I thought Democrats were really concerned about “voter suppression?”

I guess you can’t suppress people’s votes if you don’t give them the choice in the first place. Illinois is trying that out by passing a new law that forbids Trump from being on the 2020 ballot unless he releases five years of tax returns.

Illinois Senate passes bill that would keep Trump off 2020 ballot unless he releases tax returns https://t.co/ys8kFtWfnL pic.twitter.com/eXCfnvdxdt

— The Hill (@thehill) April 12, 2019

Lawmakers in Illinois have advanced legislation that would require President Trump to release five years of his tax returns in order to appear on the state’s 2020 presidential ballot.

The Illinois state Senate voted 36-19 on Thursday to pass the bill, which will now move to the state’s Democrat-controlled House, according to Chicago radio station WBEZ.

I can’t imagine why Illinois is such a dumpster fire of a state. I guess spending all your time on nonsense like this doesn’t leave much for actually doing positive things for your citizens.

“If you want to run for vice president or president of the United States, hey, what’s wrong with providing your tax returns for the past five years?” state Sen. Tony Munoz (D) reportedly said while legislators debated the bill.

“If you’ve got nothing to hide, you shouldn’t worry about anything,” he added.

Actually, I think the constitution might have something to say about that. Democrats arbitrarily deciding to place limits on who can run for President isn’t supposed to be a thing. The constitution is clear that the only limitations are being a natural born citizen and over 35. If Illinois is allowed to do this, what stops Texas from banning the Democrat over whatever random issue they care about?

The “if you’ve got nothing to hide” trope is such illiberal garbage. How about Trump send the FBI to that guy’s house. He’s got nothing to hide right? There’s also the question of whether Illinois could lose their electoral votes if found to be illegally interfering in a Federal election.

Try to imagine the outrage that would emanate if a Republican state had kept Hillary off the ballot in 2016. It would have been universally denounced, the top story on every network, and no one would deny it’s a terrible idea. But because we live under Trump rules now, literally anything goes as long as it is opposed to him.

These kinds of games should be denounced strongly. States do not have the right to disenfranchise voters by forcing major party candidates off the ballot. This will no doubt end up in court and it won’t stand, but the simple fact that Democrats are even trying something so ridiculous shows just how insane their party has gone.