Politics and Local Government

By S.E. Michael

Photos: CC via Bing

February 27, 2025 (San Diego) -- Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress ran on a pro-life platform. But it’s clear from recent actions of the Trump administration that its leaders don’t care about babies. Its actions are putting lives and wellbeing of millions of infants and children at risk, both around the world and here in the U.S.

Cutting off U.S. Aid including food in famine-stricken areas, clean water and medical supplies without notice, for instance, means that “millions of children will suffer and thousands may die” around the world, according to an analysis by First Funding for Children. Ships laden with food were prohibited from unloading, leaving food to rot rather than save lives of starving children, CBS reports. The United Nations warns of “mass death” in Sudan from starvation and is seeking donations after the U.S. abruptly cut off all aid.

Similarly, Republicans’ Congressional budget cuts to Medicaid, school lunch programs, and the child tax credit will all harm children.

Mass federal firings by the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE) include workers who ran childcare and Head Start programs and also ended a program to improve maternal healthcare for pregnant women, threatening the wellbeing of their unborn  babies.

Cuts to medical research will “will limit access to effective health care treatments and diagnostics for patients” and “threaten the ability of children’s hospitals to provide future groundbreaking cures for children,” according to a press release from the organization representing children’s hospitals.

Robert F. Kennedy Junior, the anti-vaxxer named Secretary of Health and Human Services, is considering changing recommendations for childhood vaccines such as measles and polio, an action that if carried out could put children at risk of dying or being left paralyzed from devastating and preventable childhood diseases.

The Trump administration is also pushing to deport undocumented children who entered the U.S. alone, putting their lives and safety at risk and to cut off infant assistance funds for migrant babies, as well as legal assistance for unaccompanied minors.

Cuts to the department of Education, which Trump eventually hopes to eliminate, would harm children with disabilities, PBS reports. NBC reports that if Trump is successful in eliminating the department of Education, it would harm the most vulnerable students,  such as by ending federal funding of schools, increasing class sizes for all public school students, eliminating federal funding for students with disabilities, ending civil rights protections for minority students, and grants to assure equal access to education for all children.

Eliminating waste, fraud and abuse is best accomplished by a careful, extended examination of individual programs—not slashing and eliminating entire programs and departments such as USAid and the Department of Education, nor gutting funds for children’s health research and successful childhood vaccine programs, nor eliminating childcare options for working parents, or taking away all protections for vulnerable immigrant children unaccompanied by parents or guardians.

These are politics of cruelty, not compassion. If you care about the lives of babies and children, now is the time to speak out and let your elected members of Congress know that policies harming children are unacceptable and must change.

S.E. Michael has written about medical issues for trade journals and newspapers, and is the parent of child cured of a life-threatening condition through a procedure at a children’s hospital made possible by federally funded medical research.

The opinions in this article reflect the views of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of East County Magazine. To submit an editorial for consideration, contact editor@eastcountymagazine.org

East County News Service

February 27, 2025 (Washington D.C.) -- U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) joined 14 other Democratic Senators in urging senior Trump Administration officials to reverse the hiring and onboarding freeze of federal seasonal firefighters that they say threatens the safety of communities in California and across the nation. The Trump Administration’s January 20 hiring freeze of federal civilian employees inexplicably did not exempt federal seasonal firefighters, despite exempting other critical public safety personnel. 

Federal seasonal firefighters risk their lives to protect communities and save lives. According to a press release issued by Padilla, "This hiring freeze is particularly dangerous as we ramp up staffing and training ahead of peak wildfire season.”

While Padilla secured a temporary pay raise for wildland firefighters in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, recruitment and retention remain significant challenges as firefighters work long hours with insufficient pay.   The attrition rate of firefighters at the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has been 45 percent over the past four years — making the hiring freeze at USFS, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Park Service all the more dangerous.

