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REPUBLICANS ELECTIONS VOTER SUPPRESSION

By Ari Berman

FEBRUARY 13, 2017

The Trump Administration’s LiesAbout Voter Fraud Will Lead toMassive Voter SuppressionTwenty-one states are now considering new laws to make it harderto vote.

Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller, andSteve Bannon watch as President DonaldTrump signs an executive order on

The Trump Administration’s Lies About Voter Fra... https://www.thenation.com/article/the-trump-admi...

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A fter falsely alleging that 3 million to 5 million people

voted illegally in 2016, Donald Trump debuted a new lie

about voter fraud in a meeting with senators on Thursday,

saying, according to Politico, that “thousands” of people were

“brought in on buses” from Massachusetts to “illegally” vote

in New Hampshire. Trump claimed that’s why he and former

GOP senator Kelly Ayotte lost their races in the state.

White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller repeated

Trump’s latest lie in an interview with ABC’s This Week on

Sunday. “This issue of busing voters in New Hampshire is

widely known by anyone who’s worked in New Hampshire

politics,” Miller said. “It’s very real. It’s very serious.” When

pressed for evidence by George Stephanopoulos, Miller said,

“This morning, on this show, is not the venue to lay out all

the evidence.”

“For the record, you have provided absolutely no evidence,”

Stephanopoulos responded.

Miller could provide no evidence for Trump’s claim because

there is none.

Trump aide Stephen Miller repeats Trump's blatantly false

claim about mass illegal voting. There is zero evidence.

pic.twitter.com/9NvPXjPYVO

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 12, 2017

“We have never gotten any proof about buses showing up at

January 23, 2017. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)The Trump Administration’s Lies About Voter Fra... https://www.thenation.com/article/the-trump-admi...

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polling places,” New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill

Gardner, who’s been in office since 1976, told The Boston

Globe.

“I will pay $1000 to 1st person proving even 1 outofstate

person took bus from MA 2 any NH polling place last

ElectionDay,” tweeted former New Hampshire GOP chair

Fergus Cullen.

Republicans in New Hampshire have made similar claims for

years with no evidence. “The Democrats are very sly.… [in

New Hampshire] we have same-day voter registration, and to

be honest, when Massachusetts elections are not very close,

they’re busing them in all over the place,” gubernatorial

candidate Chris Sununu said five days before the election.

Politifact called Sununu’s statement “ridiculous” and gave it a

“Pants on Fire” rating.

“We haven’t had any complaints about widespread voter

fraud taking place,” New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of

State David M. Scanlan, head of the state’s Election Division,

said after the election. Both Trump and Ayotte could have

requested a recount in New Hampshire if they believed there

was foul play, but did not.

Yet here’s why Trump’s lies about voter fraud are so

dangerous: Republicans in New Hampshire, who now control

the state government, have introduced 40 bills in the 2017

legislative session that would make it harder to vote.

The proposed legislation includes ending same-day

registration, which boosts voter turnout by up to 10;

restricting voting rights to only residents of New Hampshire

who plan to live in the state “for the indefinite future,” which


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could prevent college students and military personnel from

voting; and requiring that New Hampshire residents live in

the state for 13 days before voting and get an in-state driver’s

license and register their car in New Hampshire within 60

days of registering to vote, which the New Hampshire ACLU

calls a “post-election poll tax.”

What’s happening in New Hampshire is part of a disturbing

national trend. Already this year, 46 bills have been

introduced in 21 states, mostly controlled by Republicans,

that would make it harder to vote, according to the Brennan

Center for Justice.


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At least 12 states are already considering stricter voter-ID

legislation—Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland,

Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota,

Virginia, and Wyoming. Arkansas and North Dakota’s bills have

already passed in their state Houses. Legislation from the Iowa

secretary of state to implement voter ID will likely be considered

in the legislature, with the possibility of more restrictive bills

originating in the capital.

