Dear Congresswoman Gluesenkamp Perez, Senator Murray, Senator Cantwell:

As a voting constituent of yours, I urge you to oppose the SAVE Act. It creates a big bureaucratic hassle for everyone—rural, urban, conservative, and progressive—by requiring us to take our original birth certificate in person to a federal government office, stand in line, get processed, and then wait for months for a government decision, merely to retain our right to vote.

Nobody in either party elected you to create big hassles and new costs for us. This applies to everyone, including folks who have been Americans for generations and have been voting for decades. It’s outrageous and unnecessary. When registering to vote, we are already required to swear under penalty of perjury that we are eligible to vote. There are virtually no undocumented immigrants on the voter rolls now, so the purported purpose of the bill is a falsehood.

Cross-over votes are always important to every elected official. However, you are unlikely to get cross-over votes from far-right MAGA voters. Your cross-over votes come from center-right Ike Eisenhower Republicans, who will support you even more for protecting them from these hassles and protecting our Constitutional democracy from this overt manipulation.

The SAVE Act’s authors have been given time to address these concerns, and they have not done so, so it is reasonable to decide to oppose the bill at this point.

In addition, I encourage you to vote no on every budget and every continuing resolution until our Constitution, the separation of powers enshrined therein, and our U.S. Marshals are protected. It is unreasonable to pass a budget when the executive branch is clearly pursuing complete centralization of power, at the expense of the Congress, the Judiciary, and the American voters. Please vote no on any budget or continuing resolution, unless it includes language requiring all executive branch employees to comply promptly with orders from the judicial branch, requires non-interference from the executive branch in the U.S. Marshal’s sworn duty to enforce those orders, and clearly disallows suspension of elections and declarations of martial law. It is time for us all to get ahead of these possibilities proactively, instead of waiting and reacting later.

Democrats, Independents, and center-right Republicans consider it rational and natural to protect free elections and enforce the Constitution. As an ally and supporter, I strongly urge you to do so, and I look forward to being able to strongly support you in your next election as well.

Sincerely,

[          ]

 

BACKGROUND

The SAVE Act has been introduced into U.S. Congress. It creates a big bureaucratic hassle for everyone—rural, urban, conservative, and progressive—by requiring us to take our original birth certificate in person to a federal government office, stand in line, get processed, and then wait for months for a government decision, merely to retain our right to vote.

For many but not all, it will require payments to the federal government and even more bureaucratic hassles, because if you don’t have your original birth certificate, you are required to apply for and purchase a U.S. Passport or Real ID, at additional time and expense to every one of every party. If your name no longer matches the name on your birth certificate, you also have to find your original marriage certificate or change of name certificate and take that in-person to a federal government office.

This applies to everyone, including folks who have been Americans for generations and have been voting for decades. It’s outrageous and unnecessary. When registering to vote, we are already required to swear under penalty of perjury that we are eligible to vote. There are virtually no undocumented immigrants on the voter rolls now, so the purported purpose of the bill is a falsehood.

Finally, the SAVE Act is an obvious ploy by the far right to put barriers in front of women in particular, and also middle-income working Americans who don’t have time and money to deal with these new barriers. It will disenfranchise women, middle-income people, and low-income people in much higher proportions. Every swing-district Democrat is more likely to lose if this passes, and every swing-district MAGA candidate is more likely to win if the SAVE Act passes. That is the real purpose of the bill.