Fair and free elections are essential for a functioning democracy.
House Study Bill 697, a bill regarding Iowa voting law, survived the legislature’s Feb. 15 funnel deadline with partisan Republican support. This bill allows people with felonies to run for federal office, further restricts absentee voting, and bans ballot drop boxes and ranked-choice voting.
Making voting more difficult to “prevent election fraud” has been an increasingly frequent strategy by Republican-led legislatures. However, this bill is peculiar because of its so-called “Trump clause,” which ensures that former President Donald Trump will remain on ballots in Iowa this November.
HSB 697 represents an abuse of power by a Republican-led state congress to protect their favored presidential candidate and, in combination with citizen disenfranchisement, demonstrates immense hypocrisy that brings into question their moral commitment to a functioning democracy.
I fundamentally agree with granting people with felonies the right to vote and run for office, especially in the context of the disproportionate mass incarceration of minorities in the U.S. Enfranchisement of ex-convicts is an essential goal of a good-faith approach to transformative justice and the meaningful re-integration of people with criminal histories into society. Even Gov. Kim Reynolds agrees, as evidenced by her 2020 executive order which restored voting rights to people with felonies who had completed their sentence.
Therefore, I believe the outcome of Trump’s current legal proceedings should not disqualify him from being on the ballot.
Some may disagree with me based on Trump’s alleged involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the related federal election interference charge and argue that the 14th Amendment should block him from holding public office.
While this attack was a stain on our nation, obviously motivated by support for Trump, to invoke the 14th Amendment and block him from holding office will lead to further reactionary conspiracy and political extremism. Democratic defeat is the only healthy way to move past the Trump era.
If the motivation behind HSB 697 is truly a good-faith attempt to ensure that “individual states don’t get to play left or right-wing politics with the ballot access,” as Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, said, then every possible nonpartisan effort should be made to protect every citizen’s right to vote as well. The legislature should not pass nitpicky voting restrictions that decrease turnout and remove voting convenience infrastructure that has never been legitimately linked to voter fraud.
Easy ways to protect every citizen’s right to vote would be automatic voter registration, automatic absentee voting application distribution, expansion of the use of 24/7 monitored ballot drop boxes and of the absentee voter period.
It just so happens that these three common-sense pro-voting access amendments to HSB 697 were proposed by the Democrats on the subcommittee and rejected by the Republicans, including Kaufmann.
Unfortunately, automatic absentee ballot applications were banned following record turnout with the program in 2020. The absentee voting period was shortened from 40 to 29 days in 2017 and 29 to 20 in 2022. Clearly, Republicans don’t want all Iowans to vote.
Codifying the right of people with felony convictions to vote and be elected to office is good for our democracy. But HSB 697 as written is a hypocritical, anti-democratic, partisan power grab that should not be signed into law.
Columns reflect the opinions of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Editorial Board, The Daily Iowan, or other organizations in which the author may be involved.