Words & Phrases

Save us from the ‘SAVE America Act’

Rather than address the cratering economy, undertake their constitutional responsibilities to end a reckless and illegal war, hold Donald Trump accountable for his financial corruption and pedophile racket cover-up, and/or reform rogue, widely loathed immigration shock troops, Republicans at the behest of Trump (who also insisted on the re-redistricting scheme that has backfired spectacularly), are debating the inappropriately-named SAVE America Act.

The same crowd that deplored the notion of modifying the filibuster when Democrats wanted to pass civil rights legislation, now is pushing to do away with it to achieve the most massive disenfranchisement effort since the end of Reconstruction. (Not coincidentally, the modern counterpart is also rooted in the South and championed by White Christian nationalists aimed at securing white supremacy.)

(Credit: kickstand, via istockphoto)

The SAVE America Act is based on the “groundless assertions that U.S. elections were rife with fraud,” and the equally groundless notion that millions of people who are not legally permitted to vote are casting ballots. Each time this has been investigated, Republicans have identified — at most — a handful of suspected cases (and those may be clerical errors). The “solution” in search of a problem is actually Republicans’ thinly disguised plot to sow massive confusion and disenfranchise as many voters as needed to keep them in power. That’s their election strategy to counteract the public’s overwhelming disapproval of their MAGA agenda. They aren’t “saving” anything except their own political careers.

Nevada is a case in point. As the Washington Post reported:

Last month, law enforcement officials closed an investigation into voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election in Nevada, which Trump lost by more than 33,000 votes. A Justice Department official familiar with the investigation said that FBI agents identified fewer than 40 potential instances of noncitizens voting. Prosecutors had previously decided not to proceed with cases against those people, likely because such cases are hard to win in court.

Similar results were found in Louisiana, where “non-citizens illegally registering or voting is not a systemic problem” the Republican secretary of state said. The same was announced in Utah: “Utah’s elections office has not been able to confirm any cases of noncitizens voting in elections as it nears completing a review of voter rolls,” the Salt Lake Tribune reported in January, noting that after “spending months reviewing 2.1 million people on Utah’s voter rolls, the lieutenant governor has not found a single instance of a noncitizen voting in the state and only one instance of an ineligible individual registering to vote.”

The SAVE America Act is not about fraud or even about photo ID, which many states already require. The SAVE America Act would require voters to show a passport or birth certificate as proof of citizenship to register or re-register to vote. Roughly 21 million Americans don’t have ready access to those documents. About half do not even have a passport. Millions of women (approximately 7 million women in California, 5 million in Texas, and 4.7 million in Florida, according to the Voter Participation Center) whose married names are not on their birth certificates or passports would face barriers to registering. Election officials who make good-faith clerical errors would face civil and even criminal penalties.

Those registration requirements would go into effect immediately, creating chaos and preventing millions from voting. And to boot, the SAVE America Act would require voters to show their passport or birth certificate in-person to register (or each time they re-register when they move or change other information) — thereby eliminating registering by mail or online and severely hampering automatic voter registration. It would also hamper voting by mail by imposing a new requirement to send in a photocopy of the voter’s ID (something only one state currently requires).

This massive disenfranchisement push mimics Jim Crow legislation (e.g., requiring a passport, which can cost $165, is akin to a poll tax; obtaining a birth certificate may involve travel to the county clerk in one’s place of birth and paying a fee). It is blatantly unconstitutional, a gambit by the most lawless and corrupt regime in history (whose identity is rooted in election denial) to take over elections from the states.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has been, along similar lines, trying to force states to give up their voting rolls, which scores of states have opposed. Having failed under our current law to get what she wants, the SAVE America Act would require states to turn over voting files, setting the stage for a massive federal purge of voter rolls and depriving potentially millions of citizens the right to vote. Even worse, the bill would allow the Department of Homeland Security access to those files to run through a flawed database, leading to more erroneous detentions and deportations.

Republicans have introduced and failed to pass other versions of the Jim Crow-styled legislation. However, the House narrowly passed it (218-213) last month. Since then, Trump, desperate to save his grip on power, has been hounding Republicans to ditch the filibuster to pass it. So far, Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has put the kibosh on a filibuster change, for which he lacks the votes. Nevertheless, he will put the bill on the floor for extended debate this week.

In short, there is no “saving” in the SAVE America Act, if one accepts that America is a democracy in which voters hold power. It seeks to eliminate voters, eliminate threats to White supremacy, eliminate MAGA control, eliminate the constitutional directive that states control elections, eliminate privacy (when the unredacted voter rolls go to the feds), and, most of all, eliminate democracy. If only a fraction of the eligible electorate gets to vote, we do not have majority rule by the “people”; instead, we have anti-democratic white nationalists cherry-picking the electorate to stay in power.

Fortunately, Senate Democrats will have plenty of time to discuss what they do want to save: democracy, access to the polls for military, overseas Americans, the disabled, and the poor; the hard-won right to vote; local control of voting; free and fair elections; political accountability (allowing voters to throw out rotten incumbents); and the Constitution.

Democrats, once finished denouncing MAGA’s Jim Crow ambitions, will have floor time for other meaty topics. They, after all, want to save Americans from an unconstitutional, reckless forever war; inflation spurred by tariffs; a secret police force that brutalizes them and deprives them of civil liberties; and a horrifying, lawless cover-up of a pedophile scandal. (Reading the Epstein records into the Congressional Record should take up hours, if not days.)

The “SAVE America Act” makes a mockery of language, giving the false image of conserving voting when it instead aims to blow up the entire democratic election process. Democrats should call the bill what it is: The Jim Crow Act. Then they should use their time in the battle to save democracy.