Is Trump blackmailing California in exchange for disaster aid? Here is a solution | Opinion

The Trump administration continues to target California as its primary domestic political enemy in the wake of the fires that consumed Los Angeles. Seizing on the misery of death and destruction in California as an opportunity to extract political concessions, Trump has committed to helping victims with federal aid, but only if the state bends its values to his whims. Then, in a predictable turn of events, President Trump found the moment of tragedy as an opportunity to further impose his political will on a completely unrelated, though highly charged issue: Voter identification laws.

Since 2016, President Trump has inaccurately made the egregious claim that he would have won California if there hadn’t been voter fraud in the state. Advancing misinformation about voter fraud has become a bellwether for MAGA Republicans, essentially a fealty test to the president determined by whether or not one is willing to lie for him. Republicans have introduced legislation and a statewide ballot measure is in the offing. On Monday, House Speaker Mike Johnson wouldn’t rule out that federal disaster aid to California could be contingent on state officials enacting new voter identification laws.

So, is Republican support for voter identification laws truly about election integrity or is it a backhanded way of suppressing minority voters?

For decades, Republicans have used the specter of voter fraud, specifically the false allegation that undocumented immigrants are showing up en masse to stuff ballot boxes. Democrats, meanwhile, have cast the aspersion of Republicans trying to suppress minorities from voting.

Fraud and suppression have become the partisan bogeymen of “red vs. blue” campaigns despite little evidence to suggest that either is happening in California on any measurable scale.

Fortunately, there is a way to combat the odious political games played by both parties while also calling Trump’s bluff. California can give Trump Voter ID with a twist of justice for all.

The best way to ensure that voter identification laws are not disenfranchising voters is to guarantee that every eligible citizen in the state is automatically registered with their unique number. This protects their franchise regardless of literacy, income, race, gender, housing status, or any other obstacle. Implemented together, voter ID would work to ensure voter protection rather than a basis for undermining voters by questioning their registration or eligibility status.

Requiring that voters have a voter identification card has long been opposed by the Democratic establishment of this country, and California has been no exception. The rationale for this is based primarily on the historic exclusionary acts of suppressing Black voters in the South from exercising their franchise. Voter identification cards, like poll taxes and literacy tests before them, have become a symbolic example of white suppression of Black voters. To be sure there have been attempts to intimidate and disenfranchise Latino voters, Asian voters and a whole array of non-white voters in this state and country for some time as well, but no one credibly claims these efforts were anywhere near the pernicious activities of partisans in the Jim Crow South.

While every incident of voter suppression should be addressed with vigor, California does not have a voter suppression problem despite what many Democrats might say.

California’s permissive voting process has flaws

California enjoys the most permissive and progressive voting processes anywhere in the nation. Citizens of the state can vote in virtually any manner they choose and even have a friend or neighbor take their ballot into a polling place if they can’t.

Our state implemented “Motor Voter” in the early 1990s allowing for dramatically greater access to voter registration at the Department of Motor Vehicles. We followed that up with a New Motor Voter law that implemented a cursory, though not comprehensive, form of automatic voter registration in our continuing desire to ensure as many people as possible can vote. Despite complicated and expensive manners of registering and voting, California is not anywhere near the highest voter participation rates anywhere in the country.

Guarantee every voter has an ID

California should join the majority of democracies by adopting both a voter identification card and number while eliminating a byzantine registration system. Regimes from the far right and left throughout the world have done so including Hungary, Israel, Argentina, Chile and the Netherlands.

A lost card is easily replaced and a voter without one is easily identified by their unique number at a polling place. Eliminating unnecessary voter registration would save taxpayer money for the Secretary of State and County Registrars to focus more on informing voters about elections.

Best of all, it would mean Republicans and Democrats could no longer play political games with voting.

This story was originally published January 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Is Trump blackmailing California in exchange for disaster aid? Here is a solution | Opinion."