“The Administration must not sacrifice the safety of the American people for the benefit of implementing a political agenda,” wrote the Senators. “We urge you to immediately reverse course, begin hiring and onboarding seasonal firefighters again, and continue supporting and growing the federal firefighting workforce.   The bottom line is this: pausing the hiring and onboarding of federal seasonal firefighters — while historic wildfires destroy communities and upend livelihoods across the West — is simply irresponsible and dangerous. We will be woefully unprepared to fight the fires to come and instead will continue to see record levels of damage, ultimately costing communities and taxpayers even more at a time when the cost of living is already too high.”

Wildfires are increasing in frequency and destructiveness in California and across the nation.  Last month, the devastating Southern California fires, including the Palisades and Eaton Fires, burned over 57,000 acres and destroyed over 16,200 structures, claiming the lives of at least 29 victims. Nationally, over 64,800 fires burned 9 million acres in 2024, up from approximately 56,500 wildfires and 3 million acres in 2023. The rise in catastrophic wildfires demands even more seasonal firefighter hiring — not a freeze.

In addition to Senators Padilla and Rosen, the letter was also signed by Senators Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), Angus King (I-Maine), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Senator Padilla has consistently pushed to protect our wildland firefighting force. Last month, Padilla reintroduced the bipartisan Wildland Firefighter Paycheck Protection Act to protect the pay raise he secured for wildland firefighters in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In 2023, Padilla and a bipartisan group of Senators urged Senate leadership to avoid mass resignations within the wildland firefighter ranks by ensuring the prompt passage of their bipartisan legislation. Padilla and a bipartisan group of Senators also urged the Biden Administration to establish a special pay rate for federal wildland firefighters to prevent staffing shortages and strengthen wildfire response efforts in 2022. Following that request, the Biden Administration announced a temporary pay raise.  Additionally, Padilla’s Wildfire Emergency Act, announced last week, would establish a prescribed fire-training center in the West and authorize grants to support training the next generation of foresters and firefighters, among other important fire mitigation efforts.

Full text of the letter is available here.

Republicans also seek to increase national debt to fund tax breaks for wealthy

By Alexander J Schorr

Image: Cc by NC-ND via Bing

February 24, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – Republican senators pushed a $340 billion budget framework to passage early Friday that would give massive new tax cuts to wealthy people and corporations, while slashing Medicaid and other programs benefitting vulnerable Americans.The budget passed  the Senate in spite of an all-night session during which Democrats raised numerous objections, including to  releasing money that the Trump administration says is required for mass deportations and border security. The budget now heads to the House of Representatives for a vote.

The budget includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, a $4 trillion increase in the debt limit, and aims to slash $1.5 trillion from social programs while boosting spending on border security and the military.

The hours-long process trudged through a critical part of the budget process as senators considered one amendment after another to the budget proposal. Republicans, largely on party-line vote, passed the budget 52-48, with all Democrats and one GOP senator opposing it.

One supporter, Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), said “What we're doing today is jump-starting a process that will allow the Republican Party to meet President Trump’s immigration agenda.” 

Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), the number two ranking Senate Republican, said that GOP lawmakers are acting quickly to get the administration the resources they have requested and need to curb illegal border crossings. “The budget will allow us to finish the wall. It also takes the steps we need toward more border agents,” Barrasso said. “It means more detention beds… It means more detention flights.”

GOP leadership insists that “the whole thing,” in this case, “The Wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border will be paid for, rather than piled onto debt, with potential spending cuts and new revenues. The committees are expected to consider rolling back the Biden Administration’s methane emissions fee, which was approved by Democrats as part of climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act, and are hoping to draw new revenue from energy leases as they aim to spur domestic energy production.

One amendment that was accepted after several hours of debate was actually a Republican effort to deflect criticism that the package would be paid for by cutting safety net programs. The amendment from Senator Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) said that Medicaid and Medicare would be strengthened during the budget process. 

