Kansas’ proof-of-citizenship law for voting, already a source of controversy, is about to get even more attention as reports emerge that the Secretary of State’s office is moving ahead with plans to set up a two-track voter list that would limit some voters to casting ballots only in federal elections if they fail to produce the required citizenship documents. The Wichita Eagle has more:
With court action over the state’s proof-of-citizenship voting law looming, Secretary of State Kris Kobach is laying groundwork for a system that would allow some voters to vote in all elections while others could only vote for Congress and presidential tickets.
Rep. Jim Ward, D-Wichita, an opponent of the proof-of-citizenship law, said he received confirmation from the Department of Legislative Research this week that Kobach is moving forward with the plan to limit voters who follow federal registration rules to voting only in federal elections.
Separately, a memo to all the state’s county election officials outlines procedures for identifying and tracking voters who use the federal form and creating a separate category for them in voting databases.
If the proposed plan goes through, jurisdictions would be required to limit voters to different ballots depending on the source of their registrations:
Voters who fill out the state form and don’t submit the citizenship proof have their voting privileges suspended until they do. At present about 17,500 voters are “in suspense.”
Kobach, Bryant’s boss, confirmed he’s planning for elections with different ballots for different voters, depending on whether they register under federal or state rules. He said it’s “merely a contingency plan” in case he loses a lawsuit seeking to make federal officials adopt Kansas rules for voters in Kansas.
The plan creates three classes of registered voters, according to the Legislative Research report provided to Ward on Thursday:
• Voters using either the federal or Kansas form and providing state-required documents proving their citizenship would be able to vote in all federal, state and local elections.
• Voters who use the federal form but don’t provide citizenship documents will be allowed to vote only for candidates running for president, vice president and Congress.
• Registrants who file a Kansas form but don’t provide citizenship documents will be put in suspension and won’t be allowed to vote in any election.
It isn’t clear what would happen to voters who have provided proof of citizenship but are in “suspense” because of delays at the Department of Revenue – but that will certainly be a flashpoint of discussion in coming weeks as well.
Voter Suppression Director (Latino Division) Kobach is not a fringe figure among hard Right conservatives (so all of them). He’s hugely influential:
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration bill, ensured on Tuesday that the Republican Party platform will also have his fingerprint. During a meeting of the GOP platform committee in Tampa, Fla., Kobach called for the party to officially back increased border fencing and the E-Verify employment verification system, and to go after two immigrant-friendly initiatives: in-state tuition for some undocumented young people and so-called sanctuary cities. Those measures were in the 2008 Republican platform but had been dropped from the draft this year, Politico reported.
“These positions are consistent with the Romney campaign,” Kobach said. “As you all remember, one of the primary reasons that Governor Romney rose past Governor Perry when Mr. Perry was achieving first place in the polls was because of his opposition to in-state tuition for illegal aliens.”
You may remember this minor scandal in the Romney campaign, where they had a Right wing nut ideologue (Kobach) advising them on immigration, denied it when confronted about it, and then were contradicted by the ideologue who said he was advising them on immigration. One has to be pretty powerful to contradict the candidate, but Kobach was happy to correct Mitt Romney:
Como se dice “Etch a Sketch” en espanol? Over the weekend, I noticed that Kris Kobach, Mitt Romney’s unpaid immigration adviser — and the inspiration for Romney’s “voluntary deportation” strategy – wasn’t included in a fairly comprehensive Boston Globe rundown of staff, advisers and the kitchen cabinet types. When I asked Boston if Kobach was still an “adviser,” a Romney spokesperson emailed back: “supporter.”
And then she sent a cut-pasted a copy of a press release from Kobach’s endorsement earlier this year.
About a month ago, when I wrote about the Kansas Secretary of State, author of the controversial Arizona and Alabama immigration laws, folks in Mittland were referring to Kobach as an informal adviser – and I picked up on a lot of anger at Kobach from Romney’s Hispanic supporters who blamed him for pushing the candidate to the right on immigration, which has cost him dearly in recent polls among Spanish-speaking voters.
