Page 14 NoJvuelmy b10e,r 260, 1240 14 EL SEGUNDO HERALD One Man’s Opinion Another Man’s Opinion Mrs. Chong Goes to Washington Voter ID Laws Do More Harm Than Anything Follow Us on Twitter @heraldpub Like Us on Facebook By Gerry Chong My mother was a warm and loving mom, but she was a banker who could run numbers in her head and tell you where every dime of her household budget went, and she would not suffer fools. If she had read that government had reached two awful milestones, she would have had a seizure. The headlines said that the Federal government had reaped an all-time high of $3 trillion in tax revenue this year, but our spending was so out of control that our debt had also crossed a new threshold, topping $18 trillion! $18 TRILLION! Once she settled down, she would have concluded that if Democrats win the Senate on November 4th, this nonsense of record tax collection and exploding debt will continue. The only hope would be for Republicans to win and send her to Washington to fi x the problem. Her fi rst step would be to freeze spending: program by program, department by department, freeze it all. Second, she would have Congress form a bipartisan joint committee, similar to a military base closure committee, to go through the budget, line by line, and identify every program whose cost exceeds its benefi ts. The Congress as a whole would vote on the committee’s recommendations on an up-ordown basis without amendments or debate. Third, she would consolidate duplicated programs in areas such as poverty and education, passing the budgeted sums to the individual states to use as their local communities require and eliminating the Federal staffi ng attendant to each program. By Cristian Vasquez The issue of voter ID laws has fl oated in the news for years now and much of the rhetoric behind justifying such legislation sounds good but in reality is bad. To date I have not seen one clear-cut example of a state that has such rampant voter fraud that voter that a new voter identifi cation law was needed to maintain the integrity of our democratic process, from the voters’ side. However, I keep reading articles about Americans in different states that have been denied the right to vote because of new voter ID laws, even though they are law-abiding citizens who have been going to the polls for years. The most recent article I came across is from a man named Eric Kennie. Kennie is from Austin, Texas and in his 45 years on this earth he ha never lived outside of Austin. Actually, theguardian.com reports that Kennie has never travelled outside of the state, nor has he ever left his native city. Kennie has been an active voter in Texas since he turned 18 but because of the new voter ID law approved by the state’s Republican leadership he and an estimated 600,000 legally registered voters will be unable to vote. Under the new law a voter must meet certain photo identifi cation requirements and it has been determined that Kennie fails to do so. I won’t argue against requiring people to provide a legitimate identifi cation card prior to voting. However, if people like Kennie have been voting for years, why are their former forms of identifi cation no longer acceptable? This new law is so absurd that Kennie’s voter registration certifi cate, which was a valid document to vote, is now considered insuffi cient in Texas to cast a ballot. Furthermore, such laws make it diffi cult for young people to vote because students usually don’t have state issued identifi cation cards. In order to obtain an ID, one needs a birth certifi cate but to obtain said document, the petitioner needs a state-issued ID. Seems like a convenient way to keep people from voting. Every article I read, from several sources, indicates the same thing: law-abiding citizens lose their right to vote with these new laws for no legal reason. Affected by such requirements are usually people who are already disenfranchised: the poor and minorities. Our country already has embarrassingly low voter turn out and with voter ID laws, the ability to vote becomes restricted and will only cause less people to try and become part of the voting process. There is nothing wrong with setting new standards but to deny a people like Kennie the right to vote without any wrong doing on his behalf is wrong. For anyone who argues that people like Kennie should just abide by the new regulations, you’re missing the point. People like Kennie have done nothing wrong to lose the right to vote, so they should not have fi x or modify their behavior because some state legislators found a way to eliminate potential against votes. If Texas is so worried about the two registered cases of voter fraud in 20 million votes cast during the past two years, there are better solutions than disenfranchising 600,000 people. • Fourth, she would require that, where appropriate, government programs would be evaluated to see if private sector bidding would be more cost effective than performance by the bureaucracy. As a corollary, every private sector contract must be bonded and competitively bid with specifi c quality, schedules and fi xed cost. Any contractor who breaches more than one contract would be barred from bidding on future government contracts. Fifth, remove every department’s procurement authority in order to mitigate the infl uence of lobbyists and other special interests, leaving Purchasing in the hands of professionals. Sixth, the Offi ce of Management and Budget should have one function only: to monitor all Federal contracts, with full audit authority. Seventh, all programs should have a defined sunset provision. Any extension should be treated as a new bill, requiring renewed Congressional debate and Presidential approval. Eighth, the President should have a lineitem veto, but should not have the authority to add funding to any bill. Mom was also a realist who would not touch the issues of a Balanced Budget Amendment or income tax reform because those are political quagmires that would suck the wind out of all reform proposals, and result in continued political paralysis. Like Mr. Smith who went to Washington, there’s an army of smart and principled Moms armed with brooms who have better ideas than politicians. So ink up like a sailor with a heart and Mom tattoo on your shoulder and fl ash it on Election Day. • SBCCOG from front page periods. This year’s theme is “A View From the Front Porch: Neighborhoods in the South Bay.” Individual Council members from each participating city serve as delegates (with alternates also appointed) who attend SBCCOG meetings. The list includes El Segundo Mayor Suzanne Fuentes, Hawthorne Mayor Pro Tem Olivia Valentine, Inglewood Councilmember Ralph Franklin, Lawndale Mayor Pro Tem James Osborne, and Torrance Councilmember Kurt Weiderman. SBCCOG board meetings take place the fourth Thursday of each month (dark during February and November) at the South Bay Environmental Services Center at 20285 Western Avenue in Torrance and are open to the public. •
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