When I was just a young girl and the Florida recount ended up costing Al Gore the presidency, my father thought it was time to take me on his knee and teach me about important types of government dishonesty.
A main lesson I remember was about piggybacking legislation, or the process of introducing controversial measures into an uncontroversial bill in the hopes that lawmakers won’t have time to read the whole brief and end up passing on a law that never would have been supported.
As I read the April 25 Associated Press article on the Capital Times website titled, “Proposal would move date of Wisconsin primary,” I almost couldn’t believe the piggybacking that could potentially go down unnoticed as Rep. Jeff Stone, R-Greendale, and Rep. Don Pridemore, R-Hartford, try to introduce a new bill that would move the primary election to the second Tuesday in August instead of its traditional mid-September date.
The point of contention in the bill, however, is that it will abolish the option for voters to vote a straight-party ticket and also require photo ID for voters. While rescheduling is a non-issue, the straight-party ticket and voter ID registration are much more important and shouldn’t be attached.
As reported by the AP, “Wisconsin must change the [date of the]… primary to comply with a recent federal law requiring states to mail ballots for federal elections to military and overseas voters 45 days before the general election.” Wisconsin has been late getting in its absentee ballots and had to apply for a special waiver in 2010 to make the deadline. The government denied this request and told us to change our primary date next election, so the Government Accountability Board gave the legislation a number of dates to pick from that would still comply with national criteria.
Nothing really to worry over – dates need to be shuffled around. No wrongs committed here. On the other hand, the two other measures trying to ride in on the harmless measure’s coattails are not as simple or straightforward. Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca says, “The myriad of different items [Pridemore is] trying to weave together, of which some are completely unrelated, is a bad idea… It seems to me they should be separated and we should take up the thing that’s necessary without those things that might be desirable to those looking to further restrict people’s ability to vote.” Both clauses are seriously sticky issues and need to be unraveled in order to examine their implications.
In a Badger Herald column last fall, writer Sam Stevenson pointed out that the straight party ticket robs independents on both side of what may be deserved votes by allowing uninformed voters not to make an active choice about candidates. This may be so, and eliminating the straight party ticket could help combat the “rather uninspired scope of Democratic successes.”
Only 14 other states besides Wisconsin still allow straight party voting, which marginalizes smaller parties and allows unqualified or unlikely candidates to ride on the coattails of their party. It’s not immediately clear to me why two Republican legislators would try to do away with something that has previously allowed strong partisans and hard-liners to support the GOP. The point is, it’s not a measure that should be included in clerical legislation, and it should be examined and debated far more rigorously.
The more concerning measure is the requirement of photo ID at time of voting. As reported by the AP, “Currently, registered Wisconsin voters are not required to provide any form of identification before voting. Both bills would require voters to provide either a driver’s license, state IDs, military IDs, passports, naturalization papers or tribal IDs at the polls. Student IDs would not be allowed.”
Currently, only nine other states require a photo ID, and Republican legislators are pushing for the measure as a way to combat voter fraud. They tried to push it through in February, but couldn’t vote on it because no democrats were present. Democrats ascertain that this measure, “would cut off access to minorities, students and senior citizens,” according to the AP. In fact, using electoral techniques to discriminate against minorities has been well-documented throughout history. Grandfather clauses, literacy tests, intimidation and poll taxes have prevented blacks, immigrants and the poor from participating in elections well into the 20th century. This, which borders on a civil rights violation, should be thoroughly looked into and evaluated.
These three measures now trying to be passed by Republicans in the legislature demonstrate one of the oldest forms of political dishonesty: piggybacking. One of the bills I think should be passed, and the other I absolutely don’t think should be passed at any cost. The point is, they are three very separate and barely related issues and should be treated that way. Unfortunately, the measure is expected to pass easily. Is there any way the Democrats can take another vacation? If not, the people of Wisconsin themselves need to engage in the debate that the Legislature is going to skip over.
Taylor Nye ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in biological anthropology and Latin American studies.
