Kucinich, who ran losing presidential bids in 2004 and 2008 and faced a stiff primary challenge earlier this year, drafted the legislation following a report in the Michigan Messenger that a Macomb County Republican Party official said he planned to gather lists of foreclosed homeowners to challenge their eligibility.

The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee have since filed a lawsuit in federal court over the reported plans.

The tactic is a version of a practice known as “caging,” which allows political opponents to identify voters who might not meet proper residency requirements. Democrats and voting-rights activists argue that victims of foreclosure may still live in their homes, and that the tactic disproportionately affects poor and African-American voters. Republicans argue that the practice preserves the integrity of the ballot.

Kucinich’s bill is unlikely to get a hearing or consideration on the House floor, as Congress races to pass a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street banks before recessing, until after the election.

The group, Color of Change, is a young civil rights organization that has already has some successes during this political season. It helped oust Democratic Congressman Al Wynn and scuttle a planned primary debate for Democratic presidential candidates that was slated to be cosponsored by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus.

“John McCain’s talk about integrity and supporting democracy is just that, talk,” said the group’s director, James Rucker, in an interview with TWI. “Right now, he’s staying silent on an un-democratic program undertaken in this country, for his benefit, and in his party’s name. McCain and the RNC leadership know about these practices, but they won’t condemn or stop them. John McCain can’t shout ‘country first’ on the campaign trail and then choose to ignore his own party when they threaten the most basic right an American has – the right to vote,” added Rucker.

The group is collecting signatures for a petition urging McCain “stand up against his party’s shameful” tactics. While the practice was exposed in Michigan, Rucker also stressed that it is part of a broader pattern:

Caging–the practice being used in MI–is also being done in other states, but in Michigan it’s particularly predatory: they’re going after folks who have been hit hardest by the economy and using that fact to challenge their right to vote. We believe that highlighting this instance, where the despicable nature of the practice is so clear, is a great way to start a national, public conversation, about the tactics.

Politically, Color of Change probably has less leverage over McCain than it had its other recent adversaries, such as Black incumbent Democrats like Wynn and the CBC leadership. Yet combined with the pressure of an Obama campaign lawsuit and mounting national scrutiny, as TWI reported Thursday, this is an effort that could help force McCain to finally answer for tactics that are so widely decried, even his own allies denied deploying them once they were exposed.

From Brayton:

Caging is a technique of challenging voters where they take lists of addresses, mail to them with a “do not forward” marking and if for whatever reason those mailings are returned, they use this as a basis for claiming that the voter no longer lives at the address at which they are registered.

A former Karl Rove aide, Tim Griffin, has long been accused of using the voter suppression tactic to keep turnout among black voters in Duval County, Florida low in the 2004 presidential election. No smoking gun has ever confirmed Griffin’s use of caging, but some serious evidence suggests he did.