The SAVE Act that Ben Cline voted for in the U.S. House is all but dead in the U.S. Senate, with two Republican senators signaling that they are no-gos on the bill that Donald Trump envisions throwing elections forevermore to the MAGA side.
“When Democrats attempted to advance sweeping election reform legislation in 2021, Republicans were unanimous in opposition because it would have federalized elections, something we have long opposed. Now, I’m seeing proposals such as the SAVE Act and MEGA that would effectively do just that. Once again, I do not support these efforts,” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said in a statement on Tuesday.
The SAVE Act is aimed at disenfranchising millions of voters – women, primarily, who tend to vote for Democrats, though rural voters would get caught in the wide net being cast here – by requiring proof of citizenship, like showing a passport or birth certificate, while registering to vote, and by restricting mail-in voting.
If we had a functioning judiciary, the legislation would be summarily ruled unconstitutional – the Constitution makes clear that the states, not Congress and the president, have the authority to regulate the “times, places, and manner” of holding federal elections.
We might have an actual functioning judiciary – the Supreme Court ruled the Trump tariffs unconstitutional last month, so, that’s something.
The second Republican senator being cited as bucking Trump on this priority of his – which, to be clear, is him simply trying to stay out of jail; a Democratic sweep in the November midterms moves the needle for him and a host of his inner circle toward the indictment side – is, predictably, using the cloak of anonymity to get his point across on the pending mortality of the legislation.
Elected MAGAs can only show backbone on background.
“I think it’s problematic because in some of these states, 60 or 70 percent of people vote by mail. You don’t want to disenfranchise them,” The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reported the senator telling him.
Meanwhile, here in the Sixth District, we have Ben Cline, who, again, voted for this bill, which would take millions of voters off the rolls, pretending that a move by Virginia Democrats to redraw congressional district lines is the real problem.
As with Trump, Cline is focused on himself – in his case, not avoiding prison, but simply keeping his $174,000-a-year job and Cadillac health insurance, which you pay for.
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Chris Graham
