Republicans Behaving . . . Reasonably?

Last week, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) stood up to his gerrymandered wingnut brethren in the state legislature and line-item vetoed their budget idea to refuse any new enrollees to Ohio's Medicaid program in 2018, and to forever reject Medicaid coverage for anyone who was previously covered by the program, dropped off due to improved circumstances, but now needs Medicaid again.  Such a policy would immediately cause 500,000 Ohioans to lose coverage, with more to follow over time.  Kasich said he believed it would be illegal, so he vetoed it.  Good boy, John Boy!  His fellow Republicans in the General Assembly are now contemplating the wisdom of trying to override his veto. News flash, R's -- it ain't wise.

Double dip

And then we have Trump's narcissistic Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, appointed to "prove" voter fraud and that the Dainty Don did not really lose the popular vote to Hillary because 3 to 5 million people voted for her illegally.  This "distinguished panel" is headed by Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State and candidate for Kansas governor.  Kobach is distinguished by his long history of racism and blatant voter suppression efforts.  Also on the panel is V.P. Mike Pence, who is distinguished by his own record of voter suppression attempts as Indiana's governor, and by his prudish worries about gay wedding cakes and eating dinner with non-spouse females.

The commission sent a letter to all 50 states, requesting detailed, privileged personal info from each state's list of registered voters.  The commission is an obvious fraud, a sham designed to do Kobach's favorite thing -- purge voter rolls.  Kobach has said all he wants is "whatever a person on the street can walk in and get.  That's what we'd like."  Well, then walk in and get it yourself, asshole!  In reality, he's asking for much more than that.

Husted

Hosemann

To their great credit, so far 44 state secretaries have told the distinguished Kobach to go piss up a rope.  They will give him absolutely nothing, or only ordinary public records.  It's a bipartisan flip-off, as many of these state officials are Republicans, including Ohio's John Husted (no friend of voters, but he did the right thing in this case), Mississippi's Delbert Hosemann (a vote suppressor in his own right who nonetheless told the commission to "go jump in the Gulf of Mexico"), and, ironically, even Kobach himself -- he's refusing his own request to divulge the Social Security numbers of Kansas voters.

These examples show that Republicans can behave reasonably and responsibly.  Sadly, they just don't do it often.