Brown mounting effort against voter purges
WASHINGTON — Sen. Sher- rod Brown reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court decision last week supporting the Ohio secretary of state’s policy of purging inactive voters from the rolls with a bill aimed at stopping the practice.
Brown, D-Ohio, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., announced they are intro- ducing a bill to amend the National Voter Registration Act to clarify that a state may not use someone’s failure to vote or respond to a state notice as a reason to remove them from active voter rolls.
The bill is a direct reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute case, in which the high court ruled states may remove registered voters from rolls if they do not vote in multiple federal elections or if they don’t return a mailed address con- firmation form.
Brown is a former Ohio secretary of state, while Klo- buchar is the top Democrat on the Senate Rules Committee, which has oversight jurisdiction over federal elections.
“This bill will restore the rights of voters and uphold the integrity of our election process,” Brown said in a statement, adding, “We need to make it easier, not harder, for Ohioans to vote and make their voices heard.”
Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted, the lieu- tenant governor running mate to Attorney General Mike DeWine, announced shortly after the court decision that no voters will be purged prior to the Nov. 6 statewide election.
Ryan on immigration: ‘This is a joke’
President Donald Trump heard sharp criticism from lawmakers over his decision to separate children from immigrants as they crossed the border, but none seemed as pointed as a speech by Youngstown-area Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Niles.
In brief remarks on the House floor Wednesday before Trump issued an executive order scrapping the controversial policy, Ryan assailed Trump, saying “the most powerful country in the world has resorted to this nonsense.”
“This is a joke,” Ryan said. “And it’s by choice. This is a choice that the most powerful men, in the most powerful country, are choosing to take poor kids away from their parents,” before calling on Trump to “act imme- diately and stop the Amer- ican carnage.”
Ryan, emerging as a leader of House moderate Demo- crats, spoke in emotional terms about “how heartbreaking it is” when he and his wife travel and leave their 4-year-old with grandpar- ents. “Then I think about how in the most powerful country in the world, our governmental policy is to strip kids — babies, toddlers, infants – from their parents,” Ryan said.
Hagin leaving White House
Joe Hagin, a longtime friend of Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio and who served under four Republican presidents, is leaving his post as White House deputy chief of staff to enter the private sector.
Hagin, 62, who had pledged to work at the White House for one year, eventually stayed for 18 months before announcing Tuesday he would leave. Hagin supervised the planning and logistics for Trump’s meeting this month in Singapore with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un.
“Hagin has been a huge asset to my administration,” Trump said. “He planned and executed the longest and one of the most historic foreign trips ever made by a president, and he did it all per- fectly . ... We will miss him in the office and even more on the road. I am thankful for his remarkable service to our great country.”
Hagin and Portman have been friends since growing up together in Cincinnati. Hagin attended Cincinnati Country Day School and Kenyon College.
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