Democrats pushed a vote to prevent tax breaks for billionaires, an amendment that was repeated in various forms throughout the night but failed to get enough votes. House Democrats argue that the GOP tax cuts approved in 2017 flowed to the wealthiest Americans, and extending them as Trump wants Congress to do later this year would prolong the gratuity. Even though the billionaire  amendments failed, they picked up some Republican support; Susan Collins of Maine voted for several of them, and Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri voted for another.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, launched a strategy early this week to use the budget to focus debate on the impacts of the tax policy and the Trump Administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is slashing programs and personnel across the federal government. 

Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said that the single biggest driver of the national debt since 2001 has been a series of Republican-led tax cuts for the very wealthy. She stated, “You’ll never guess what our Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle are focused on right now, nothing to lower the cost of eggs, it's actually more Republican tax cuts.” She called the budget plan a “roadmap for painful cuts to programs [which] families count on each and every day, all so they can give billionaires more tax cuts.” This information was available by the Associated Press.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise scheduled a vote this week on the budget resolution, after the House Budget Committee adopted it alongside party lines last week. In order to appease some conservative holdouts and get resolution over the finish line, House GOP leaders made adjustments that would affix up to $2 trillion in spending cuts, even though committees would have to work out the details of such a matter. 

That puts some programs like Medicaid in danger, which has already raised concerns from some Republican members. The House bill also calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade. These include renewing the Trump tax cuts enacted in 2017 as well as adding other provisions Trump campaigned on, such as no tax on tips, overtime or social security. Some Senate Republicans want to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent.

While Republicans in the House and Senate disagree on the strategy of one bill versus two bills to implement in Trump's agenda, they are united in using budget reconciliation to pass the legislation with only Republican support. Reconciliation is a budget tool that enables some legislation to pass with just a simple majority and avoid the issue of a filibuster, which requires 60 senators to overcome; this is the same process that enabled congressional Democrats to pass parts of former President Joe Biden’s agenda.

According to NPR, negotiations on the budget reconciliation package are expected to become more difficult to overcome in the coming months, as committees craft detailed provisions impacting government programs and tax policy; leaders are speeding ahead to complete action to get a package that both the House and Senate can pass before the end of the year, when Trump’s 2017 tax cuts expire.

Programs like Social Security, food and rental assistance, Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax credit lifted more than 34 million people above the poverty line 2023. They are also largely responsible for the 29.7% to 12.9% in poverty rate drop between 1967 and 2023, according to a CBP analysis which utilized the more comprehensive of the Census Bureau’s two poverty measures. Medicaid also provides health coverage for over 70 million people, giving access to healthcare and reducing debt and medical costs. Economic security supports are effective in the decreasing of differences in child poverty between racial and ethnic groups.

Cutting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP), which is currently $6.20 per person a day on average, and shifting part of the cost of benefits to states would increase food insecurity and poverty. Shifting even a smaller portion of SNAP benefit costs to states would and will strain state budgets, forcing cuts in eligibility and benefits overall. This would include during the event of a recession, when hardships rise and state revenues fall. Preventing potential and future updates and resolutions to SNAP benefits to ensure that people are afforded an adequate diet, or reversing the most recent updates, would increase poverty as well. A 2021 update, the first in decades to account for changes in the scientific evidence on the makeup of a healthy diet, was estimated to lift more than 2 million people above the poverty line, according to the Urban Institute, with the largest poverty reductions for Black and Latino people. 

In Programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and rental assistance, most people who can perform paid work already do so. Taking assistance away from people who cannot document that they are complying with a work amount requirement does not increase employment, research shows, but will increase poverty and hardships for citizens. An Arkansas experiment with Medicaid work requirements found no evidence that the policy increased work, but one in four of those subject to the requirements lost coverage. The Child Tax Credit, now worth up to $2,000 per child, reduces child poverty. Denying the credit to children who are U.S. citizens if their parents lack a Social Security Number (SSN) would increase poverty among children, especially for Latino children, hurting children’s long-term objectives in contributing to the economy as adults.

