An Ashcroft Flies By

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Several years ago when the Trump family first slithered into the People's House, the new administration tried to establish a commission whose mission ostensibly was to study the issue of "voter fraud," a fantasy that Trump and others embraced to explain why Hillary Clinton had received in excess of three million more actual votes than he did.   Many people assumed that the real purpose of the commission would be to figure out ways to suppress the vote and, in particular, to keep minorities away from the ballot boxes.  

Trump called his commission the "Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity" and said it would be non-partisan, but the group was headed by two extreme partisans, Vice President Mike Pence and former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, both Republicans who each had a history of vote suppression efforts.  One of the first things the commission did was to request voter information from all fifty states, information that included full names of voters, a voting history for each voter, records of felony convictions, and the last four digits of each voter's social security numbers.

Voting is a state function and many states were reluctant to give the feds unlimited access to their voting records and information.  Even conservative states such as Mississippi balked at sharing  their information.  Kobach's own state of Kansas said that it would not provide the last four digits of their voters' social security numbers.  But, at the other end of the spectrum, three states - Colorado, Tennessee, and Missouri - saw fit to not only completely comply with the federal overreach, but to commend Trump's administration for the work it was doing with regard to elections.

I sent a letter to Missouri's Secretary of State, Jay Ashcroft, on July 1st of 2017, urging him not to comply with the mandates of the Trump's commission on voter fraud (in reality a commission to figure out ways to suppress votes), and I specifically asked that none of my personal voting information be shared with the federal commission.   Secretary Ashcroft sent a reply two weeks later that was essentially a rude form letter which did not respond to my points or what I had written - and basically just said that he was following state law, so there!

Trump's voter fraud commission turned out to be a big flop that could not garner much cooperation from the states, and the following year - 2018 - it was quietly disbanded.   

Since then I have not spent much time thinking about Missouri's less-than-stellar secretary of state, Jay Ashcroft - until yesterday, that is.  As I was driving home from Springfield, headed east on Highway 60 and doing close to the speed limit, a big-assed, fairly new Ford Expedition blew past me like a runaway train.  As the war wagon roared by I did not get a look at the driver, but I did catch a glimpse of an "Ashcroft" sticker in the center of the rear window, and then as the vehicle shot forward into my complete line of vision, I also noticed that it had a single-digit license plate, the number "8,"  which meant that it was one of Jay's personal vehicles.  Being anxious to get home myself, I pulled into the wake of the big car and flew along for several miles until I voluntarily left the high speed parade for a gas pitstop.

Ashcroft is a well known political name in Missouri.  Jay's father, John Ashcroft was our state's governor for two terms, and then was elected to the US Senate.  John Ashcroft became a political punchline in 2000 when he lost his bid for re-election to the Senate to a dead man by a margin of more that 50,000 votes.  (He was defeated by Missouri's Governor Mel Carnahan who had died two weeks before the election in a plane crash.)   John's political star was further tarnished the following year when, while serving as US Attorney General, the United States was attacked by a group of young Saudis who used US passenger airplanes to bring down the World Trade Center and partially destroyed the Pentagon.

The Ashcroft family may no longer own the Missouri Republican Party, but at least one member of the clan still drives like the roads belong to them!