The Kansas House on Thursday approved a bill requiring Kansas driver’s licenses to show citizenship status, a measure supporters said was a defense against voter fraud but opponents characterized as fueling an anti-immigrant atmosphere.
The House voted 77-41 to pass a bill sponsored by Republican state Rep. Pat Proctor of Leavenworth, House elections committee chair and a candidate for secretary of state.
Current Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab, who is running for governor, also supported the bill.
There about 2 million licensed drivers in Kansas.
The bill passed seven votes short of the 84 needed to override a veto. There were seven lawmakers absent and not voting, including two Democrats.
Under the bill, the citizenship designation would be added to driver’s licenses as they are renewed so it would not require everyone to get a new licenses immediately.
Anyone who displays a driver’s license showing they are a noncitizen at a polling place would be given a provisional ballot if they claim to be a citizen.
The secretary of state’s office has said that currently when someone gets a driver’s license, they must present documents showing they are a legal resident in Kansas.
If someone is not a citizen, he said, they must present documents showing they are lawfully living in the United States.
The bill comes at a time when Florida lawmakers are considering legislation that would require certain Florida driver licenses and state identification cards issued to non-U.S. citizens to be marked with the letters “NC,” short for noncitizen.
The designation would appear on the front of the card, alongside existing information such as a person’s name, address and date of birth.
“All this bill does is provide another way to make sure that noncitizens are not voting,” said Proctor, who last year led an effort in the House to pass a constitutional amendment to ensure that noncitizens are not allowed to vote.
Kansans will get to vote on that amendment this November.
Democrats came out in force against the measure, saying it would encourage racial profiling and cultivate an anti-immigrant culture in Kansas.
They said the bill was an “unnecessary solution to a nonexistent problem” given that there are rare examples of voter fraud in case.
Supporters of the bill have noted that prosecutors charged the mayor of the small town of Coldwater with election fraud, alleging that he voted illegally as a citizen of Mexico.
A second man, Jose Luis Gomez Sr. of Hutchinson, also has been charged with one count of voting without being qualified and two counts of election perjury.
The general counsel from the secretary of state’s office has said a third person may soon be charged, and 10 others are being “looked at closely.”
But opponents of the bill pointed out that in the legal battle over a state law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote in Kansas, a federal judge found scant evidence of noncitizens registering in Kansas.
“We love our immigrant communities,” said Democratic state Rep. Heather Meyer of Overland Park.
“We don’t want them to hide in the shadows due to the fear and the craziness that’s going on in the world, and this just piles on to that,” Meyer said.
“I would just implore you to vote against this, because we do not need to codify racial profiling,” she said.
Republican state Rep. Paul Waggoner of Hutchinson, vice chair of the House elections committee, said the idea that the bill was an attempt to profile people was “absurd.”
“This is a reasonable, this is a marginal improvement to the system. It’s well intentioned,” Waggoner said.
Democratic state Rep. Angela Martinez of Wichita didn’t see it that way. She described it as a form of “branding.”
“A driver’s license is meant to prove that a person can legally operate a vehicle and that you are who you say you are,” Martinez said.
“Printing citizenship status on a driver’s license does absolutely nothing to improve road safety,” she said.
“What it does do is create a visible marker that signals who belongs and who does not.
“That is not a road for this arm of government to travel,” Martinez said.
“Government should be focused on solving problems,” she said
“Government should not mark its residents in ways that invite discrimination, and I refuse to support legislation that turns a driver’s license into a tool of division.”
Proctor disputed critics’ claims that the bill wasn’t warranted and did little to improve election security.
“This is clearly a vulnerability in our election system,” he said. “There’s no way for the poll workers or the court to verify citizenship at the time of voting.
“The first principle of Homeland Security is you don’t wait until after the plane blows up to stop the bomb from getting on the plane,” said Proctor, a professor of homeland security at Wichita State.
“So, if we wait until there’s evidence of rampant (voter fraud) all the time happening, it’s too late. So, let’s just address the vulnerability before it’s exploited.”
Further, Proctor said he was bewildered by claims that the bill “codified” racial profiling.
“My understanding of profiling is law enforcement stopping somebody because of how they look,” he said.
“So, unless we amend this bill so that everybody has to put their driver’s license on their forehead, I am not sure how putting citizenship status on a driver’s license would aid profiling in any way.”
