The thing I like about the video is that she points out how the state claims it must do this to protect kids from the dangerous drugs yet allows their use for straight cis children just not for trans children. The law states it is about making kids accept their birth assigned gender and keeping them from transitioning.
They tried these laws with kids who were gay decades ago and some still fight for it. Force gay kids to accept a heterosexual orientation through conversion methods and then outlaw being homosexual along with erasing anything homosexual from society. It did not work. The courts vigorously defended and backed up gay people’s rights to exist as themselves and have full equality of societies benefits as straight people do.
Sadly we have much different courts now stacked with bigots and racists by bigots and racist who will push and promote the bigotry. But in the law itself they wrote the bigotry out loud, clear, and easy to see. The republican lawmakers are making it plain this is about erasing trans kids and that will make erasing trans adults much easier. I wonder if they will succeed, but I am worried. The video is well worth the watch. If you do not wish to watch the video but prefer to read the transcript she provides a link to it in the description box. Many of the podcasters now do. Hugs
Jan 06, 2025 Mariel Padilla Originally published by The 19th
Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont, who was elected to the 118th Congress in 2022, said she was shaped and largely motivated by January 6, 2021 — the day a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol and temporarily halted the certification of the legitimate results of the 2020 election.
“A lot of the members who ran in the 118th and 119th Congress understood that we were running towards a house on fire and that being honestly democracy itself,” Balint said.
Balint said she vividly remembers January 6, 2021, because it was supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life: She was being sworn in as the first woman to lead the Vermont Senate. When her security team popped into her office to tell her that the U.S. Capitol was under attack, Balint said the footage “shook me to my core.”
The attack, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation called an act of domestic terrorism, sparked the Department of Justice’s largest criminal investigation in the country’s history and led to more than 1,500 people being federally charged. Rioters brought firearms, knives, hatchets, pepper spray, baseball bats, stun guns and explosive devices to fight Capitol Police officers and storm the building where lawmakers were actively voting to certify the 2020 election. Five people died during or soon after the riot, approximately 140 law enforcement officers were injured and $2.9 million worth of damage was done to the Capitol.
The day after the Capitol riot, Trump referred to the event as a “heinous attack” but has since promised to pardon those who were arrested in connection with the insurrection. Trump himself was indicted on felony charges in 2023 for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election — a criminal case that was dismissed shortly after he won the 2024 presidential election. The president-elect has since started describing January 6 as a “day of love,” as he did on the campaign trail.
As Congress votes again to certify the results of the 2024 presidential election, the country prepares to welcome back to the Oval Office the same man who denied his loss four years ago and threatened the country’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.
“It always sends a shiver down my spine when I hear people say ‘Americans don’t care about January 6 anymore — move on,’” Balint said. “I’m not moving on. It was a dark day in our history, and I’m not moving on.”
The 19th reached out to every woman in Congress — just as it did in 2021 and 2022 — to collect reflections on how January 6 continues to impact them and the country. Seventeen Democratic congresswomen and one senator responded and talked about their remaining trauma, their concern about the normalization of violence and their strong sense of duty to combat any efforts to whitewash that day.
‘There’s a record of this.’
Here’s what they said about how the spread of misinformation and disinformation surrounding that day has downplayed the severity of violence and the gravity of what was almost destroyed.
Rep. Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon: I still have seared in my memory the images of Capitol Police officers and other people being beaten. People lost their lives. … It’s not like somebody made this up. There are videos. There are pictures. There are statements. There’s a record of this. And there were people that were convicted by juries of their peers.
Rep. Deborah Ross of North Carolina: I think the most important thing is to be brutally honest about what happened that day. Many of us were there to witness, and we’re here to testify. We cannot allow Donald Trump and his cronies to deny what needs to be preserved for history. The next generation should know how fragile our democracy is and march forward, clear-eyed and ready to fight.
Balint: My grandfather was killed in the Holocaust and so I was raised in a family in which we were taught to be vigilant when people start eroding rights, upending norms, scapegoating people. When up is down and black is white and we can’t agree on basic facts, that is all an indication that we are headed in a very scary direction as a country.
Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey: I think [Trump] is going to do whatever he can to make January 6 be remembered like it’s July 4. In his mind, I think it’s going to be put in the highest regard and glorify the day as much as he can. And he’s going to have four years to try and get the rest of the country to do the same.
Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine: I think it’s very troubling that this incoming president could convince people that he either wasn’t responsible or that somehow all that didn’t matter. But sometimes it takes us a while to process big, complicated changes like this. Maybe there will be a time when we can reflect back and say that this was a mistake, that we overlooked it, that it took us time to realize how serious that movement was.
Rep. Jill Tokuda of Hawaii: As we approach January 6 once again, we all have a responsibility to stand up against the normalization of political violence and disinformation. We cannot forget what happened that day and as Americans, it is incumbent on us to reject violence in any form from infecting our politics and our democracy.
‘Deeply, deeply disappointed.’
Many of the lawmakers said they are still processing what it means about the state of our country that the same man who incited an insurrection could be re-elected four years later. Several emphasized that those involved in planning, executing or inciting the riot still need to be held accountable before the country can heal and move forward.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth speaks on Capitol Hill on in February 2023, in Washington D.C. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images)
Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois: As deeply, deeply disappointed as I am that that same twice-impeached president who led a coup against our government is headed back to the Oval Office, make no mistake: My Democratic colleagues and I, unlike many Republicans after the 2020 election, will uphold the will of the American people, fulfill our constitutional duty and do our part to ensure a peaceful transfer of power.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut: As Donald Trump returns to the presidency, I feel an even greater responsibility to ensure that we do not let an election outcome diminish the gravity of what happened that day. His re-election does not change the reality of the insurrection or absolve those who incited and participated in it. It does not erase the trauma experienced by Capitol staff and Capitol Police officers who defended our democracy at great personal risk.
Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin: Donald Trump, a convicted felon and aspiring autocrat, is promising to let loose dangerous rioters into our communities and threatening lawmakers and journalists with imprisonment. Trump’s lawlessness and thirst for political revenge is why I have repeatedly said he is unfit for office.
Rep. Lois Frankel of Florida: People have short memories. People are more consumed with their own lives [when they go to the polls]. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing; it’s just an observation. What was probably on people’s minds? Their bank account, their rent, price of food, right?
Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio: We learned a lot of lessons through this last election. The American people know what they want to hear, whether it’s true or not.
Rep. Judy Chu of California: No matter what happens during Trump’s second term, the events of January 6, 2021, will forever be his legacy. He refused to concede or even acknowledge that there was a free and fair election in 2020, and he is still pressuring the Justice Department and intends to continue to pressure the Justice Department.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts: Trump’s return to the highest office in the land, despite his central role in the insurrection, is a gut punch to anyone who cares about our democracy. But it does not absolve us of our responsibility to pursue accountability and continue telling the story of what happened that day.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington: I still put the onus on the Republicans in the Senate who refused to convict him. That’s something I think about all the time being on the Judiciary Committee. I think our founding fathers assumed that perhaps there would be a dictator as president — that’s envisioned in the Constitution. But they also assumed that an entire party would not just enter into a cult and follow that dictator. They assumed that there would be enough people on both sides of the aisle willing to do what it takes to preserve democracy, and that is clearly not the case.
‘I still tremble at the mere mention of the date.’
For many of the women, there is lingering trauma.
Jayapal: It will always be a day that is very, very tough emotionally. I started a gallery group after, a very close support group to process the trauma — it’s something that none of us will ever forget.
Rep. Frederica Wilson of Florida: I still tremble at the mere mention of the date January 6, a day that is forever tainted with fear, violence and terror. To have lived it is to never ever forget it. America can never fathom what we experienced. It was like playing a role in a horror movie and hoping that it would soon come to an end.
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico: It makes me sick to my stomach that the people who desecrated our democracy will be pardoned and potentially invited back into the Capitol. It makes me incredibly sad to think that there will be Capitol Police — police who were brutalized and beaten by the mob — who will just have to stand there.
Rep. Sara Jacobs of California: I’ve been very nervous thinking about and leading up to January 6. I still have lingering trauma from the first one. I don’t like big crowds and loud noises. And I just keep thinking that they have no incentive to be violent this time, right? But it still makes me very nervous because we haven’t actually done the sort of reconciliation and hard work and accountability work that we need to do as a country. … I know that people’s trust and faith in institutions is a key part of addressing political violence because political violence only happens when people don’t feel like the nonviolent, institutional way of doing things is actually going to create the effect they want.
