... the law bans transgender people from using bathrooms matching their gender identity in public buildings and creates a bathroom bounty hunter system allowing citizens to sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for at least $1,000 in damages, including potentially in private restrooms.But it also makes transgender Kansans' driver's licenses invalid -- immediately:
... transgender people across Kansas are reporting receiving letters from the Kansas Division of Vehicles stating that they must surrender their driver's licenses and that their current credentials will be considered invalid upon the law's publication in the Kansas Register on Thursday. Should any transgender person be caught driving without a valid license, they could face a class B misdemeanor carrying up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine....This law could have had a grace period -- "The bill takes effect immediately upon publication in the Kansas Register rather than the standard July 1 effective date," Reed writes -- but sadistic Kansas Republicans clearly didn't want that. Republicans hate their political and cultural enemies and believe they're evil and demonic. They like to demonstrate that by suddenly criminalizing lawful behavior on the part of the people they don't like, then making it difficult or impossible for these formerly law-abiding people to remain in compliance with the law.
The letter ... warns that upon the law's publication in the Kansas Register on Thursday, February 26, current credentials for affected individuals "will no longer be valid." The Legislature, the letter notes, "did not include a grace period for updating credentials," and anyone operating a vehicle without a valid credential "may be subject to additional penalties." Those whose gender marker does not match their sex assigned at birth are directed to surrender their current credential to the Division of Vehicles for reissuance.
What Republicans in Kansas did to trans drivers reminds me of the way the Trump administration has withdrawn Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of immigrants, who are then instantly recast as "illegal aliens" subject to arrest, incarceration, and deportation.
I also see this thinking in the SAVE America Act, which will disenfranchise legal voters who lack the correct documentation, and criminalizes what is now lawful behavior:
It establishes criminal penalties for officials who register an applicant who fails to present documentary proof of citizenship, even if that applicant is in fact a U.S. citizen. The bill also authorizes private individuals to sue election officials under the same circumstances.And, like the Kansas law, it's meant to be implemented suddenly:
Despite the administrative difficulty of implementation, the SAVE America Act prioritizes expediency over precision. The act becomes effective on the date of enactment, giving states no time to adjust processes.... Further, the SAVE America Act offers no funding to states to assist with implementation costs.They're trying to turn law-abiding voters and election officials into criminals.
I think we'll see something similar if, as I've long predicted, the Supreme Court sides with the Trump administration and ends birthright citizenship. If the Court rules that birth in the United States doesn't confer citizenship on certain categories of babies (e.g., those born to undocumented immigrants or asylum seekers), the ruling will come while Donald Trump is president and Stephen Miller is effectively prime minister -- do you think anything will prevent them from trying to apply it retroactively? If SCOTUS sides with Trump, I expect the regime to begin the denaturalizations swiftly -- maybe before the midterms. It will be chaos, but it will help Republicans at the polls and redefine a large class of people as less than American simply because of the circumstances of their birth in America. To GOP voters, this will reinforce the belief that these Americans are evil.
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