Democratic South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn blamed conservative group American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for the murder of black man Walter Scott at the hands of a North Charleston police officer, saying on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that they created the “atmosphere” that let it happen. (VIDEO: Democratic Congressman: ‘Tea Party People’ Want To Bring Back Segregation, Get Rid Of Women’s Rights)
CLYBURN: I have been saying for several years now that a certain atmosphere seems to be created in this country that gives license to this. All you have to do is look at this, what is it, American Legislative Exchange Council that’s been drawing up pieces of legislation, mailing them out to legislatures all over the country. Stand-your-ground, that’s nothing but a law for vigilante activity.
We have seen these new voter suppression laws. They call it voter ID, but it’s not about ID-ing, it’s about suppressing voters. The leader of the Pennsylvania legislature told us as much when they passed their law up there. We see these laws where we are stacking African-Americans in one district and bleaching out districts all around it.
These things tend to get a rise, the political process, they tend to give license to people to do vigilante things. And if you got police officers managing that sort of thing, some of them will take license from that to do things they are doing.