Rep. Ann McLane Kuster talks to Capitol Police officer Sgt. Aquilino Gonell after he testified before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol on July 27, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Rep. Ann McLane Kuster of New Hampshire said she is still dealing with lasting post-traumatic stress disorder from January 6, one the “most impactful events” in her life. Kuster was also one of the last five lawmakers to be evacuated from the House floor. She could hear the thundering crowds and pounding on the doors and experienced a panic attack as officers snuck them into an elevator and rushed them through an underground tunnel to safety. Kuster later saw security footage of insurrectionists with backpacks, bear mace and zip ties entering the same hallway she had just evacuated 30 seconds earlier.
“I’m haunted by the idea that if the police hadn’t pushed back five seconds here, five seconds there, pushing back on the bicycle racks, pushing back on the people who were crushed in the doors — that the five of us would have been kidnapped, murdered or maimed,” Kuster said. “It was only a five-vote majority and if we hadn’t been there, America might not have woken up to Joe Biden as the lawfully elected president of the United States.”
Kuster decided to retire this year before Trump is sworn in as the 47th President of the United States and attributes January 6 as one of the reasons for that decision. In addition to the lingering trauma, Kuster said she’s received more and more death threats and has noticed a marked increase of violent rhetoric in public discourse.
“He tried to kill me once,” Kuster said. “I’m not available for it again.”
Please notice the part of the story that talks about Robby Starbuck, if you don’t know of him clicking on his blue highlighted name leads to another story of how he coerced John Deere. McDonald’s claims they are doing this because of the SCOTUS actions on school admissions, but sorry they are not colleges or universities. They are a private business and have the right to set their own no discrimination goals and policies. By blaming the court ruling they are trying to divert attention from the real reason.
Back to Robby Starbuck, This sub human pond scum is winning because he uses threats of hurting the profit of these companies. Now maybe the shareholders are predetermined to be racist bigots. But if we want this coercion to stop, we must be as loud, willing to band together, and use our money even when it hurts. So far only one company has stood against him and Stephen Miller’s white power legal company. We must rise up as we once did, make the haters ashamed again like we did over 1970s to 1990s. We can retire meekly to our self-imposed prisons of our homes and acting straight or cis, but that will only encourage them. This is how it went down in Russia and the Russian controlled influenced nations. The maga cultist and fundamentalist Christian bigots are following the Putin playbook in lockstep. We have to show them the playbook won’t work here. And trust me it is easier to do now than in a future where they have removed all sign of the LGBTQ+ people from society. Hugs
Four years after launching a push for more diversity in its ranks, McDonald’s is ending some of its diversity practices, citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions.
McDonald’s is the latest big company to shift its tactics in the wake of the 2023 ruling and a conservative backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Walmart, John Deere, Harley-Davidson and others rolled back their DEI initiatives last year.
McDonald’s said Monday it will retire specific goals for achieving diversity at senior leadership levels. It also intends to end a program that encourages its suppliers to develop diversity training and to increase the number of minority group members represented within their own leadership ranks.
McDonald’s said it will also pause “external surveys.” The burger giant didn’t elaborate, but several other companies, including Lowe’s and Ford Motor Co., suspended their participation in an annual survey by the Human Rights Campaign that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.
McDonald’s, which has its headquarters in Chicago, rolled out a series of diversity initiatives in 2021 after a spate of sexual harassment lawsuits filed by employees and a lawsuit alleging discrimination brought by a group of Black former McDonald’s franchise owners
“As a world-leading brand that considers inclusion one of our core values, we will accept nothing less than real, measurable progress in our efforts to lead with empathy, treat people with dignity and respect, and seek out diverse points of view to drive better decision-making,” McDonald’s Chairman and CEO Chris Kempczinski wrote in a LinkedIn post at the time.
But McDonald’s said Monday that the “shifting legal landscape” after the Supreme Court decision and the actions of other corporations caused it to take a hard look at its own policies.
A shifting political landscape may also have played a role. President-elect Donald Trump is a vocal opponent of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Trump tapped Stephen Miller, a former adviser who leads a group called America First Legal that has aggressively challenged corporate DEI policies,as his incoming deputy chief of policy.
