Voter ID proposal by Pa. GOP lawmakers is an insidious way to dilute Black political power

Even after winning a slim majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Democrats could be on the verge of a significant electoral defeat later this year that could make it harder for the most vulnerable among us to vote.

In the November election, Democrats won more seats than Republicans in the state House for the first time in a dozen years. But two of those victorious Democrats — incumbents Austin Davis and Summer Lee, both of Allegheny County — also successfully ran for other offices (Davis for lieutenant governor and Lee for Congress) and resigned from the House last month to take their new posts. Another Democratic incumbent, State Rep. Tony DeLuca, also of Allegheny County, won reelection even though he died in October (state law prevented him from being removed from the ballot). That left Republicans with a slim, albeit temporary majority — and the GOP used it for all it was worth.

Republican lawmakers cut a deal with Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat with a singular focus on creating a constitutional amendment to help adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Rozzi, who has said he suffered such abuse as a child, was nominated by the GOP as speaker of the House, and Democrats went along with it. Now, with Rozzi in place and willing to play ball to get his own legislation passed, Republicans have introduced a constitutional amendment of their own. They want a referendum on voter ID, and if they get it, Democrats may never win a majority in the state legislature again.

That’s because voter ID — a rule that would require Pennsylvanians to show identification every time they vote — is a particularly insidious form of voter suppression. It is designed to make the electorate whiter, richer, and older. Such people are more likely to have identification, and they are also more likely to vote Republican. But make no mistake — voter ID is more than a political tool; it is an inherently racist tactic used to reduce the number of Black voters.

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The American Civil Liberties Union says up to 25% of voting-age Black Americans lack government-issued identification cards, compared with just 8% of their white counterparts. Proponents will argue that requiring voter ID in the face of such racial disparity is about maintaining the integrity of elections. After two years of Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud, such reasoning will attract millions of Pennsylvania voters. Need proof? Look no further than Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, who parroted Trump’s prevarication and got more than 2.2 million votes.

Therefore, if Republicans can successfully get voter ID on the ballot, the Trump-Mastriano demographic will support it, and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro can’t stop it with a veto, because Pennsylvania governors can’t block ballot questions on constitutional amendments.

The implementation of voter ID would siphon away Black political power, and that is the point. Denying the basic rights of Black people is a time-honored tradition in America, and there is seemingly always someone willing to help. In this case, it’s newly elected state House Speaker Mark Rozzi, who wants a constitutional amendment to help adult victims of child sexual abuse and is apparently willing to help push voter ID to get it.

Though the consequences aren’t as pernicious or far-reaching, this deal reminds me of the Compromise of 1877, in which Democrats vowed to withdraw their objections to the disputed results of the 1876 presidential election if Republicans promised to remove federal troops from the South. The agreement sent Rutherford B. Hayes to the White House and effectively ended Reconstruction. In the years that followed, Southern whites began a reign of terror against emancipated African Americans. Is Rozzi, like Hayes, poised to sacrifice Black American progress on the altar of political power? If so, everyone who believes in democracy in the commonwealth must fight back.

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Pennsylvanians beat back voter ID in 2012, when 93-year-old Viviette Applewhite, a Black woman from the South who did not have a legally acceptable birth certificate, was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court in which a judge ruled that a GOP-crafted version of the law was unconstitutional.

In North Carolina, the state Supreme Court saw the state’s voter ID law for what it was, and in December, deemed it unconstitutional.

“We hold that the three-judge panel’s findings of fact are supported by competent evidence showing that the statute was motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose,” said the 89-page ruling, penned by Associate Justice Anita Earls, as reported by the Washington Post. “The provisions enacted … were formulated with an impermissible intent to discriminate against African American voters in violation of the North Carolina Constitution.”

In Pennsylvania, we must also look beyond the GOP’s surface explanations and see voter ID for what it is. Only then can we move forward in the spirit of democracy, where everyone has an equal opportunity to cast a ballot.