A plea for consistency

Last week, the House endorsed Rep. Jim Guest's "crusade" against Real ID-compliant drivers licenses. The debate on the bill was frustrating, infuriating, hilarious and irrational -- all at the same time. And while Republicans fought amongst themselves about the sensibility of legislating against conspiracy theories, they simultaneously undermined one of their key arguments for this week's expected battle on Photo ID legislation.

Lost in the hyperbole and conspiracy theories on Real ID was one point of agreement from all sides: that it is very difficult for some Missourians -- and a hassle for many more  -- to obtain the key documents needed for a driver's license or photo id. Guest described the process for obtaining a driver's license as "very difficult" in a debate with Rep. Mike Talboy (D-Kansas City), and Rep. Ryan Silvey (R-Kansas City) challenged Guest (a fellow Republican) at length about the bureaucratic hassles of obtaining identification.

Here's a snippet of Silvey's inquiry of Guest:

The debate between Guest and Silvey was simultaneously hilarious and infuriating hear -- Guest refused to engage Silvey's questions in any substantive way, played dumb, and the two argued in circles for about 15 minutes. Silvey wanted to know why Guest was so comfortable with new hassles being mandated for his constituents, and Guest -- concerned about the difficulties of navigating government bureaucracies just moments before -- pretended that those new hoops were nothing to worry about.

Asking for intellectual consistency from the House is a waste of time, I'm sure.  This week, we'll be back to hearing about what a breeze it is for folks to get driver's licenses -- and how there's no real cost in time or effort for the new, unnecessary requirements Republicans hope to erect to limit voting for the elderly, disabled, minorities, etc. I hope I'm wrong, and hope that Silvey, Guest and like-minded Republicans fight back against their party's efforts to skew the electorate as hard as they fought government bureaucracy last week.

I guess we'll see.