Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky on Friday broke with fellow Republicans who have pushed for stricter voting laws as a way to crack down on fraud, saying the party was alienating and insulting African-Americans.
“Everybody’s gone completely crazy on this voter ID thing,” Mr. Paul said in an interview on Friday, adding that much of the bitterness in the debate over voting rights was wrapped up in race. “I think it’s wrong for Republicans to go too crazy on this issue because it’s offending people.”
Mr. Paul traveled to Memphis — a mostly black city and a Democratic stronghold with its own painful racial history — to speak at the spring meeting of the Republican National Committee. But before he talked to his fellow Republicans, he sat down with a group of black pastors to discuss his views on voting, public education and antipoverty policy.
It was the latest leg of Mr. Paul’s cross-country tour through places like Chicago and Detroit where it might not seem obvious for a conservative Republican to stop and ask for an audience.
Mr. Paul’s remarks seemed certain to stir concern among Republicans over whether the senator, a libertarian-minded ophthalmologist who entered public office only three years ago, is the kind of presidential candidate who can appeal to the conservative voters who have so much influence in selecting the nominee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/10/us/politics/paul-says-gop-push-on-voting-laws-is-alienating-blacks.html?hp
