Despite passioned appeals from the twenty member Democratic Senate Caucus, the Pennsylvania State Senate sent HB934 back to the house with the GOP stamp of approval 26-23 today in Harrisburg.
Senator Daylin Leach (D-17) tried to point the sheer lunacy of Representative Metcalfe's HB 934 trying to fix a non existent problem of voter impersonation.
Senator Leach's appeal that "300 people are more likely to struck by lightning before one act of voter impersonation is discovered" fell on deaf ears.
Senator Schwank (D-11) emotional account about a 95 year old constituent, whom she helped get to the polls in 2008 when the voter dialed 911 in order to find a ride to vote. This proud Pennsylvanians voting record went all the back to the depression, and this bill would have disenfranchised her.
Then Senator Hughes (D-7) tried to remind the Senate floor how this bill doesn't protect the franchise, but suppresses it. Democratic Senate members tried to no avail to protect approximately 700,000 Pennsylvanians access to the franchise today. Only three Republicans would cross the aisle on this bill that Keesha Gaskin of Brennan Center of Justice compared to an illegal poll tax:
To avoid having these laws become illegal poll taxes, states must make IDs available for free.(http://www.brennancenter.org/...)
HB934 does not offer free State ID's to Pennsylvanians in need. However, it does offer them the opportunity to vote if one can afford the fees that come along with obtaining an ID.
Senator Daylin Leach tweeted a response to this authors comment noting the Senators passionate appeal to his fellow Senators to vote nay.
@daylinleach: @ProgressMoShuff Sadly, this bunch isn't very persuadable.
Unfortunately, as I would reply to Senator Leach:
@ProgressMoShuff: @daylinleach unfortunately they were all too persuadable last summer at their ALEC meeting in NO. #votersuppression they can find $ for.
One can only hope Pennsylvania House Democrats can convince enough house republicans to vote against this bill when it returns to the house. Sadly, I fear the likelihood of that is slim to none.