Vice President-elect JD Vance introduced a bill in the Senate last summer to end such programs in the federal government.
Robby Starbuck, a conservative political commentator who has threatened consumer boycotts of prominent consumer brands that don’t retreat from their diversity programs, said Monday on X that he recently told McDonald’s he would be doing a story on its “woke policies.”
McDonald’s said it had been considering updates to its policies for several months and planned to time the announcement to the start of this year.
In an open letter to employees and franchisees, McDonald’s senior leadership team said it remains committed to inclusion and believes a diverse workforce is a competitive advantage. The company said 30% of its U.S. leaders are members of underrepresented groups, up from 29% in 2021. McDonald’s previously committed to reaching 35% by the end of this year.
McDonald’s said it has achieved one of the goals it announced in 2021: gender pay equity at all levels of the company. It also said it met three years early a goal of having 25% of total supplier spending go to diverse-owned businesses.
McDonald’s said it would continue to support efforts that ensure a diverse base of employees, suppliers and franchisees, but its diversity team will now be referred to as the Global Inclusion Team. The company said it would also continue to report its demographic information.
The McDonald’s Hispanic Owner-Operators Association said it had no comment on the policy change Monday. A message seeking comment was left with the National Black McDonald’s Operators Association.
Durbin is an Associated Press business writer focusing on the food and beverage industry. She has also covered the auto industry and state and national politics in her nearly 30-year career with the AP.
Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of Donald Trump’s white nationalist insurrection, when he called MAGA terrorists to come to Washington, DC on January 6, 2021, to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory over him.
Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square.
Trump is the first president to refuse a peaceful transfer of power. He refused to cooperate with Biden’s transition team, a courtesy President Barack Obama extended in 2016 and after Trump’s victory last November (gag), President Biden extended to him as well. Both Democratic presidents hosted President-Elect (sic) Trump in the White House.
Trump ordered his MAGAts to attempt the insurrection after failing to overturn the election through court challenges, installing fake electors, calling election officials to intimidate them into giving him extra votes that didn’t exist, and even having his goons harass and intimidate election workers.
Trump’s white nationalist terrorists assaulted at least 174 Capitol Police officers on January 6, 2021, with 15 hospitalized. There was one death from a stroke and four suicides afterward. They also caused over $30 million in damages which Trump should pay for.
Two of the terrorists died from natural causes, one died from a drug overdose, and another, Ashley Babbit, died from a gunshot wound.
Over 1,500 were arrested, including Donald Trump. This nation has forgotten about the insurrection and has returned Trump to the presidency (sic). After January 20, Donald Trump plans to pardon all of the white nationalist terrorists who attacked our nation.
These people were looking to murder Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence. Now, they will be rewarded.
I had a Lyft driver on New Year’s Eve ask me why I don’t support Donald Trump and I answered, “Because I love my country.” The elderly white driver (surprise) replied, “Donald Trump does too.” I have a serious inability to tolerate bullshit and I probably got a one-star rating from him after I replied to his response, “Donald Trump does too.” Thankfully, he made his dumbass ignorant comment near the end of the ride, where a guy ambushed me with Jesus pamphlets. I went straight from Trump freak to Jesus freak. I was glad I was getting out of town.
That’s our country for you today. Half this nation believes Donald Trump was right to send white nationalist terrorists to attack the Capitol to make him an unelected dictator or they don’t care.
Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t just want to ignore January 6, but she wants to make it a national holiday. Hey, we’ll all get a day off. MTG is also concerned that a snowstorm tomorrow will “disrupt” Trump’s certification. That’s rich.
Speaker-hanging-by-a-thread Mike Johnson doesn’t want to investigate January 6 but investigate the investigators. The new Department of Justice under Donald Trump and Pam Bondi will be looking to prosecute people like Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chaired the J6 Committee, and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who co-chaired the committee. The DOJ may also be weaponized against people like Special Counsel Jack Smith, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and even President Joe Biden.
Other Republicans encouraged J6, attempted to dox Speaker Pelosi’s location, gave them pre-insurrection tours, and later called the attackers “protesters” and “tourists.” Goons gotta goon.