At the time, several prominent Romney supporters predicted the former Massachusetts governor would begin distancing himself from Kobach once the nomination was sewn up.
UPDATE: Not so fast! Kobach contradicts: “No, my relationship with the campaign has not changed. Still doing the same thing I was doing before.” Asked what that entails, he said, “providing advice on immigration policy.” “I don’t want to go into great detail, but I communicate regularly with senior members of Romney’s team,” Kobach just told ThinkProgress.
The big voting battle in 2016 will be over suppression of the Latino vote. It’s already being waged in Texas. It will take media talkers as long to admit this newer obvious fact as it did for them to admit “voter fraud” was about suppressing the votes of AA, young people and poor people. That took 6 years.
Botsplainer
That guy is a wannabe Ernst Rohm, and has his hands in far too many of these efforts on a nationwide basis. It is fair to say that he presents a clear and present danger to ethnic and political minorities, and not just their voting rights.
I’d say what the only real solution to him is, but I’d be accused of being uncivil or too violent in my expressions.
Amir Khalid
I expect AG Holder and the DoJ will jump on this pretty damn quickly. Well, as soon as they can.
Kay
@Botsplainer:
He’s a big deal. He takes on “shot across the bow” issues for conservatives. He pulls them Right and they get dragged along.
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
That’s an entirely reasonable expectation, I think.
IowaOldLady
Haven’t there been Supreme Court decisions on whether states can set voting requirements not in the Constitution?
I guess it doesn’t matter. The SC has rendered decisions on abortion too.
Kay
@Botsplainer:
The most heartening part to me is the arrogance of the conservative “thought leaders”, which is what Kobach is.
Say what you will about Perry, he knows how to get elected in Texas. He doesn’t go out of his way to alienate and enrage a huge bloc of voters. Bush was the same way.
Even their smart people (Kobach) are dumb, and it’s arrogance and hubris.
WereBear
I’d say he’s addressing that pressing need of the Tea Party et al; what if you don’t have enough AA’s to suppress?
The Ancient Randonneur
@Botsplainer:
Yes, yes. One musn’t be uncivil in blog comments. It would be more proof that those darned liberals are the Real Threat to the American way of life.
piratedan
he’s one evil bastard that Kobach..another reason to hate the GOP is their total support of all this ALEC crap
shelly
He’s quoted somewhere else along the lines of ‘the federal government can’t tell Kansas what to do in it’s elections..’
Umm, yes they can.
Kay
@WereBear:
Minority candidates and groups gain power when they win local elections. National elections are great, but if you want to develop a bench and a voting constituency you start local. That was the big concern over the gutting of the VRA re: AA’s and the same general concern applies equally to Latinos.
This is a long term strategy to tamp down the political power of ethnic and racial minorities. It’s not just voters. It’s candidates.
Villago Delenda Est
@Botsplainer:
Frankly, I agree with you about the solution. It would be uncivil, or too violent.
But it would solve the fucking problem of this asshole.
WereBear
@Kay: Oh, of course, I was being snarky.
And it’s ridiculous on its face; it IS blatant discrimination.
burnspbesq
@IowaOldLady:
Last term. Arizona v. Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona. Scalia opened the door for this dual-list insanity when he wrote that the NVRA only pre-empts state law as state law pertains to federal elections.
Not clear how a pre-emption analysis of the Voting Rights Act would play out. Judging from five minutes of research, it looks like the consensus view is that the Voting Rights Act would pre-empt state law, but I can’t cite a case that squarely holds that.
Tokyokie
Um, how can creating different classes of voters possibly be squared with constitutional equal rights protections?
MattF
They haven’t yet gotten to ‘4th’ class voters– when you see one you subtract a vote from the ‘D’ column. But they would if they could.
catclub
@Kay: “said he received confirmation from the Department of Legislative Research this week that Kobach is moving forward with the plan to limit voters who follow federal registration rules to voting only in federal elections.”
This sounds to me [happy to find out I am wrong] like it is legal for the states to do, but was previously ‘ just not done’.
