Tag: democracy

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election law U.S. Constitution Voting

The Federal Law That Wasn’t?

citizen, noncitizen, voting, immigration, democracy, elections

For the last eight years, Americans for Citizen Voting, a group that I chair, has worked to give more than 40 million voters in 15 states a chance to decide whether to amend their state constitutions to say “only” U.S. citizens are eligible to vote in state and local elections.

In all 15 states, voters overwhelmingly passed the Citizen Only Voting Amendment.

This year, six more states — Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, and West Virginia — have Citizen Only Voting measures on their ballot.

Throughout the course of these state campaigns, the media and many liberal Democrats have browbeat us that, “It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections!” 

Of course, we were not talking about federal elections.

Now, increasingly, we are.

Indeed, there is a 1996 federal statute making it a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. But, as we have been warning, it is of dubious constitutionality.

Under Article 1, Section 2 (House), the 17th Amendment (Senate), and Article II (President), the Constitution gives the States the power to determine who votes in federal elections in that state. Qualifications to vote are thus state matters. 

Now, the Trump administration is prosecuting more than 30 cases of noncitizens voting under this federal law, causing at least five defendants to challenge its constitutionality.

“In Miami, U.S. District Judge David Leibowitz is presiding over the case of Chelsea Cox, a Jamaican citizen accused of voting in the 2020 federal election,” Reuters reported earlier this month. “In June, the judge said he wanted an independent assessment of the law’s constitutionality.”

In a friend of the court brief, Paul Clement argues that “history and precedent reinforce that citizenship is a voter qualification and one that is fully within the scope of states’ power over such matters.”

Clement, a well-respected former solicitor general, also indicated “a more permanent solution,” noting that Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.) has introduced a constitutional amendment, House Joint Resolution 152, to restrict voting in federal elections to only U.S. citizens.

Congressional Republicans, focused on the SAVE Act, failed to give a hearing or bring to a vote this, the only way to prevent states from allowing noncitizens to vote in federal elections.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The 15 states that have already passed Citizen Only Voting constitutional amendments are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin.

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election law ideological culture national politics & policies partisanship

Cheating with Democracy

Republican, elections, voting, democracy

They’re cheating, she says.

Kamala Harris insists that the Trump administration and Republicans across the union are “cheating with all this redistricting that they are doing.

“They are cheating,” she goes on, “by changing polling locations so that our elders who are used to voting at the elementary school down the street may go there on Election Day and find out it is no longer a polling place.

“They are cheating by purging voter rolls,” and . . . well, she breathlessly moves on, explaining why leaders like her have to remind people that “not only must you regislur [sic] to vote, but you must check your registration status to make sure you haven’t been purged from the rolls!”

Well, it is a good idea to check your registration status every now and then.

But the assumptions undergirding these charges, which she made on the 22nd in front of the Detroit NAACP, is that the evil Republicans are trying to disenfranchise American blacks by such horrific and unheard of practices as redistricting, by altering polling locations, and by scouring the official lists of voters for people who have moved without informing officials, for those who are ineligible because of lack of citizenship, and for the inconvenient lack of existence.

A democracy cannot run well without careful attention to all three of these things. 

What’s happened with redistricting is that the Democrats have used race — illegally — as an excuse to concentrate blacks, and recently Republicans have re-instituted non-race-based standards for districting. 

Changing polling places always occurs, every election year, and the biggest changes in this regard have been in the eight states (and D.C.) that have established mail-in only voting. Talk about a change of polling places!

And then there is the purging of voter rolls of non-citizen, non-resident, and non-existent voters! Who could complain about that?

Only unserious people. Like Democrats. Like Kamala Harris.

And those who seek to game elections.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Coda: “That’s how I feel about this moment,” concluded Harris, “I feel about this moment like this.”

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deficits and debt folly national politics & policies

Minus the Five Grand

Trump, $5000, bribe, National Debt

“If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,” President Donald Trump promised last week before assembled Republicans at the party’s midterm convention as well as a national television audience. “It will be called the Trump dividend.”

