Comments by Wisconsin State Senator Jim Holperin during final debate on Assembly Bill 7 during the May 19, 2011 floor session. He discusses an amendment offered by the Democrats which would have exempted senior citizens from the bill. He also predicts the fractious effect the bill will have on small rural communities.
Thank you Mr. President.
Well, I dunno, we had a darn good amendment the other night exempting another category from the many categories that are exempted from the provisions of this bill: and that's Wisconsinites aged sixty-five and over who've lived in the same place for about four or five years or more. I thought that was a great amendment. Because older people are going to be very angry about this bill and so maybe in some sense I'm glad the amendment didn't pass. We'll find out in the coming elections just how angry people are who've lived in the same place and the same community for years, perhaps decades, being asked to identify who they are. And to have to be asked by people they've known for years, for decades.
I buy a lot of beer, Mr. President, at the grocery store. And there is a requirement by many of the grocery store chains in this state to show evidence of your age before you can purchase alcohol. And some of these grocery store chains have adopted this policy regardless of people's age because they want to treat everybody fairly; or at least at the start they wanted to treat everybody fairly. But they soon discovered that people aged my age, in their seventies and eighties really resent being asked for identification when it's quite obvious who they are and how old they are. And so now this practice has pretty much ended at the grocery stores where I shop and there's a little button on the cash register where the cashier simply presses it and it prints out like five-five, fifty-five. No matter how old you are. It puts an arbitrary age in there so that the cashier doesn't have to be confronted day after day with angry people, aged seventy, saying "you know how old the hell I am, look at me!" And so the grocery store chains have found a way to deal with this issue.
And I predict, Mr. President, that's what's going to happen in a lot of our rural communities. Oh, they'll ask for that photo ID the first time. And they'll make sure that the neighbor they've known for twenty years is forced to produce that photo ID the first time. But in subsequent elections, Ester's going to walk in, and those local clerks are going to be so tired of being the target of anger and resentment for being asked to present photo evidence from the neighbor who lives just down the street. Who's voted at that same venue for years and years and years and they'll simply waive it off and say "Ester, we know, here's your ballot."
And so we will by this legislation, and unwittingly and unwilling and through no fault of our own create yet another class of people—it'll be a different class in every community—but it'll be a class of people who are not asked to produce their photo ID. Who are simply waved through because the clerks know who they are and know that if they ask they're going to be the target of some resentment, and some resistance. And so I don't know why we just don't include that class of people among the many other classes that we have simply determined are not going to commit fraud in this state. We know those older people aged sixty-five and older who've lived at the same address; they're not going to commit fraud. So why don't we just exempt them now like we've exempted military electors, overseas electors, electors who've lost their driver's license, electors who live in a community-based residential facility or a nursing home or an adult family-assisted living care center and the people who object to having their picture taken... Gosh, we've got several categories of people we know are not going to commit fraud so we waive the provisions of this bill for them. Why can't we add people aged sixty-five and over: simply reduce the probability that we're going to have a lot of angry senior citizens in this state who've lived at the same residence for a long time. Why can't we do that? So I know we're beyond the amendable stage, Mr. President, but gosh, we had this opportunity to make this a better bill and we didn't do it and I'm sorry for that.
Senator Robert Jauch points out that over 175,000 Wisconsin senior citizens do not have a driver's license and may not have the ID necessary to vote under Assembly Bill 7. (link)
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