See, this is just executive overreach. Plain and simple.
Article 1 section 4 of the constitution grants almost exclusive authority to the states to decide how they conduct elections, and subsequent SCOTUS cases have only strengthened it. This will get demolished in the courts and the administration will go on X The
Everything App and cry about “lawfare” for the 50th time.
Art 1 Sec 4 summarized: States run elections, but Congress can step in and set nationwide standards. Trump's EO on the matter will force Congress to step in and set nationwide standards. How that is "Exective overreach" I am not grasping. To your bolded- it's not the 50th time. It's the
162nd time since Trump took office, and that doesn't count the times we "cried" about lawfare specifically aimed at Trump himself. I am happy to agree with your framing that people complain about lawfare constantly; I reject your premise that it isn't happening and highlighting it when it does happen isn't "crying about it"- that's super close to a pro-statist position, although I am about 99.99% sure that's not your intent.
In this 84/16 issue, like all of the other 80/20 issues this administration has addressed- when that fight does happen, it'll do 2 things.
1. It'll force an examination of our voter processes and the interpretation of Art 1 Sec 4 in the courts, hopefully at the Supreme Court. As our favorite dementia-ridden president of all time said, "No amendment is absolute." This applies equally across all of our systems of checks and balances now. As I have said fiftyleven times,
the legal challenge is the point. In a durable representative democracy, there should be a healthy tension and push-pull between the three branches. Our government was designed to be cumbersome, slow to change, and representative of the will of the people.
In October '24, not even a plurality but an overwhelming majority of American's (84%) support voter ID laws. It's the will of the people- Fiat voluntas populi. The lawsuit by Jeffries is defiant of the people's will, plainly put.
2. It will expose those (individual citizens, elected representatives, and States) who resist this initiative as misunderstanding the founders' clearly stated intent and how far we as a nation have strayed from it. I want the legal challenge. I want a vote on record. I want to know every person who doesn't want voter ID laws and for what reason. I want more discussions like the one we are having, with the output of forcing people (yourself included) to make a clear and full-throated assertion on one side or another, as opposed to chucking spears from the sideline.
In no world did the framers of the Constitution foresee a president advertising and supporting illegal immigration, opening the border to 10-15 million illegal immigrants with a promise of non-citizens not only to drain American tax payers of their money through social support programs they aren't entitled to, let alone that same president flying those illegals to the interior in the dark of night with the (seeming) intent to then allow those folks to vote in any election.
All of that aside, technology and process changes, our rights (and the concurrent responsibility of our elected officials to protect those rights) do not. Citizens vote. Non-citizens don't. You show an ID proving your citizenship, the ballots are tallied quickly, and the results are available immediately. That's the intent of our voting process, laid out by the founders. We have drifted away from that intent in many regards (birthright citizenship, Chevron deference, OSHA's vaccine mandate, teachers' union closing schools nationwide, the EPA and their wide-ranging authority). Voting is just the issue at hand. People will argue and resist the method and ignore the intent, which I think is what's happening here.
I'll ask you directly,
@Salt USMC - do you support the lawsuit brought by Jeffries et al? Not from an "ackshually, the law is this" standpoint to bemoan the actions of the admin, but do you support the actual intent of the lawsuit? To prevent voter ID, allowing non-citizens vote in elections? Do you think our current electoral system reflects the intent of the framers and their aspirational goal for the experiment of America? Do you support voter ID for elections?