Along with Virginia, Texas legislators have introduced

legislation that would create strict documentary proof of

citizenship requirements to register. In Connecticut, Illinois,

Iowa, and New Hampshire, legislation has been introduced to

eliminate or limit Election Day registration, and bills that

restrict students’ ability to claim residency where they live and

go to school have been introduced in Arizona, Maine, and New

Hampshire. Legislators in Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, and Texas

have introduced legislation that would cut back on early-voting

opportunities.

Numerous states have seen legislation that threatens individuals

or groups who help others vote or register. Legislation making it

more difficult to help others deliver their absentee ballots has

been proposed in three states: Arizona, Montana, and New York.

Virginia legislators have introduced burdensome requirements

on community-based voter registration, along with increased

penalties for alleged misconduct. In Texas, a bill has been

proposed to make it harder to offer voter assistance,

undermining a court settlement last year.

The Trump administration is likely to massively intensify

GOP voter-suppression efforts, especially with Jeff Sessions

leading the Justice Department. “The issue of voter fraud is


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something we’re going to be looking at very seriously and

very hard,” Stephen Miller said on This Week, falsely claiming

that 14 percent of noncitizens were registered to vote.

The Trump administration’s sham investigation into voter

fraud will be a prelude to future suppression efforts, which

could include forcing states to purge their voting rolls in

inaccurate and discriminatory ways; launching bogus

prosecutions that target voters of color, like Sessions did as

US Attorney; switching sides in existing Justice Department

cases by backing restrictive voting laws in court; and pressing

Republicans in states and Congress to pass voter-ID laws and

proof-of-citizenship requirements to register.

We’re already seeing how such efforts can have a chilling

effect on political participation. Last week, the state of Texas

sentenced Rosa Marie Ortega, a permanent resident and

mother of four, to eight years in jail and certain deportation

thereafter for mistakenly voting in 2012 and 2014. (Ironically,

she was a registered Republican.) The outrageous sentence

is, unfortunately, a preview of what’s to come.

We’re having the entirely wrong conversation when it comes

to voting in America. Seventy-eight House Democrats wrote

to Trump last week and reminded him that the 2016 election

was the first in 50 years without the full protections of the

Voting Rights Act and that 14 states had new voting

restrictions in place for the first time. Instead of perpetuating

the myth of voter fraud, we should be investigating how

thousands of legitimate voters were blocked from the polls.

•


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6 COMMENTS

ARI BERMAN Ari Berman is a senior contributing writer for The Nation.

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LABOR DIVORCE UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRATION

By David Dayen

TODAY 4:56 PM

The Real Reason Why AndyPuzder Won’t Become LaborSecretaryPuzder did the one thing Republicans can no longer tolerate.


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O n December 8, days after Donald Trump chose Andy

Puzder as his nominee for Labor Secretary, I

predicted that he wouldn’t get confirmed. I didn’t have any

special inside information, just the knowledge that Puzder’s

beliefs included the one idea conservatives would not not

abide: support for immigration reform. Breitbart’s Julia

Hahn, who’s now working in the White House, wrote

a scathing piece on December 8, excoriating Puzder for

supporting “amnesty and flooding the labor market with

foreign workers.”

It wasn’t just that the immigration issue would sap Puzder’s

support among the far right. It meant that the grassroots

wouldn’t have his back if any other damaging information

about Puzder revealed itself. And boy, did it reveal itself,

resulting today in Puzder’s withdrawal from consideration for

the cabinet post.

Andy Puzder leaves a clubhouse aftermeeting with President Donald Trumpon November 19, 2016. (Reuters / MikeSegar)


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The hidden catalyst in Puzder’s demise is actually Betsy

DeVos. Her confirmation hearing went forward without

completion of financial disclosures and ethics documents, to

the outcry of Senate Democrats. Because the hearing went so

badly and the confirmation became a mess requiring a

tie-breaking vote from Vice President Mike Pence, Senate

HELP Committee Chair Lamar Alexander vowed that

Puzder would not get the same latitude, and would have to

finish his forms before any hearing.