On January 6, some will celebrate. I will encourage you to remember that our incoming president (sic) is a terrorist and a national security threat.
Two days that will make me sick to my stomach this month is tomorrow, January 6, and January 20.
I’m gonna get drunk.
Creative note: Both of my proofers had disgusted reactions to this cartoon which is exactly what I was going for. Also, I hate layers in Procreate. This cartoon has nearly 40 of them. I would usually just write “pardon” over and over again, but I thought the placement would work better with the layers, but that’s just as much of a PITA to me as lettering. My layer-loving friend and colleague Phil Hands should be happy.
Mike Johnson of Louisiana was reelected today (Jan. 3) to lead the U.S. House of Representatives. During his acceptance remarks a bit later, he read what he called a prayer from Thomas Jefferson. But Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation call it a “spurious quotation,” adding it’s unlikely Jefferson actually wrote or delivered it. Johnson has a history of using fake quotes to advance his belief that the U.S. should be a “Christian nation.”
“I offered one that is quite familiar to historians and probably many of us,” he said about the prayer, which he noted the program described as one Jefferson recited every day during his presidency and each day afterward until he died.
“I wanted to share it with you here at the end of my remarks not as a prayer per se right now but as really a reminder of what our third president and the primary author of the Declaration of Independence thought was so important that it should be a daily recitation,” Johnson added.
We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson. It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer, and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919.
Interestingly, although we can find no evidence that this prayer has a presidential source, it was used by a subsequent president in a public speech. Several months after his 1930 Thanksgiving Day Address as Governor of New York, it was pointed out that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech bore a striking resemblance to the very same prayer discussed above.
Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Jefferson would have composed or delivered a public prayer of this sort. He considered religion a private matter, and when asked to recommend a national day of fasting and prayer, replied, “I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the constitution from intermedling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”
As usual, fake historian David Barton is behind this.
Right Wing Watch has relentlessly exposed Barton’s countless lies about about the Founding Fathers, perhaps most notably his claim that the Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence are taken virtually verbatim from scripture.
Dear Speaker Johnson, Please don't make stuff up. The prayer that you read in the House Chamber today was not written by Thomas Jefferson and your claim that he recited it "every day" is false. Please use credible sources, not your discredited pal David Barton. See…
This is as good a time as any to pitch Telling Jefferson Lies, a podcast about the bad history produced by David Barton and other Christian nationalists. This incident will be a part of season two coming up. https://t.co/hYYE9Qaa1b
— Warren Throckmorton – Telling Jefferson Lies (@wthrockmorton) January 4, 2025
— Warren Throckmorton – Telling Jefferson Lies (@wthrockmorton) January 4, 2025
To be clear, I object to his false attribution of the prayer to Jefferson – part of the endless Christian nationalist campaign to remake Jefferson into a devout Christian when he was actually an enlightenment era freethinker who thought religion should remain private and out of… https://t.co/OHLBEDt57Y
Sheeeeesh. Thomas Jefferson, whose “Jefferson Bible” removed all the supernatural happenings and “miracles,” from the text, made it clear that he did not believe in the divinity of Christ. He titled his work “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” and made a copy for himself, although he never published it. Mike Johnson, David Barton, and other Christians who try to impose Christian piety on Thomas Jefferson are very much mistaken, or simply lying. Jefferson was a Deist, not a Christian.
Remember that Mace doesn’t believe in her rhetoric, she just wants the media attention. She wants the adoration she thinks that having people paying attention to her gives to her. She is a child desperately acting out to get the adults to pay attention to her. She is the child who never accepted she was at fault or mistaken but wants to blame everyone else including those pretend causes in her head alone. She was for trans rights, a big supporter of LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion when she felt it gained her media attention. Then when she saw the attention the Libs of TikTok and other haters on social media get, she waited for the opportunity to create enough spectacle for the spotlight to land on her. She tweeted over 500 times in 2 days on the bird site trying to milk the situation for views and clicks, often forgetting to switch to her burner accounts to praise her own stance. But now the drama has died down and no one is looking so she doesn’t care. She has to find the new outrage to pounce on. Maybe she will again throw a fit, and try to get some of the attention she got the first time, but she knows she has to wait, as it would be overwhelmed by current events. No if she still wants it, she will wait until about a couple of months in then claim she couldn’t use a bathroom because it is full of trans women. Hugs
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Josh Fiallo
Evelyn Hockstein / REUTERS
Nancy Mace’s hopes of banning transgender women from sharing a bathroom with her on Capitol Hill appear dashed for now.
