The act could affect whether married women without passports are able to register to vote.
Summary
The SAVE Act, reintroduced by Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, relying on documents like birth certificates and passports.
Critics argue it could disenfranchise millions, particularly married women whose names no longer match their birth certificates. The bill does not recognize marriage certificates as valid proof of identity.
Supporters say it protects election integrity, while opponents highlight the minimal occurrence of noncitizen voting.
With Republican control of Congress and the White House, the bill is likely to pass.
A confrontation is coming, but the problem is it isn't just one person but an entire party in power. If it's as bad I think it will be—and we make it out of this as a single country—we're going to need de-Nazification laws, but with the Republican party. "De-Republicanification"...
So if this passes then the next bill will be to force all women that marry to change their last name to reflect their husbands last name. This, of course will be part of a larger bill to outlaw gay marriage.
And then when women decide to protest this by not getting married there will be an economic bill that will be passed that states unmarried women will be taxed at a higher rate - and they will use the excuse that we need to shore up the "traditional family" to fight against all this "God-less liberal brainwashing".
And then when women decide to protest this by not getting married there will be an economic bill that will be passed that states unmarried women will be taxed at a higher rate - and they will use the excuse that we need to shore up the “traditional family” to fight against all this “God-less liberal brainwashing”.
Historically, when countries do this kind of thing it's more often targeted at unmarried men. The English have done it, the Ottomans did, even ancient Rome did at one point (though Rome taxed both men and women for being celibate or childless, but men were subject to the tax for a wider span of ages). A bunch more places around the world have at various times either tax unmarried and/or childless men or flirted with the idea - it's a shockingly long list. Most of them didn't do the same to unmarried women, or if they did the tax applied to women for fewer years or was higher for men. Most of those have been dead for decades at this point, in large part because they're not effective at getting people to breed.
In the US, Missouri briefly taxed unmarried men, before replacing it with a poll tax the next year. Montana did as well, though it got struck down by their courts (not because of gender inequality but because of phrasing in the state constitution that was interpreted to prohibit that kind of tax). New York, Connecticut, Wyoming, New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, Minnesota, and California all flirted with the idea of taxing bachelors but never passed it. Michigan proposed a bachelor tax 9 different times but never managed to pass it.
I don't know of any cases where unmarried or childless women were subject to a punitive tax but unmarried or childless men weren't (or even cases where it was seriously proposed), barring a few cases where the age ranges were different, typically with the tax applying to women starting at an earlier starting age but for men to a later final age (for example women 20-50 vs men 25-60 by the Romans, or women 20-45 vs men 25-50 by the Soviets). I'd be curious when, how often or to what extent that has ever happened.
Thanks for that write up. I had no clue that these taxes existed. Was the purpose of taxing unmarried men more due to the fact that historically men were the ones earning a living while women were more unpaid labor (house wives)? Or was it that women historically haven't had much of a say in who they will marry?
Not changing your last name when getting married can be annoying too (ie. USPS forwarding mail to new address for people with the same surname as you, and the spouse with a different name has to file more paperwork to get their mail forwarded). There are a lot of things predicated on same surname in the US. It sucks.
People can't change their last name when getting married here (they need to go through the whole process like anyone else wanting to change their name if they want to do it) and it's such a non issue. Your ID has your address, show your ID proving you live at the same address and they hand you the package.
It's just a bunch of problems the US created for itself by not having any actual ID.
I'm surprised at how controversial this is (here). My partner is not my property. I don't need to slap my name over theirs like some body of water, to make myself feel strong, masculine and secure.
If that's how you view it, then sure? But my wife was excited to take my last name. I actively told her that she could keep her name and that the change doesn't matter to me in the slightest but she still ended up taking my name. I don't think anyone is strong arming their spouse into a decision like that.
When my wife and I were married, we wanted to create a brand new last name that both of us changed to. The legal requirements to make that happen were just crazy.
You can, at least in my state. Most people just change their last name. It’s not limited to gender, either. I could have changed my name to Hahaha FuckYou. My wife insisted I didn’t.
This would also disenfranchise basically every trans person in the country, which isn't a bug, it's a feature. Last I heard, trans people were having trouble getting any passport under the new administration.
It's actually worse than the 3/5 as I understand, since that was about slaveholder states getting 3/5 of their slave population count towards the census.
Disenfranchised women will count towards the census completely.
If my voting rights were stripped by this law, I would know what to do, and who to do it to. I wouldn't become a secondary citizen (at best), or nothing but a (wage/birthing) slave.
As a Mother I AGREE with all this! Why should me AND MY DAUGHTERS get a say in our Healthcare, Economy, National Security, or Opportunities? And WHY don't my Adult Kids TALK to me anymore? It's JOE BIDENS FAULT!
I'm totally fine with my family having a random composition of names. It would be awesome to come up with a new last name for the kids for example. If we need me, just let me know...
I sure hope Obama does a good job explaining the "unintended" consequences of this so the Republicans who vote for it won't blame him for letting them pass it.