to the expected backlash, with plenty of people <a href=\"http:\/\/littlegreenfootballs.com\/article\/35719_TeaBagCon-_Tom_Tancredo_Suggests_Reinstating_Literacy_Tests_for_Voters\">pointing out the history of literacy tests<\/a>. And as Tancredo walked around the small convention area today, he talked into recorder after camera after notebook.<span id=\"more-75937\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want anybody to be refused the right to vote if, maybe, they have to mark [the ballot] with an X,&#8221; said Tancredo in a short interview with John Avlon of the Daily Beast. &#8220;I do think they should have to know something about how the government works.&#8221; He suggested using the citizenship test that immigrants take &#8212; maybe, he said, voters could take it &#8220;verbally.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>How did Tea Party organizers respond to the questions? Judson Phillips basically agreed with Tom Tancredo and called it a &#8220;fantastic speech.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/fPfBCfm_ZvU\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASHVILLE &#8212; The closest thing to a controversy at the National Tea Party Convention has been the opening speech by former congressman Tom Tancredo, in which he complained that &#8220;we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.&#8221; That remark led to the expected backlash, with plenty of people [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2761,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-2KKh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2761"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}