Nationalizing disenfranchisement

One of the tactics GOP-controlled state governments have been using to repress the vote has been to demand that voters show a state-issued photo ID at the polls. For many Americans, the natural response would be "so what?" Everyone has a driver's license or a passport, right? The thing is, those least likely to have these forms of ID are poor, elderly, and minorities-- those for whom getting a photo ID presents some actual hurdles involving money and mobility. And they tend to vote Democratic.

The Republican tactic was to disguise this latter-day poll tax as an anti-illegal immigrant bill by adding it to a bill that includes provisions for building one of those doomed-to-fail walls between the US and Mexico.

Republicans pushing for tougher means to stem illegal immigration got a boost Wednesday when the Senate agreed to consider a bill that would build a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border and the House approved a measure that would require voters to show photo identification at the polls.

Republicans in both chambers said the steps were necessary to protect the United States from illegal immigrants entering the country or trying to corrupt the voting process.

There doesn't seem to be any evidence for an organized immigrant plot to sway national elections, but I suspect the coding will be clear to party faithful, and the neo-fascists have a handy way to claim that this has nothing to do with squelching the vote. And most other Americans will fail to appreciate what a difficult hurdle this will be for a whole lot of fellow citizens. But the really scary thing is that this stands to become the official national policy of the Republican party-- one that, once again, overrides states' rights to expand the power of the federal government.