No Representation? No Taxation!

We don’t know yet whether the Pennsylvania Voter ID law will survive its journey through the commonwealth and then the federal courts. But it is pretty clear to all that the Republicans passed this law to solve no problem other than the fact that more Democrats than Republicans would otherwise vote in the upcoming presidential election.

Governor Corbett, who signed this bill into law, used to be Pennsylvania’s Attorney General. While serving in that office exactly zero cases of voter fraud came to him.

There is no more sacred ritual in a democracy than casting one’s vote. It is an act so embedded in our history and culture that we have been unwilling to consider any change in the act—no matter how much more efficient or easy such changes would make our elections. To vote, one must go to a poll and physically enter one’s choices. You can’t choose to vote through your phone. You can’t vote via an ATM type machine that would give a paper record to enhance a recount if necessary. You can’t send in your vote via email.

Why is this ritual act—of voting in person at our specifically assigned polling place—so fundamental a part of being an American citizen? And what qualifies a person to be able to vote?

It is not the possession of a photo ID. It is not the quality of being an educated citizen. It is not the reward for making oneself well-informed about the issues. It is not about passing a literacy test or about speaking English. It is not even about being an upstanding citizen—without a criminal record (although many would deny felons the right to vote after they have completed their prison sentence).

The centrality of the vote in our country goes back to the Boston Tea Party—an act of defiance against the British government that imposed a tax on tea in the Colonies despite the fact that Americans had no vote or representatives in the British Parliament. It was in this fundamental act of American rebellion that we created a direct connection between taxation and voting. You cannot impose a tax on a people that cannot vote. Or, to put it positively, only a government that allows its people to vote has the right to impose taxes on that people. The legitimate taxation function of government is a direct result of democratic elections.

And now the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania would deny that right to vote to anyone who does not have a picture ID.  This is a serious problem. But it invites a serious solution. Any citizen of Pennsylvania who is denied the right to vote should not be required to pay taxes. If the legislature wants all our taxes, it must allow all of us to vote.

Those who care about our democracy can go a step further. So long as the government of Pennsylvania denies the right to vote to some of its citizens, then all of its citizens should withhold their taxes in sympathy. Put them in escrow until the legislature returns the right to vote to all Pennsylvania’s citizens. That is a tea party that every Democrat and Republican of conscience should join.