The South Carolina Republican’s controversial bathroom ban was not included in the GOP’s House rules package unveiled this week—a surprise omission less than two months after Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly assured Mace it would be included.
The resolution was all the rage in November, with Mace pulling out different theatrics to drum up support for the ban. That included her using a bullhorn to read Miranda rights to sit-in protesters and using anti-transgender slurs to reference them.
Mace admitted her ban was to target the newly-elected Rep. Sarah McBride, a transgender Democrat from Delaware. Mace’s office did not respond to questions texted by the Daily Beast on Friday.
Johnson announced on Nov. 20 that “all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings […] are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.” This suggested he backed Mace’s proposal even if he was not as fervent in his public comments, but it is unclear why the ban didn’t make into the latest rules package.
“We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people,” Johnson said the day prior. “I believe it’s a command that we treat all persons with dignity and respect.”
Mace doesn’t appear to have any bad blood over the omission. She posted Friday morning that Johnson still had her vote to remain House Speaker.
“A vote for @SpeakerJohnson is a vote for President Trump’s America First agenda,” she wrote. “After the last few days of chaos we’ve seen in these tumultuous times, we need steady leadership and continuity. We need to stick together and get to work. We don’t have any time to waste.”
Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, is the first openly transgender member of Congress. / Bill Clark/Getty Images
While McBride was the resolution’s target, the ban would have applied to any trans person in the Capitol, including staffers and visitors
McBride, the first openly-trans member of Congress, has not commented on the ban’s omission. Back in November, she did not try to go toe-to-toe with Mace on the matter—instead asserting that she would follow whatever the House rules were.
“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” she wrote in a statement. “I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”
The eight tech titans alone gained more than $600 billion this year, 43% of the $1.5 trillion increase among the 500 richest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Greenland’s natural resources are worth many trillions; future drillers and diggers won’t care that it’s cold and distant. As Alaska proves, where there’s value, there’ll be value-extractors
plus, perhaps, a casino or two. Yes, the right kind of development could MGGA—Make Greenland Great Again.
By JOHN HANNAUpdated 10:44 AM CST, December 29, 2024Share
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republicans made claims about illegal voting by noncitizens a centerpiece of their 2024 campaign messaging and plan to push legislation in the new Congress requiring voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. Yet there’s one place with a GOP supermajority where linking voting to citizenship appears to be a nonstarter: Kansas.
That’s because the state has been there, done that, and all but a few Republicans would prefer not to go there again. Kansas imposed a proof-of-citizenship requirement over a decade ago that grew into one of the biggest political fiascos in the state in recent memory.
The law, passed by the state Legislature in 2011 and implemented two years later, ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote. That was 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018.
Kansas provides a cautionary tale about how pursuing an election concern that in fact is extremely rare risks disenfranchising a far greater number of people who are legally entitled to vote. The state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Scott Schwab, championed the idea as a legislator and now says states and the federal government shouldn’t touch it.
“Kansas did that 10 years ago,” said Schwab, a Republican. “It didn’t work out so well.”
Steven Fish, a 45-year-old warehouse worker in eastern Kansas, said he understands the motivation behind the law. In his thinking, the state was like a store owner who fears getting robbed and installs locks. But in 2014, after the birth of his now 11-year-old son inspired him to be “a little more responsible” and follow politics, he didn’t have an acceptable copy of his birth certificate to get registered to vote in Kansas.
“The locks didn’t work,” said Fish, one of nine Kansas residents who sued the state over the law. “You caught a bunch of people who didn’t do anything wrong.”
A small problem, but wide support for a fix
Kansas’ experience appeared to receive little if any attention outside the state as Republicans elsewhere pursued proof-of-citizenship requirements this year.
Arizona enacted a requirement this year, applying it to voting for state and local elections but not for Congress or president. The Republican-led U.S. House passed a proof-of-citizenship requirement in the summer and plans to bring back similar legislation after the GOP won control of the Senate in November.