The cost of making good on his pledge, bribe, deal? A cool $1.3 trillion.

I don’t believe Mr. Trump has that much money.

“Because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” intoned the president. “Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders.”

Dividends are paid out of profits; this operation known as the federal government doesn’t turn a profit. Instead, it’s running past $40 trillion in debt.

Can we afford to go trillions further into the red? Or pay more in taxes for this additional trillion-dollar-plus giveaway?

As if trying to outdo the president in folly, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick declared “we’re going to deliver” but “not from taxpayer money,” detailing several precarious plans . . . to come up with less than half the needed dough.

On Fox News, Bret Baier brought the vice president into the conversation. J. D. Vance described the current deficit budget in terms of revenue — there is “an extraordinary amount of revenue,” he said — as if the revenue that is not extraordinary enough to cover all current spending is somehow enough to spend $1.3 trillion more without additional debt. 

Eric Boehm at Reason says the $5,000 bribe shows that MAGA has run out of ideas.

In an election year when Democrats are featuring wannabe communists, why are Republicans demonstrating a similar lack of sanity?

I think the American voter might be more persuaded by even the smallest dose of common sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies subsidy tax policy

The New Hollywood?

Hollywood, entertainment, Washington DC, democracy, subsidy, tax break

It may be the president’s goofiest idea yet.

His Monday brainstorm was for the federal government to get into the movie business. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump floated the notion of creating a “Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America.” So this isn’t exactly a socialist proposal — where the government would seize the means of production and go about making movies — it’s a subsidy proposal: tax breaks; to “benefit ALL of America.”

Trump posts as if he has worked the math out, where the booty the government loses in direct taxation “will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury’s coffers.”

A familiar rationale. But does it work? Do tax credits incentivize producers so much that taxes downstream of the productions make up for all the bother and paperwork?

Well, no need for theory. States already have such programs.

Tosin Akintola, in his Reason article — “State Film Subsidies Lose Money. Trump Wants To Try the Idea Nationally.” — found that “the film and TV industry in eight states returned between 3 cents and 31 cents for every dollar.” 

Entertainment projects do not create that many jobs.

We used to talk about the states as “laboratories of democracy,” by which we meant “laboratories for policy.”

The point isn’t to take the failed experiments and run them at the federal level, hoping for something different.

Sure, Hollywood is lame. But don’t make Washington the new entertainment capital of the world. It’s doing bad enough as the capital of more serious business.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Hollywood, entertainment, Washington DC, democracy, subsidy, tax break

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ideological culture too much government

Shirkers of the World, Unite

socialism, freedom, control, democracy

“Now it is our turn,” Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders told the crowd gathered at the Lincoln Memorial, last Friday, celebrating the 63rd anniversary of Martin Luther King’s March on Washington speech. 

Socialist Sanders was followed by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. 

“We the people demand guaranteed healthcare for every American as a right and not a privilege,” insisted AOC.

“We the people of the United States of America demand that one job with no need for overtime,” she declared, “should be enough for our most basic needs.”

Then Ocasio-Cortez added, “Which also include rest.”

“Exactly,” remarked Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade, “We became number one in the world by resting and not working overtime.

“Right behind her is an army of socialist foot soldiers,” Kilmeade continued, “ready to work 30 hours and then take a break.”

That army is the Democratic Socialists of America — to which AOC had just re-upped her membership.

“Imagine taking a day off from work,” reads their program’s very first message, “in a future without capitalism.” You see, in that socialist utopia just around the corner, “You enjoy your work; it’s interesting to you” and “you would control your own labor” and it would never be “just a job to pay the bills.” 

The promise of socialism fulfilled at last.

“Speaking of bills,” the DSA assures you won’t “really have them anymore.” And there will be “no debt”! Why, you won’t even “pay a mortgage or have a landlord, because comfortable housing is a human right.” Simple as that, plus, “Your retirement is publicly funded.” 