Additionally, Reducing Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits for the low-income disabled children with conditions like Down Syndrome, Autism, blindness, deafness, and cerebral palsy, if another member of the family also receives SSI, this could push many further into poverty. Those families who care for children with disabilities, especially those with more than one disabled child, are more likely than other families to be poor and face more financial and material hardships.

Slashing funding for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, which sends funds to states to provide basic cash assistance and services like child care to low-income families, would further limit this program’s reach in responding to poverty levels. Only about one in five families below the poverty line receive TANF assistance.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the agenda represented by The Trump proposals would make millions of people worse off while extending and expanding tax breaks for wealthy households and businesses. Congress could expand rental assistance to reach more people who struggle to afford housing, close the Medicaid “coverage gap,” and expand Child Tax Credit for the 17 million children who don’t get the full credit because their families’ incomes are too low,but the Republican Majority refuses to do this.

Social Security and Medicare are largely off limits due to their popularity with seniors, even if the programs are costly. That makes Medicaid, the largest single source of funding for medical and health-related services to 72 million low-income and medically disabled Americans, a prime target. The House Republican budget plan directs the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, to find $880 billion in offsetting spending cuts over the next ten years. On February 19, President Trump publicly endorsed the plan. Although Trump will likely need to garner the votes he needs, it won’t be simple, as significant cuts to Medicaid will be fiercely opposed by powerful interest groups, including hospitals, doctors, managed care plans, the nursing home industry, and patient advocacy groups. Additionally, with a narrow majority in the Senate, Republicans have few votes to spare.

Congress must also consider the impact that Medicaid cuts will have on their voters; three days before Trump endorsed the House Republican budget plan, Steve Bannon, a former Trump advisor, warned Republicans of the political risks. “Medicaid, you gotta be careful,” He told listeners to his podcast, “because a lot of MAGAs are on Medicaid, I’m telling you.” Due to this complication, a split has already opened in the Republican Caucus, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Another reason for Congress to reconsider Medicaid slashing or aborting the Affordable Care Act (dubbed ObamaCare), is that the cuts will do nothing to reduce the costs of healthcare in the United States. It will make healthcare more expensive and harder to obtain; according to a recent Gallup poll, this should be a concern for Congress, as affordability and access are America's top two healthcare concerns.

On average, uninsured Americans get only about half of the preventive services and medical coverage insured Americans receive. According to Forbes, Existing safety-nets are not sufficient to overcome the gap between those with health insurance and those without. The consequences economically are grim; if one family member lacks coverage, the entire family is exposed to financial burden of severe illness or injury. If states were to scale back their Medicaid programs and push larger numbers of beneficiaries off the rolls, then more rural hospitals, safety net clinics, and public hospitals will close their doors to them. When those patients who were previously assisted by these institutions have nowhere to go, many will turn to private hospital ERs for treatment, and, if needed, hospitalizations. Throughout the decades, hospitals have charged privately insured patients more to offset the costs of treatments for patients who cannot pay. If private insurance companies refuse to capitulate, more facility closures will follow. In the end, everyone will face higher healthcare costs; additionally, access to care will decline for insured and uninsured alike.

This controversial and damaging decision, which is pulled directly from the Project 2025 playbook, would strip Americans of trillions of federal funding dollars; these are funds that help people keep their electricity on, sustain clean drinking water, aid communities recovering from floods and wildfires, where state Tribal governments are required to deliver service to communities, and much more. It shall put roughly 2,600 federal programs at risk, and with it, the livelihood of millions of Americans. 

Even if the budget does not pass the House, President Trump has threatened to withhold federal aid from key programs and risk a potential government shutdown.

In what is referred to as the “Appropriations Clause,” the U.S. Constitution gives the spending “power of the purse” to Congress, not to the President. It states: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The clause underscores an aspect of the system of checks and balances that make up the government and prevents the executive branch from spending money without Congressional oversight and approval. 

