A regular feature to the Chagrin Gateway Democrats from Lyn Newman

What happened?: I had the privilege of being a Voting Location Manager at the primary election on May 6th. When I had finished administering the oath of office to my team, (a deeply moving experience, by the way) one of our members piped up “Did the President have to take this oath?” The answer was that his was not exactly the same. Unlike us, the President did not have to affirm that he had never committed a felony. But exactly like us, the President took an oath to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution” However, when asked by Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker if he needed to uphold the Constitution as regards due process for immigrants, as the courts were telling him he needed to, his reply was “I don’t know”.

Why it matters?: Our country is based on certain principles that do not change from one administration to the next. Our Founding Fathers set up three branches of government to prevent any one branch from becoming too powerful and making changes without careful consideration. The President cannot decide to ignore the Fifth amendment (people’s right to due process of law), however inconvenient he may find it. The President is not a King, he does not get to decide who gets access to rights and who does not. This is a large part of why we broke from Great Britain in 1776.

What can we do about it?: We need to keep reminding our Senators and Congress people to do their jobs and oversee Immigration issues. Keep those phone calls and e-mails coming. We need to support the organizations that provide legal representation for immigrants like the ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center. Finally, we need to keep the problem visible. So pick up a protest sign, grab some friends and come to a rally. Let’s tell the President that the correct answer is “Yes! You do need to uphold the constitution. In fact, on January 20th you promised!”

Lyn Newman can be found on Bluesky

A regular feature to the Chagrin Gateway Democrats from Lyn Newman

What happened? The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (S.A.V.E.) Act, which passed the House and is currently stalled in the Senate, is a bill that mandates proof of citizenship to register to vote. Does not sound like a bad thing. We only want citizens to be voting right? The problem is how people are being asked to prove citizenship. Were you on the rolls before, but skipped an election and got “purged”, so now you have to re-register? You have to dig out your birth certificate. But if you are a married woman, your birth certificate may not have the same name as your driver’s license so you also need your marriage license. However, not all states may accept that as proof of who you are. It may be that only a passport will do. See a problem? In addition, providing state ID and passports are generally not an issue for people of means, who can afford a passport. People with cars are able to drive to the DMV to get their enhanced driver’s license and update their voter registration. But for the elderly person who may no longer drive, or the person of limited resources who never had a car, getting to where their birth certificate is stored and then to the DMV may be a significant challenge. Add in physical disabilities, and you have made it nearly impossible. This is the reason registration drives, and mail in registration were such a boon. But this new law will make those illegal.  

Why it matters? : You have to ask yourself, who is this meant to target? Are we really worried about non-citizens voting? Or are we worried about making it too easy for people to vote who might not vote a certain way? When we make it harder for people to register to vote, we are often disenfranchising the very people who would be supporting candidates that are for upholding the good government  issues like infrastructure, school funding, childcare and nutrition, and the social safety net of Medicare and Medicaid. Are the people who support those issues, the same ones who are trying to make it harder for people to register to vote, and to vote once they are registered? I think not.  

 What can we do about it?: We lost by such small margins. The problem may not be the Republicans, it may be the couch. Whether or not the S.A.V.E. act passes, we need to get more like-minded people registered to vote and to the polls. We need to help people see that nothing changes if we do not change it. We all need to ask ourselves, “What can I do? Do I know someone who isn’t registered to vote? If so, why?  Do they not have a state ID? Can I help them get to where their birth certificate is and then to a DMV so they can get a state ID and then get registered? And then plan to take them with me to vote. Can I do that? I bet I can.”   What if we all did that? How much larger would our turn out be?   

Lyn Newman can be found on Bluesky