Sure sounds like they’re going to take care of us real nice. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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election law Voting

Noncitizen Pawns in the Voting Wars

voting, democracy, citizenship, elections, non citizen, immigration

“The next time [Michigan Secretary of State] Jocelyn Benson tells you there are no non-citizens on our voter rolls,” Allegan County Clerk Bob Genetski posted last Tuesday on Facebook, “please tell her I spent the bulk of my morning trying to help a man who was within days of his ceremony to become a U.S. citizen, when he got a letter from Homeland Security suspending his application because they found he was registered to vote — a shock [to] him!”

How could this happen?

“State records show he was registered by the Secretary of State’s Office (most likely while getting a driver’s license),” explains Genetski. 

The State of Michigan automatically registers everyone at the DMV — U.S. citizen or not — without bothering to inform them. 

Especially of the consequences. 

“My heart breaks for this guy,” the county clerk confided, “trying to do the right thing while some yahoo registered him to vote against his will.”

“Secretary of State’s office does this automatically,” said one commenter. “My sister-in-law, a Canadian Citizen with a Green Card came to live with us for a short time while looking for a new place to live. She had been living in Florida and had a Florida Driver’s License. She went to SOS to get a Michigan License. Without her knowledge or consent, they registered her to vote. We found out when her voter ID card arrived in the mail.”

If Secretary Benson and other politicians truly cared about and respected immigrants, they wouldn’t slap them onto voting rolls without their express permission.

Potentially scuttling their chance to become citizens. And be able to vote.

Legally. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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initiative, referendum, and recall

Official Ballot Lies

initiative, voting, elections, democracy

With Republicans controlling most state legislatures, legislative assaults against the citizen initiative petition process tend to come disproportionally from Republicans. Just last week, Missouri voters smashed a legislative initiative petition “reform” on the primary ballot with greater than 80 percent voting NO.

In Democratic controlled states, however, attempts to thwart democracy bear Democrats’ fingerprints. A Wall Street Journal editorial recounts cases in California, Colorado and Washington where citizen petitions have been or are being deep-sixed on dubious legal grounds.

“In 2023 California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued to block a citizen initiative that sought to require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature and vote of the people for major fee and tax increases such as the cap-and-tax program,” the paper explains. Let’s vote! 

But the California Supreme Court labeled the measure a “constitutional revision” preventing a vote of the people.

Colorado Democrats have been hiking fees, rather than taxes, because their constitution requires a public vote to raise taxes. Citizens petitioned a measure onto this November’s ballot to more clearly define fees and require a vote to hike them. 

Colorado’s all-Democrat appointed Supreme Court blocked a vote, arguing there was “a danger of log rolling because it may attract a ‘yes’ vote from voters who support statewide voter approval of fees, but who would not support narrowing the definition of existing and new fees under Colorado law.”

In Washington state, Democrats passed a 9.9% tax on income above $1 million. Then, voters “launched a ballot campaign to repeal the tax and bar the state and localities from enacting income taxes in the future,” The Journal reports. “The initiative qualified for the November ballot [last] month.”

Now, through a new law passed by the Democrats, the attorney general is required to place this specific language on the ballot after a short summary of the proposal: “This measure would decrease funding for public K-12 education, higher education (including universities and community colleges), and human services (primarily healthcare).”

Yet, the ballot measure would repeal a tax that hasn’t yet begun collecting money — no cuts would ensue. Moreover, even if spending reductions had been required, the legislature would be free to make cuts in other programs and not these three areas. 

So, the mandated language put to voters on their ballot? A lie. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law national politics & policies Voting

A Plan to Fix Our Elections

Jimmy Carter, voter ID, fraud, elections, democracy

I wasn’t the biggest fan of the late former President Jimmy Carter. But his plan for voter ID has my vote.

I refer to the idea he defended in 2005, viewable in a video clip that’s been making the rounds lately.

The clip is from a C-SPAN broadcast of a hearing about federal election reform focusing on the Carter-Baker Commission Final Report. This report was the product of years of investigating how to fix problems in the U.S. election system highlighted by the nerve-racking Bush-Gore presidential contest in 2000.

In addition to voter ID, the report advocates other efforts to combat fraud, including auditable paper backups of electronic votes.

