Cindy Hyde-Smith Controversies: Voter Suppression A 'Great Idea,' Mississippi Senator Says

Just days after facing "racist rhetoric" accusations, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi), found herself in another controversy after she was seen in a video saying laws that make it "just a little more difficult" for attendees of some of the state's universities to vote are a "great idea."

Hyde-Smith, who is in a runoff against Democrat Mike Espy on Nov. 27, made the remark at a campaign stop in Starkville, Mississippi, on Nov. 3. The video was posted to Twitter on Thursday by Lamar White Jr. -- the same person who made the senator's "public hanging" video available to the public.

"And then they remind me that there's a lot of liberal folks in those other schools who maybe we don't want to vote. Maybe we want to make it just a little more difficult. And I think that's a great idea," Hyde-Smith says in the video.

Hyde-Smith's campaign issued a statement saying the senator was "making a joke" and that the video was "selectively edited."

Danny Blanton, a spokesman for Espy's campaign, called Hyde-Smith a "walking stereotype who embarrasses our state."

"For a state like Mississippi, where voting rights were obtained through sweat and blood, everyone should appreciate that this is not a laughing matter," Blanton said in a statement.

Hyde-Smith's first controversial video was posted to Twitter on Sunday in which she was heard saying during a campaign stop in Tupelo on Nov. 2 that if the man who was next to her, later identified as a local rancher, "invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row."

Hours after facing backlash for her comment, Hyde-Smith defended herself saying her the remark was "exaggerated expression of regard."

“I referred to accepting an invitation to a speaking engagement,” Hyde-Smith said in a statement, obtained by the AP. “In referencing the one who invited me, I used an exaggerated expression of regard, and any attempt to turn this into a negative connotation is ridiculous.”

Espy's campaign had released a statement to the video saying the comments she made are "reprehensible.”

Blanton at the time said: “They have no place in our political discourse, in Mississippi, or our country. We need leaders, not dividers, and her words show that she lacks the understanding and judgment to represent the people of our state.”

NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) president Derrick Johnson, who was from Mississippi, also slammed Hyde-Smith’s comment.

“Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith’s shameful remarks prove once again how Trump has created a social and political climate that normalizes hateful and racist rhetoric,” Johnson said in a statement. “Hyde-Smith’s decision to joke about ‘hanging,’ in a state known for its violent and terroristic history toward African Americans is sick. To envision this brutal and degenerate type of frame during a time when Black people, Jewish People and immigrants are still being targeted for violence by White nationalists and racists is hateful and hurtful.”