In Ohio, the Republican secretary of state revised the form that poll workers use for voter eligibility challenges to require those not born in the U.S. to show naturalization papers to cast a regular ballot. A federal judge declined to block the practice days before the election.
Also, sizable majorities of voters in Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and the presidential swing states of North Carolina and Wisconsin were inspired to amend their state constitutions’ provisions on voting even though the changes were only symbolic. Provisions that previously declared that all U.S. citizens could vote now say that only U.S. citizens can vote — a meaningless distinction with no practical effect on who is eligible.
To be clear, voters already must attest to being U.S. citizens when they register to vote and noncitizens can face fines, prison and deportation if they lie and are caught.
“There is nothing unconstitutional about ensuring that only American citizens can vote in American elections,” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, of Texas, the leading sponsor of the congressional proposal, said in an email statement to The Associated Press.
Why the courts rejected the Kansas citizenship rule
After Kansas residents challenged their state’s law, both a federal judge and federal appeals court concluded that it violated a law limiting states to collecting only the minimum information needed to determine whether someone is eligible to vote. That’s an issue Congress could resolve.
The courts ruled that with “scant” evidence of an actual problem, Kansas couldn’t justify a law that kept hundreds of eligible citizens from registering for every noncitizen who was improperly registered. A federal judge concluded that the state’s evidence showed that only 39 noncitizens had registered to vote from 1999 through 2012 — an average of just three a year.
In 2013, then-Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who had built a national reputation advocating tough immigration laws, described the possibility of voting by immigrants living in the U.S. illegally as a serious threat. He was elected attorney general in 2022 and still strongly backs the idea, arguing that federal court rulings in the Kansas case “almost certainly got it wrong.”
Kobach also said a key issue in the legal challenge — people being unable to fix problems with their registrations within a 90-day window — has probably been solved.
“The technological challenge of how quickly can you verify someone’s citizenship is getting easier,” Kobach said. “As time goes on, it will get even easier.”
Would the Kansas law stand today?
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the Kansas case in 2020. But in August, it split 5-4 in allowing Arizona to continue enforcing its law for voting in state and local elections while a legal challenge goes forward.
Seeing the possibility of a different Supreme Court decision in the future, U.S. Rep.-elect Derek Schmidt says states and Congress should pursue proof-of-citizenship requirements. Schmidt was the Kansas attorney general when his state’s law was challenged.
“If the same matter arose now and was litigated, the facts would be different,” he said in an interview.
But voting rights advocates dismiss the idea that a legal challenge would turn out differently. Mark Johnson, one of the attorneys who fought the Kansas law, said opponents now have a template for a successful court fight.
“We know the people we can call,” Johnson said. “We know that we’ve got the expert witnesses. We know how to try things like this.” He predicted “a flurry — a landslide — of litigation against this.”
Born in Illinois but unable to register in Kansas
Initially, the Kansas requirement’s impacts seemed to fall most heavily on politically unaffiliated and young voters. As of fall 2013, 57% of the voters blocked from registering were unaffiliated and 40% were under 30.
But Fish was in his mid-30s, and six of the nine residents who sued over the Kansas law were 35 or older. Three even produced citizenship documents and still didn’t get registered, according to court documents.
“There wasn’t a single one of us that was actually an illegal or had misinterpreted or misrepresented any information or had done anything wrong,” Fish said.
He was supposed to produce his birth certificate when he sought to register in 2014 while renewing his Kansas driver’s license at an office in a strip mall in Lawrence. A clerk wouldn’t accept the copy Fish had of his birth certificate. He still doesn’t know where to find the original, having been born on an Air Force base in Illinois that closed in the 1990s.
Several of the people joining Fish in the lawsuit were veterans, all born in the U.S., and Fish said he was stunned that they could be prevented from registering.
Liz Azore, a senior adviser to the nonpartisan Voting Rights Lab, said millions of Americans haven’t traveled outside the U.S. and don’t have passports that might act as proof of citizenship, or don’t have ready access to their birth certificates.
She and other voting rights advocates are skeptical that there are administrative fixes that will make a proof-of-citizenship law run more smoothly today than it did in Kansas a decade ago.
“It’s going to cover a lot of people from all walks of life,” Avore said. “It’s going to be disenfranchising large swaths of the country.”
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Associated Press writer Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.
