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Local Republicans Weaponizing Constitution to Restrict Voting

John Micek on

That’s because “once [it’s] in the Constitution, it’s time-consuming to get it out,” Bruce Ledewitz, a professor at Duquesne University Law School in Pittsburgh, said. “What if ID’s become a problem and the GOP wants to prove ID by fingerprint or face ID?—they won’t be able to do so.”

Amendments are “being used strategically by Republicans right now to find ways around the governor’s power,” Borick added. But “… think about changing the rules – why do you change rules in any type of endeavor? It’s for some broader end than just the contemporary moment.”

And as Grove’s comments above clearly demonstrate, the only strategy here is to spite Wolf — regardless of the impact on voters’ rights, especially those of Black and brown voters who disproportionately pay the price for these suppression tactics.

So, instead of going back to the drawing board and coming up with better ideas, or approving legislation without an obvious poison pill, Republicans appear content to snooker voters into approving a solution to a non-existent problem: Voter fraud and voter impersonation.

But from the first stab at gambling legalization in 2004 and the legislative pay raise the following year, to repeated attempts to restrict abortion, and now transgender rights, the halls of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly are littered with bad ideas where the public pays the ultimate price. Those, at least, had the virtue of not being enshrined in the state Constitution.

“This will continue happening until the voters catch on and begin rejecting this as an abuse of the system,” Duquesne’s Ledewitz said. “The framers gave the governor a veto for a reason, not to have every vetoed measure put in the Constitution.”

 

That’s sound advice, and it would be great if Pennsylvania Republicans would heed it. But if they’ll fall for the Big Lie, there’s no expectation for reason and sanity to prevail here.

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Copyright 2021 John L. Micek, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.


Copyright 2021 John Micek, All Rights Reserved. Credit: Cagle.com

 

 

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