Additionally, should President Trump enforce this spending without Congress, these actions may violate the U.S. Impoundment Control Act of 1974. While this act allows some limited presidential control over funds, it explicitly prohibits a president from withholding funds, also known as “impoundment,” even if that president disagrees with the policy objectives related to spending. The Office of Management and Business (OMB) memo directing funding cuts is doing precisely that.

There has been obvious court action against this behavior; in one case the states argue that Trump’s executive actions are plainly illegal, where the judge is likely to issue a restraining order. In another scenario, nonprofit groups who use federal funds have already secured a near-term stay of the administration's actions; the legal and political landscape continues to change hour to hour.

President Trump’s cuts may shut down dozens of programs that reduce the cost of housing for everyday Americans, including loan guarantees that keep mortgage rates lower. The president may also gut the Home Energy Rebate programs and the Weatherization Assistance Program, which helps families save money by upgrading their homes to be more efficient and healthier, permanently lowering utility bills. The funding cut may also slam the brakes on vital clean transportation programs like the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program (NEVI), which provides states with funding to deploy a nationwide network of electric (EV) chargers to help make EVs more accessible, practical, and a money saving option for all Americans, all while addressing air pollution, carbon emissions, and  EV range anxiety for all drivers. Additionally, the  NEVI program can tackle pollution in communities of color, which would undoubtedly lose money and protections.

Non-profit organizations, like those serving climate and environmental justice communities, have already been blocked from the federal system that allows them to access grant money. Among the many programs being affected, Trump’s move could impede the Community Change Grants, which provided $2 billion to environment and climate justice projects which would help benefit disadvantaged communities. The president’s funding cuts disproportionately impact Tribal Nations and Native People, who receive a wide range of federal grants and loans. Looking specifically at the cross between Tribal governance and the environment, programs under financial threat could include climate resilience programs, wildlife grants, and energy programs delivering cleaner, safer, and more reliable energy that support Tribal governments to regulate environmental quality, and even more.

Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB)  memo may potentially sever funding for countless infrastructure and manufacturing projects in communities across the country, jeopardizing tens of thousands of middle-class, union jobs. Those workers who repair roads, install broadband and so on will face layoffs and furloughs due to the Trump cuts. Apprentices learning their trade in federally supported programs will likely have their sessions and education interrupted and fractured, perhaps even permanently, with many being students in federally supported financial aid programs. These same cuts are a direct attack on current and future workers, students, and by extension, the economy at large. Additionally, according to Evergreen Action, extreme weather disasters like the flooding in North Carolina and the fires in California show us why competent governance is crucial and how federal grants and loans can help American citizens recover when disaster strikes. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is vital to natural disaster response, is one of the programs on the president’s chopping block. Trump has repeatedly threatened to eliminate FEMA.  The Associated Press illustrates that presidents can currently authorize the reimbursement of some expenses at 100%, just as former president Biden did for the costs from Hurricane Helene and the California fires. About 6 in 10 voters in November’s election approved of how FEMA was handling its job, according to AP VoteCast; roughly 4 in 10 disapproved, yet the number was higher among Trump’s voters, as two-thirds of them said they disapproved of how FEMA was handling its job. Naturally, there are some facts to consider: FEMA encourages insured survivors to apply, and it does not duplicate assistance for damage that is covered by insurance but may cover other losses that insurance may not. If FEMA funds arrive before an insurance settlement, one can use the FEMA money as a bridge loan until insurance settlement arrives. You would have to repay FEMA for any duplication in benefits. Also, a homeowner who lived in the home at the time of the disaster may be eligible for funds to repair the area of their home damaged by the disaster, even those areas that have pre-existing damage. Moreover, applying for disaster assistance does not grant FEMA or the federal government authority or ownership of your property or land. By slicing funding for FEMA entirely, President Trump runs the risk of disproportionately affecting millions of homeowners, and predisposing them to poverty and death.

