It’s long past time for us to stop taking Republicans in Congress at their word.
But incumbent Marie Gluesenkamp Perez doesn’t seem to have gotten the message, that what Democratic voters want from their representatives is total opposition to the lunatic Trump agenda.
Her vote in favor of H.R. 22, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, proves that she doesn’t understand what’s at stake in the upcoming midterms.
The so-called SAVE Act claims to be about preventing noncitizens from casting ballots – a problem so rare as to be virtually nonexistent. To fix this nonexistent problem, the bill declares that if the name on your birth certificate no longer matches your current ID, you no longer get to vote.
Talk about a solution in search of a problem! You know whose birth certificates no longer match their IDs? Every single married woman who took her husband’s name, that’s who…
Oh, but the GOP would never try to make it illegal for married women to vote! That’s crazy talk!
That’s also what they said about overturning Roe v. Wade.
Then Republicans went ahead and did it.
Our incumbent was one of four Democrats in the House to support the SAVE Act, which is four too many.
When challenged by her constituents, MGP said that her vote was merely a symbolic one, as the SAVE Act is unlikely to pass the Senate.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that it’s time for Democrats to stand up and be an oppostion party – to oppose the assault on our rights, including the right to vote, that a would-be dictator and his enablers in Congress have launched against us.
Let’s be clear: The SAVE Act isn’t about safeguarding elections or securing our borders. It’s about silencing voters.
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez doesn’t seem to understand the stakes. She ought to: she was born Kristina Marie Perez.
It’s not enough to take back a Democratic majority in Congress if our elected representatives aren’t prepared to defend our democracy.
It’s past time to give bipartisan cover to solutions in search of problems. Past time to keep pretending that Republicans are negotiating in good faith.
