Pirate's Cove

Is it any wonder Ted Cruz is so darned popular with Conservatives? He stands up for, in this case, law and order (via Phineas on Twitter (make sure you follow him)

(Daily Caller) Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will propose an amendment to the comprehensive immigration reform bill that would allow states to require ID before registering voters, after a Supreme Court announced a decision Monday striking down an Arizona law that required that people show proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

“I’ll file amendment to immigration bill that permits states to require ID before registering voters & close this hole in fed statutory law,” Cruz tweeted Monday afternoon.

This goes back to the SCOTUS decision Monday which knocked down the Arizona proof of citizenship to vote law (which also somewhat empowered States to go hat in hand to petition the DOJ to allow certain measure or ask for a court ruling if the DOJ refuses to cooperate).

According to Cruz’s twitter feed, he has filed that amendment along with David Vitter to the immigration bill

“The right to vote is a fundamental building block of our nation’s democratic process and it is crucial that we have the measures in place to uphold the integrity of our elections,” said Sen. Cruz. “This amendment ensures that states can enforce the commonsense requirement that those registered to vote must actually be U.S. citizens.”

The Cruz-Vitter amendment states: “Nothing in subsection (a) [42 U.S.C. §1973gg-4(a)] shall be construed to preempt any State law requiring evidence of citizenship in order to complete any requirement to register to vote in elections for Federal office.” This measure simply amends an existing federal statute; it does not require states to adopt certain voting requirements, respecting the interests of federalism.

We can expect that this amendment will be shot down by the Democrats, along with some of the pro-illegal Republicans, in the Senate. Provided that Harry Reid (D) even allows a vote on it.

However, this still won’t fully solve the issue of people who are not US citizens registering after they are legalized. Many states already allow illegal aliens and non-citizens with visas to obtain state drivers licenses. North Carolina was smart, making sure that their DLs for illegals say “legal status no lawful status”, but, we can certainly expect the far left voter registration groups to simply ignore the status in attempting to create more Democrat voters. ID to register and vote will certainly help, but this breaks down when the human element gets involved. But, the Cruz-Vitter amendment will help.