The president is cutting off opportunities just as America is hitting its manufacturing resurgence. Federal funding under the Inflation Reduction Act propelled $110 billion of private investments and created 90,000 manufacturing clean energy industries. Blocking federal funding, such as the nearly $400 million Pennsylvania clean manufacturing grant, will undermine our growing clean economy and deprive the Commonwealth of about 6,000 new jobs.The current presidential administration is going out of its way to stifle and kill off economic growth in service of a divisive culture war agenda. 

The budget bill could be voted on as early as today, but must be passed no later than March 14 to avoid a government shutdown.

The Center for American Progress has set up a link for concerned citizens to contact their members of Congress and urge opposition to the SAVE Act.

By Alexander J Schorr

Photo:  Suffragists outside White House in 1917 urged that women be granted right to vote, which was approved with passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920

February 22, 2025 (Washington D.C.) – The19th Amendment guarantees women in the U.S. the right to vote.  But H.R. 22, the ironically named “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE), Act is actually poised to take away that right for millions of married women, as well as anyone else whose current name does not match the name on their birth certificate. Potentially, hundreds of millions of voters could become disenfranchised if the Save Act becomes law.

Currently, House majority Republicans are fast-tracking the Save Act, which was originally introduced in 2024 and has been brought back in the 119^th Congress by Representative Chip Roy, on a pretext of making sure undocumented immigrants don't vote.  But if enacted, it  would force every single American citizen to prove their citizenship status in person when registering to vote.This “show-your-papers” bill would require proof of citizenship once more even for those who have already registered, or wish to update their voting information, such as when moving or changing parties.

For the majority of Americans, this means having to present a passport or birth certificate at their local election office. But if you don’t have a passport, or the name on your passport or other ID does not match the name on your birth certificate, you would not be allowed to vote.The Save Act would disenfranchise 146 million Americans who do not have a passport and nearly 70 million women who are married do not have a birth certificate that matches their new legal name, according to PolitiFact.

Working-class and low-income Americans would also be disproportionately disenfranchised if the bill becomes law, as the vast majority of these groups do not have a passport. As of October of 2024, only 51% of Americans had a passport, according to USA Today. Additionally, the U.S. Department of State stated that in fact about only half of American citizens possess only a passport (American Progress).

Nationwide, approximately 146 million Americans do not possess a passport (League of Women Voters); to put that number into perspective, 153 million Americans cast a ballot in the 2024 Presidential General Election ((American Progress). According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a left-leaning voting rights advocacy group, more than 21 million Americans, or 9% of eligible voters, do not have access to citizenship documents like passports or driver’s licenses according to survey data.

Elections are run at the state level, with each individual state deciding its requirements for registration and voting; this illustrates unconstitutional federal overreach and a violation of privacy.

Critics have also said that the bill would make it difficult for a person who takes a spouse’s last name after marriage-- overwhelmingly women -- to register to vote. If someone lacks a passport with a current name, providing documents with the correct name would be more difficult, especially if an individual’s former name on their license or birth certificate was different when or if they lived in another state than the state in which they currently live.

In seven states, less than one-third of citizens have a valid passport: West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. Only in four states, New York, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey, are more than two-thirds of citizens in possession of a valid passport. In West Virginia, the state with the lowest rate of passport possession, only about 1 in 5 citizens, or rather 20.7%, possess this documentation. New Jersey has the highest rate of citizen passport possession: 4 in 5 citizens, or 80%, possessing a valid passport. In general, higher volumes of passport ownership are predominantly centered in blue states, while lower rates of passport ownership are overwhelmingly concentrated in red states (Swift Passport Services).

Under the Save Act, it would disproportionately make it more difficult for American citizens in red states to present one or more of the primary forms of citizenship documentation: a birth certificate, driver’s license, certain REAL IDs, or a passport, to be able to register or re-register to vote.

