Senators save democracy from Trump attack — but not our two | Opinion
You won’t hear me say this every day, but hooray for the United States Senate!
On Thursday, senators voted down the biggest threat to American self-governance since the British General Cornwallis rampaged through the colonial countryside.
The Senate rejected an amendment to attach the so-called “SAVE America Act” to a $70 billion funding bill for immigration enforcement.
The amendment needed 60 votes to pass under Senate rules. It got 50, not even the 51 votes needed for a simple majority. At least three Republicans joined Senate Democrats in voting “no.”
I say “at least” because there is apparently some confusion over the position of Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.
Several national news outlets, including Fox, Newsweek and The Hill, reported that Collins had joined fellow Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina in voting no.
The math wasn’t mathin’ for me. Republican senators minus four would be 49, not 50, so I looked up the roll call and it indicated Collins had voted “yea.”
I e-mailed her press office seeking clarification (the phone number goes straight to voice mail). It’s been about four hours. I haven’t heard back yet, and frankly don’t expect to, because that’s how Washington (and to a large degree Wichita) works these days.
Moran, Marshall, pick Trump over you
In any case, the word “disappointment” doesn’t even begin to cover what I’m feeling right now for our two Kansas senators, Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall.
They voted to compromise your right to vote as a citizen of Kansas, for no better reason than to avoid upsetting Donald Trump, who’s made unquestioning obedience on the SAVE Act into another of his warped MAGA-Republican litmus tests.
Moran and Marshall are simply too scared to risk the wrath of Trump to stand up for you and your constitutional rights.
I say this because they both had front-row seats for the dress rehearsal for the SAVE Act, the Kansas “SAFE Act” of 2011, championed by our longtime Chief of Voter Suppression, Kris Kobach.
Inarguably, it was an abject disaster for the Sunflower State.
Draconian requirements for proof of citizenship allowed Kobach to suspend the voting rights of 31,000 legitimate American citizens until the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals made him stop.
The core of the federal SAVE Act is essentially SAFE Act 2.0, with the same absurd requirements that voters produce a passport or paper copies of other records the government already has to “prove” their citizenship to register to vote.
But wait, there’s more! The new model now comes with totally unnecessary restrictions on mail voting, and even a gratuitous slap at transgender Americans, sure to please even the most discriminating of bigots.
The stated justification for this legislation is the same old bald-faced lie that unauthorized immigrants are stealing our elections, when every iota of credible research ever done shows the problem of non-citizen voting is microscopic.
Nobody’s ever proven that better than Kris Kobach himself, who’s been obsessively prosecuting voter fraud across Kansas for more than 10 years, and has yet to catch even a single undocumented immigrant voter.
All he has to show for the effort and cost are petty violations by three legal immigrants who improperly voted because they were confused, not criminal.
No, it’s not just “voter ID”
I can practically guarantee that when this column hits our website and social media, the usual suspects are going to jump in and comment that you have to show ID to cash a check, or go to a nudie bar, or buy Sudafed to cook meth, whatever.
When you see those comments, feel free to click the laughing face emoji with confidence. Anyone making that argument is either ignorant (possible) or intentionally misleading (probable).
While we do have to show drivers’ licenses for many ordinary tasks, your driver’s license does not meet the requirements to register to vote under the SAVE Act.
And none of us ever need to show a passport, birth certificate and/or marriage license for some routine errand. That’s why those documents live in safe-deposit boxes and not in your pocket.
Mere minutes after I finished writing these last few paragraphs, I got an e-mail fundraising appeal from Kansas 2nd District Congressman Derek Schmidt, who voted for the SAVE Act when it passed the House.
He writes: “In Kansas, you show ID to buy cold medicine. You show ID to board a plane. You show ID to pick up a prescription. But in some states, asking someone to show ID before they vote is considered controversial.”
Schmidt, Marshall and Moran are all smart enough to understand the SAVE Act way better than their votes indicate.
They have no legitimate excuse to vote against the interests of their voters. And we should not have to put up with this any longer.
