Judson Phillips, the founder of the group Tea Party Nation, has defended his comments that the Founding Fathers’ original plan to only allow property owners to vote “makes a lot of sense” because “property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners.”
In an email to ThinkProgress yesterday, Phillips doubled down, referring to the radio broadcast last week in which he made the comments: “During the course of our discussion, I mentioned that the Founding Fathers limited voting rights to property owners. I commented this was a wise idea.”
He continued:
Apparently, two weeks after the show, some liberal stumbled across it and today, that comment has turned into liberal headlines such as, “Tea Party Nation President says It Makes A Lot of Sense to Restrict Voting to Property Owners” and “Tea Party Leaders Attack Constitution.” Suddenly, this has morphed from a discussion between two tea partiers into articles claiming that I want to change the Constitution to restrict voting to property owners.
Phillips is also known for defending an email he wrote calling for supporters to help “retire” Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) because “he is the only Muslim member of congress,” among other things.
Here’s the original audio clip:
Jillian Rayfield
Jillian Rayfield is a Reporter/Blogger for TPM, and started as a News Intern in May 2009. She graduated from Cornell University in May 2008 with a degree in Film, and worked as a Research Assistant for a market research firm in London in between.
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