Transgender people could also lose their right to vote.  As of February of 2025, passports will only be marked matching the individual's assigned biological sex at birth. The American Medical Association supports policies that “allow for a sex designation or change of designation on all government IDs to reflect an individual’s gender identity, as reported by the individual.” Designating sex as either male or female regardless of current biological or social expression only fails to factor in “the medical spectrum of gender identity,” risking the marginalization of individuals with distinct individual self expression, the organization says. Those of the LGBTQ+ community will also be discriminated against because of The Trump Administration's forcing of assigned gender names at birth and marital status (TravelState).

The measure could also disenfranchise Native Americans who rely on tribal IDs, Native News online reports.  Voting rights could also be stripped from anyone who does not have a copy of their birth certificate, such as people whose records were lost in a disaster, home births, or naturalized citizens born overseas.

It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in elections— yet the act would institutionally place roll purges on ordinary American citizens, making it even more difficult and inconvenient for eligible voters to register and vote. The bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant displays documentary proof of US citizenship. “Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in federal elections unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S citizenship, and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process under which an applicant may submit other evidence to demonstrate U.S citizenship” (CONGRESS.GOV).

The documentation goes on to say that “each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S citizens using information supplied by a specific source.” And furthermore, “the bill requires states to remove non-citizens from their official lists of eligible voters.” And lastly, the bill “allows for a private right of action against an election official who registered an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship… (including) criminal penalties for certain offenses” for those who fail to present evidence of citizenship. The Election Assistance Commission has required, under the bill, and within 10 days, to adopt and “transmit guidance” for implementing the bill’s requirements to chief state election officials.

The bill would ultimately upend longstanding methods of voter registration for all voters, including registration by mail, voter registration drives, online voter registration and automatic voter registration. The bill functionally eliminates mail registration by requiring voters registering by mail to produce citizenship documents in person to an election official before the deadline; the bill does not acknowledge or consider copies or electronic records of citizenship documents, severely halting automatic voter registration, as many of those transactions do not occur in person while someone has citizenship documents with them. Additionally, address changes could be impacted too; instead of registration being automatically updated when an individual changes their driver’s license online, they will have to bring their passport or birth certificate to an election agency office to update voter registration.

The bill, a priority of House Republicans, would require people registering to vote or update their registrations to use certain documents including military IDs and enhanced IDs displaying citizenship, birth certificate or passports to prove citizenship. For people who lack passports, any mismatch between their birth certificates and IDs would present problems with registration, which was elaborated on by Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center, stating that such mismatches are common for people who change their names following marriage (Brennan Center).

A Pew research survey found that 79% of married women in opposite-sex marriage took their spouses last names, with about 5% of men having changed their last names after marriage. For same-sex marriages, Pew said that the sample was too small to measure (Pew Research).      

In a statement provided by Representative Roy’s office, Cleta Mitchell, the founder of Only Citizens Vote Coalition, a lawyer and former Oklahoma state representative, who pushed conspiracy theories of voter fraud and worked on President Donald Trump’s campaign efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, said that women regularly have to provide birth certificates and marriage licenses in order to change their names for social security documents, bank accounts, and other documents. She acknowledged that the process “is a pain,” and that “millions of women do it every day.”

The bill requires states to have a process to address discrepancies, yet the bill does not express how this is to be done. Additionally, a person who registers an application to vote without proof of citizenship may be subject to a fine of indeterminate amount as well as a sentence of five years in prison.                                                                       

Lastly, Americans who have completed less education as well as Americans with lower incomes are far less likely to have a passport than Americans with higher levels of education or higher income levels. Among Americans whose highest level of education is a high school degree or less, approximately 1 in 4 have a valid passport; among Americans with a household income below $50,000, only 1 in 5 have a passport (Center For American Progress.)

The Policies in The Save Act are a serious socio-economic issue that would disproportionately impact the voting rights of  working-class and lower-income Americans.