







A bill that would require future candidates for President and Vice President to release their tax returns in order to appear on the New Jersey ballot took one big step towards becoming law last Thursday as it was passed by the NJ State Senate.





This blatantly partisan and vindictive attempt to deny voters the opportunity to cast their votes for the President in 2020 speaks to the hypocrisy of the Democrats and the modern Left.





A oft-repeated line from the Left is that suppression of Democrat voters is a common problem throughout the country, with Republican attempts at passing Voter ID laws - common throughout the world - in actuality veiled attempts at suppressing minority voters. In reality the argument that Voter ID laws suppress minority voters is incredibly offensive and demeaning to these Americans who would be just as capable of obtaining Voter ID documents as anyone else.





This video shows the justifiably disgusted reactions of black Americans who are presented with the argument that voter ID laws are racist because they would disproportionately affect minorities, as if they would be incapable of navigating a process established for obtaining Voter ID.





So while these Democrat arguments are extremely offensive, Democrats continue to make them. Isn’t it ironic then that in this context Democrats in New Jersey are attempting to pull off voter suppression of a scale far beyond anything they wrongly accuse Republicans of attempting, all because they hate the President?





While releasing tax returns has been common practice for Presidents in the recent past, there is nothing in the Constitution or in Federal law that declares such transparency is required. The idea that a political party occupying the seat of power in a State could arbitrarily banish candidates from the ballot - silencing voters who otherwise would have cast their votes for the banished candidate in the process - represents an incredibly dangerous precedent. Perhaps a future legislature would demand to see other documents, such as school transcripts, medical records, or birth certificates prior to including a candidate on the ballot. Imagine the outrage and outcry from the Left if a state tried to block then candidate Obama in 2008 from the ballot because he chose not to release his birth certificate.





Luckily New Jersey’s attempt at mass voter suppression will likely be struck down in the courts if it does end up being signed into law. Kermit Roosevelt, a constitutional law Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is quoted in this article as saying that the Supreme Court has previously ruled that States cannot impose arbitrary criteria “beyond what the US constitution allows” on those who seek federal office. Such actions by a State or States would violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution which establishes the supremacy of the Constitution over any State law.





Just remember that in spite of the Democrats’ hysterical cries of voter suppression, New Jersey Democrats - and Democrats across the country - are actively trying to silence every single person who would like to cast a vote for President Trump in 2020.