Puzder, the CEO of the CKE restaurant chains (including

Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s), had such a complicated set of

financial entanglements, the hearing got delayed four times.

This gave opponents the chance to build up a wealth of

opposition research on the nominee.

I’d like to say that Puzder’s reign of terror as CEO, marked by

allegations of widespread labor violations, wage-fixing,

and millions of dollars in payouts to mistreated workers,

turned the tide on his nomination. I’d like to think we live in

a world where Republicans can be moved by fast-food

workers protesting in the streets. I’d like to say that

Puzder’s well-established views opposing the very laws the

Labor Department oversees was a red flag for, after all,

anti-labor Republicans. But I don’t think we live in that

world. Two issues unrelated to Puzder’s business practices

combined to sink him.

The first was Puzder’s admission of employing an

undocumented housekeeper. While this has done by cabinet

nominees in the past, it didn’t look like it would, initially, ruin

Puzder’s chances. After all, Commerce Secretary nominee

Wilbur Ross admitted to the same thing, and he’s likely to be


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confirmed.

The difference here is twofold. One, Puzder already had a

shaky reputation on foreign labor; the housekeeper played

into existing fears on the right. Second, it could be trotted

out as a convenient excuse if anything truly damaging came

to light. GOP Senators could curry favor with their

anti-immigrant base by blaming the housekeeper for

knocking out Puzder.

The real trouble spot concerned revelations of domestic

violence in Puzder’s former marriage to Lisa Fierstein.

Initially, Puzder got a statement from Fierstein retracting the

allegations, which appear in divorce records. She claimed it

was only for show, to try to win a bigger divorce settlement.

But then Politico revealed the existence of a 1990 interview

with Fierstein on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where she

appeared in disguise (as “Ann”) to talk about her history of

spousal abuse. This interview came years after the divorce

was finalized.

Oprah’s company found the tape and shared it with Senators.

Eventually a transcript of the video got released, where

Fierstein said her husband “vowed revenge” for going public.

The prospect of Puzder appearing in confirmation hearings,

scheduled for tomorrow, while Democrats pummeled him

with questions about domestic abuse was apparently too

much for Senate Republicans to swallow. They appealed to

Mitch McConnell by telling him that Puzder didn’t have the

votes. Puzder quickly withdrew.

The Oprah tape was precisely the kind of trip-up that

compounded Puzder’s problem with the base on

immigration. Conservatives wanted to abandon the guy


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0 COMMENTS

anyway, and his difficulties offered them the opportunity.

Even National Review, held up as the pro-business

alternative to the rantings of the far right, editorialized

against Puzder on Wednesday, entirely over the subject of

immigration. Despite being a laudable (in their view)

opponent of “knee-jerk” demands to raise the minimum

wage or protect worker’s rights on the job, the editorial

condemns Puzder for being “a reliable font of clichés in favor

of higher levels of legal immigration” and “a representative of

the worst reflex of corporate America on one of Trump’s

signature issues.” So much for National Review’s “Never

Trump” impulses.

The right is signaling toward cracking down on all manner of

immigration, and Puzder, simply put, got caught up in it. He’s

a perfectly normal exploitative business owner seeking the

cheapest labor possible. That once lined up with a business-

oriented, conservative position, but now it’s untenable, and

Puzder’s woes gave conservatives of all stripes a free chance

to get into the fold, beating up on foreigners a bit in the

process. The truth is that the modern Republican Party can

forgive a lot, but cannot stand for anyone who holds a shred

of sympathy for brown people.

Puzder’s withdrawal likely sets the table for someone who

shares his anti-labor views without favoring looser

immigration laws. But Puzder was so comically over the top

in his view of workers as little more than meat for a grinder,

having him far away from the Labor Department is a small

victory. •


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DAVID DAYEN David Dayen is the author of Chain of Title: How Three Ordinary

Americans Uncovered Wall Street’s Great Foreclosure Fraud, winner of the Studs

and Ida Terkel Prize.

To submit a correction for our consideration, click here.For Reprints and Permissions, click here.


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