Big Pharma Is Teaming Up With MAGA Groups to Restrict Voting [Rolling Stone]

“MAGA Republicans and corporate special interests are doing what they do best: lie and undermine the freedom to vote,” said End Citizens United // Let America Vote President Tiffany Muller. “After the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats beat Big Pharma to finally allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices, Big Pharma lobbyists teamed up with MAGA operatives to push lies and conspiracies to undermine voting rights in an attempt to boost corporate profits. It’s clear that the far-right and their corporate benefactors don’t respect the truth, nor voters, as long as they can justify their relentless attacks on our democracy.”

Rolling Stone: Big Pharma Is Teaming Up With MAGA Groups to Restrict Voting

Brendan Fischer and Victoria Cadostin
08/14/24

Key sections: 

• Washington’s top pharmaceutical lobby oversaw the adoption of model legislation that would restrict voting access at the most recent meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
• ALEC is an influential organization that brings together state legislators, private-sector corporations, and right-wing advocacy organizations to develop priorities and adopt model legislation for introduction in statehouses around the country.
• In this case, the model legislation capitalizes on MAGA-driven conspiracies around noncitizen voting and would make it easier for election officials to purge voters. The “Only Citizens Vote” model legislation directs state election officials to remove suspected noncitizens from voter rolls, offering vague direction that risks seriously restricting voting access for eligible voters. The Election Integrity Network, led by Cleta Mitchell, helped draft and promote the model legislation.
• The Election Integrity Network-backed “Only Citizens Vote” model policy was adopted unanimously by ALEC’s Federalism and International Relations task force. The task force is co-chaired by Douglas Petersen, a vice-president at Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA — one of Washington’s most powerful lobbying groups, with $568 million in revenue in 2022. 
• On July 26, the task force’s public and private sector members unanimously voted to adopt the “Only Citizens Vote” model bill, including Cleta Mitchell herself, who is a new member of the task force as of December 2023.
• An executive at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s top business lobby, previously served as the task force’s private chair — a position now held by Petersen.
• Last month, the ALEC task force also voted unanimously to adopt a resolution supporting state constitutional amendments to ban local governments from allowing noncitizens to vote in school board or other municipal elections. The model bills will next go to ALEC’s board of directors for final adoption. Notably, the pharmaceutical industry relies heavily on immigrant labor for its U.S. workforce.
• Conspiracy theories about noncitizens casting ballots in U.S. elections have become a centerpiece of MAGA messaging in advance of the 2024 election. It is a manufactured threat: There is no evidence of noncitizens voting in significant numbers. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has offered little more than “intuition” to support the claim that immigrants are casting ballots.
• Still, noncitizen voting conspiracies have been mainstreamed by influential Republican politicians, amplified by billionaires like Elon Musk, and promoted by a network of election conspiracy theorists.  
•  Those baseless conspiracy theories were on full display at the ALEC meeting. At the panel moderated by Mitchell, former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cucinnelli claimed without evidence that legal loopholes “are trying to be exploited on the left to move large numbers of noncitizens onto the voter rolls.” Cuccinelli is now with the Election Transparency Initiative, a joint project of the anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America and American Principles Project. Both are funded by dark-money groups with ties to far-right billionaire Dick Uihlein and Leonard Leo, the highly influential architect of modern conservatism who helped orchestrate the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
• Another panelist, Chris Chmielenski of the Immigration Accountability Project, made the incredible assertion that “illegal aliens […] have already violated U.S. immigration law. So why not violate our voting laws as well?”
• The Immigration Accountability Project has been working closely with Mitchell, Cuccinelli, and other right-wing organizations as part of the “Only Citizens Vote Coalition,” which has been amplifying noncitizen voting conspiracy theories, organizing grassroots activists, and supporting federal and state legislation.
• Chmielenski also sought to use conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting to advance longstanding — and often cruel — policy goals. Like Chmielenski, Cleta Mitchell sought to use noncitizen voting conspiracy theories to advance unrelated policy goals. In addition to using the pretext of noncitizen voting to bar U.S. citizen students from using their college IDs to cast ballots, Mitchell argued that state legislators should make it harder for all citizens to register to vote.
• The ALEC “Only Citizens Vote” model policy also has repercussions for American citizens. The bill directs state election officials to cross-reference voter rolls against other state and federal data sources, and to remove voters who don’t respond to a demand that they provide proof of citizenship. 
• Documentary proof of citizenship is a key element of the SAVE Act, a federal bill introduced by Speaker Johnson that Mitchell, along with other members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, helped draft. The bill, which has been backed by Trump, is an ode to the racist Great Replacement Theory, or the idea that Democrats are encouraging immigrants to come to the U.S. to add new voters of color who will erode the influence of white Americans.
• However, much like the SAVE Act, the Only Citizens Vote model policy presents several serious issues: Firstly, roughly 1 in 10 American citizens don’t have ready access to documents that can prove citizenship, like a birth certificate or passport, and would face substantial hurdles in gaining access to the ballot box under these proposals.

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