It is another example of breaking unwritten rules, since there were no written rules to deal with something that had not been considered. Filibusters on every single vote in the Senate is another.
Gene108
@IowaOldLady:
IANL but I think the 14th Amendment means if you have a right at the Federal level you have it at the state level.
Hungry Joe
@Kay: “Even their smart people … are dumb”: Yup. Reminds me of what they used to say about Phil Gramm: “Even his friends don’t like him.”
piratedan
they sure aren’t bashful about attempting to remake the country to give themselves a perpetual controlling interest in government so they can dictate who gets to vote and what they get to vote on. Talk about setting the narrative by reframing the question…..
Gene108
@burnspbesq:
What about equal protection under the 14th Amendment?
States rights cannot trump Federal rights, thus the laws barring Catholics and Jews from holding elected office are no longer Constitutional.
Wouldn’t this law have the same problem that the state law is trumping Federal law, in that you can vote in a Federal election but not in local races?
catclub
@catclub: I think I ran out the clock on an ETA,
which was:
On further thought, I reject my own line of reasoning: The VRA has been used against cities for their elections, so if the proposed Kansas law has discriminatory effect or intent, it violates the VRA.
Does not matter that it is just state elections.
Kay
@WereBear:
I’m having a fun bit of buyer’s remorse here locally. I’m doing the “ground game” for a school bond issue. It’s 90% Republicans on the committee. They really, really want to win. They lost last time because it was a circle jerk. They were talking to parents like me, in their nice neighborhoods. My precinct has 70% turn out. We didn’t lose it for them.
40-45% of our public school kids get free and reduced school lunches. Their parents are working class or poor. They’re renters. They have all the issues with voting that poor people have.
We did a canvass last weekend in those neighborhoods and they were coming back with “voting problems stories” the kind Democrats here know all about. It’s HUGELY time-consuming, the details of voting process, we have about 30 days, and I don’t have time to run a voter protection effort along with identifying “yes” voters and getting them out. They can’t spend time on it.
Oh, well. Maybe they shouldn’t have backed all of this stupid shit.
IowaOldLady
I remember Rs claiming that Clinton would do anything to get elected with the possible exception of using their daughter to campaign. (I talking to you, Sarah Palin.) Someone else responded that R’s would do anything to get elected with the exception of getting more votes.
And here we are, an impeachment, a Supreme Court chosen president, and whatever this is now, proving those folks right.
jon
The Great State of Arizona is still under the influence.
Punchy
@Tokyokie: Because shut up, that’s how.
Seanly
I don’t see how this could be constitutional. Wasn’t there a Supreme Court decision from much earlier that dealt with aspects of this?
On another level, WTF is wrong with this people?
Scott S.
I really don’t know why Kobach isn’t in jail already.
Nellie in NZ
Thanks for the alert. My voting is through Kansas, my last place of residence in the States. Voting from overseas has become increasingly tedious because of Kobach’s antics. I will need to attend to this new requirement.
Interrobang
I find it very interesting that the linked blog article talks about voting privileges, which is exactly what this is in practice…
…but voting is supposed to be a right in a democracy.
burnspbesq
@Gene108:
I’m not suggesting that Scalia’s opinion makes doctrinal or logical sense, but it is out there, and it says what it says.
burnspbesq
@Scott S.:
On what charge?
rikyrah
Kay,
I knew you’d be on this story.
thank you.
Bobby Thomson
Kobach is a cock. Totally and completely. In ways that aren’t even publicly known. The answer to the evil or stupid question is easy. He’s not stupid, but he is one of the most evil American political leaders.
But ixnay on the assassination bullshit.
PurpleGirl
@Seanly: They have power now and they want to keep it… forever.
Mnemosyne
Don’t forget that this is also a move against women — it’s a lot harder to “prove your citizenship” when you have to produce both your birth certificate and a marriage certificate to show why your current name is not the same as the name on your birth certificate. There have been lots of stories on the internet of women being hassled by the Papers, Please jackasses for exactly that reason.