In the clip, Carter says that we should “have some form of photo ID required, photo ID. . . . [It would include] some very careful constraints to prevent abuse. For instance, these photo ID cards will be free.

“There’ll be a wide distribution of them. The states will be required to go around the state to issue these photo ID cards to as many people as possible, which would be a good system just for recruiting new voters. This will be very important. And so this will be, I think, a move forward in getting more people to vote. It will not restrict people from voting. It’ll be uniformly applied throughout the country. And it will be nondiscriminatory.”

Too bad Carter didn’t live to see universal implementation of the ID requirement that he proposed. It’s something we desperately need.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law

Your Fraudulent Vote Counts

voter ID, voting, elections, democracy, Virginia, fraud

Give it to ABC News host Jonathan Karl!

On This Week Without George Stephanopoulos, Karl asked U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia not about the entirety of the SAVE Act but “very narrowly” about photo ID to vote, which Americans of both parties strongly favor. 

“You know what?” the senator responded. “In Virginia, we have voter I.D. and photo I.D.” 

“That’s actually not the case,” Karl corrected. “I mean, I’m a Virginia voter. You don’t need to show a photo I.D. in Virginia. There are a wide range of things you can show for I.D., and if you don’t show one of those, you can sign an affidavit, saying —”

“You can sign an affidavit,” Warner repeated. “Those become ballots that, if you want to contest later, can be contested. But . . . we have voter I.D. of one form or another.”*

My senator is mistaken. Those ballots cannot later be contested; they count. Even if you prosecute folks for fraudulently signing the form, their ballots would still not be identifiable . . . and therefore, not contestable.

While it is a felony to falsely sign the ID Confirmation Statement, there is no one checking.

The same process exists in Michigan, where I’m involved in a ballot initiative to require voter ID. The question “Do I need an ID?” is posed for voters at the Michigan Secretary of State’s website. 

“You will be asked to show ID when you check in to vote,” explains the SOS, adding in bold type: “If you don’t have one, you can still vote.

“If this happens, expect a poll worker to ask you to sign a form before you vote that explains you didn’t have an ID. Your ballot will be included with all others and counted.”

How “political”: a Voter ID requirement that doesn’t require ID. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Fox News reports that per ID in Virginia “acceptable forms include voter confirmation documents, utility bills, bank statements, government checks and paychecks, which do not need to include a photograph. A voter without acceptable identification can sign an ID Confirmation Statement under felony penalties and cast a regular ballot.” The story helpfully provides a link to the Virginia statute in question.

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election law fraud national politics & policies Voting

Truth Be Told

Donald Trump, non-citizen voting, democracy, voting, elections, corruption, voter ID

President Donald Trump told a prime-time national audience, last week, that the Department of Homeland Security found 278,000 noncitizens on state voter rolls after checking roughly half the states. 

“It’s a number,” as my old boss says.

The Washington Post called it “an exaggerated claim that noncitizens are registering to vote en masse.” No, noncitizens are not really registering to vote so much as being registered — without their knowledge or understanding through deliberate government policy that pretends it’s pro-democracy to throw folks on the voter list who are not legally entitled to vote.

Not that there aren’t cases of fraud. There are. But I trust the good intentions of the average non-citizen more than the intentions of the politicians in states regularly facilitating their voter registrations.

Which, incidentally, can undermine an immigrant’s ability to gain U.S. citizenship. 

Fully 250,000 of that aforementioned total were found in just four states: California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The other roughly 28,000 noncitizens were discovered on the rolls in “two dozen or so states” by running those voter files against the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database.

Of course, some of these 278,000 identified will likely turn out to be citizens. Some will turn out to be pets. Data is sometimes incorrect. Mistakes happen. But let’s find out. 

In a sensible country, every state would (1) check its voter file against the federal SAVE database (and other data at DHS and the State Department), (2) institute a sensible, respectful and lawful process to check with voters so identified to clarify the facts, and then, (3) follow the law to remove each illegal registrant.

Instead of merely arguing about the extent and severity of the problem, why not just solve it? 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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