Republicans Push Voter ID by Comparing It to Olive Garden’s “Pasta Pass”

In a press conference this week, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana) pushed for voter ID laws, citing the fact that private industries sometimes require identification — including the Olive Garden.

“Show a picture to vote — not a complicated subject,” Scalise said, adding, “Nowadays, if you want to go to Olive Garden to get unlimited pasta, you gotta show a picture ID.”

Scalise made the same argument in an interview appearance on CNBC.

“For God’s sake, you can’t go get pasta at Olive Garden without a picture ID. Why not be able to show a picture ID to vote?” Scalise complained on Tuesday.

To be sure, Olive Garden is not requiring a photo ID to enter the restaurant or to eat from its menu. Instead, Scalise (and other Republicans who have made the same comparison) are referring to a “Never-Ending Pasta Pass” that the popular Italian dining chain is offering, which gives customers 13 weeks of unlimited items after a $100 payment. In addition to the pass, each time a customer wants to redeem the deal, they must show an ID with a matching name. Only 10,000 passes are being sold.

While the comparison between voter ID laws and the pasta pass is an easy analogy for Republicans to make, the argument does have holes. For example, Olive Garden doesn’t enforce its policy beyond an ID — a person with a stolen pass and a fake identification card could, theoretically, take part in the promotion, whereas a person attempting to do the same in an election would likely be caught by underlying voter protections. The punishment for trying to undermine the “Pasta Pass” deal would also likely be a confiscation of the pass and a refusal to serve the customer; meanwhile, the punishments for attempting to illegally cast a ballot are much more severe, including heavy fines and prison sentences.

Republicans like Scalise are pushing the analogy in order to demonstrate a need to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require voter ID in all states across the country. Such laws are incredibly burdensome to many marginalized groups of people and act as a form of voter suppression, voting rights organizations have pointed out.

The SAVE America Act would impose even more burdens, including requiring proof of citizenship (e.g., a passport or birth certificate) for anyone attempting to register to vote. Such requirements could negatively impact many groups of people, including:

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• Black seniors, many of whom were never even issued birth certificates when they were born;
• married women who have changed their last names and therefore must provide an abundance of evidence to get documents in order to register to vote;
• transgender voters, whose names similarly don’t match their birth records, or anyone else who has changed their name, for that matter;
• And anyone else who may have lost or misplaced their birth certificate, who would need to go through a difficult process of obtaining other records to get one.

All of those groups of people, and others, would endure a financial cost to obtain their necessary records. Individuals with transportation hardships would be similarly burdened.

It’s estimated that, should the SAVE America Act be passed, tens of millions of otherwise eligible voters would be blocked from taking part in future elections.

Democrats have denounced Republicans for comparing the democratic right of voting to the Olive Garden special.

“Voting is a constitutional right. It is not a lunch special,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Massachusetts). “You have a constitutional right to vote; you don’t have a constitutional right to a breadstick or a bowl of pasta.”

Despite a strong push for its passage by President Donald Trump, the SAVE America Act faces steep odds of becoming law this year. Still, House Republicans are reportedly coming up with ways to pass aspects of the bill — including sneaking parts of it into other legislation.

On Tuesday, Roll Call reported that “unrelated language” was added to a bipartisan bill aimed at banning congressional stock trading. That language would “require voters to produce photo ID at the polls,” the publication said.

“Republicans are trying to pull a trick this week,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) said in response to the action. “They say we are voting on an ‘insider trading’ bill, but have snuck in massive SAVE Act-style voter suppression measures to it.”

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Ocasio-Cortez added that she is “voting NO” on the bipartisan bill.