Murkowski gives firm no on Trump’s vote suppression bill
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Earlier this month, some people in my @ on Bluesky revived the old chestnut that Barack Obama could have filled the Supreme Court vacancy left by Antonin Scalia’s death but Didn’t. Even. Try. The arguments for this proposition are uniformly idiotic, so they generally ended up with some variation of “but nothing stops Trump!” The thing is, many things stop Trump, especially if they require Congress to actively do things (as opposed to passively acquiesce in constitutionally dubious actions.) It is true that Trump has been better able than Obama or Biden to take unilateral actions within the executive branch, but this has much more to do with having an ideoligically aligned Supreme Court than anything else.
When it comes to Congress, though, Trump can’t even get his own party to support the legislation that has been by far the top priority of his second term. Lisa Murkowski is so scared of Trump that she’s announcing her opposition in the Wall Street Journal:
President Trump made his case for the SAVE America Act on Thursday, claiming the security of our elections is at stake.
While I support the bill’s core tenets—ensuring that only American citizens vote and requiring identification when voting—I remain opposed to it. Why? Because it would have serious negative effects in Alaska, and the current text doesn’t allow for the time and resources needed for proper implementation.
As written, the SAVE America Act isn’t a simple fix to safeguard elections, as proponents claim. It would impose costly new barriers and prevent some, perhaps many, from voting, while also creating chaos before the November elections.
Alaska, the only place the Purcell principle still lives! Anyway, I think we can be pretty confident that Thune isn’t going to kill the filibuster to try to pass this shit.
Speaking of the power of the bully pulpit, Fox and Friends literally didn’t mention Trump’s miles-from-hinged election fraud speech the next morning. I guess the problem is that Trump doesn’t have experience communicating with the public.