Katy for Kansas
July 11, 2026 · Newsletter
Five-Alarm Fire
It started with Executive Order 14399 back in late March, which mandated that federal agencies compile and transmit "State Citizenship Lists" to local election officials and directed the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to restrict mail-in balloting strictly to voters who are pre-approved by the federal government. Thankfully, a U.S. federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked the order from taking effect, issuing a permanent injunction blocking the order’s key provisions and ruling that the U.S. Constitution is clear: states control elections, the President and the Postal Service do not.
Next came the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act (“the SAVE Act”), an attempt by this White House and complicit Republicans in Congress to solve a problem that doesn’t exist and disenfranchise tens of millions of women in the process. The SAVE Act purports to address the problem of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections. Here’s the thing: it is already illegal for non-citizens to vote in American elections, which is probably why so few even attempt it. Multiple studies and investigations have found verified cases of noncitizen voting to be exceedingly rare and statistically insignificant.
What Republicans aren’t so keen to talk about is the fact that enactment of the SAVE Act could disenfranchise an estimated 69 million women whose legal names do not match the name on their birth certificates. In order to vote, women who have taken their husband’s last name would need either a passport reflecting their current legal name or they would need to provide proof of their name change through official documents. So, let’s be clear, this has nothing to do with preventing noncitizens from voting and everything to do with disenfranchising millions of women.
Thankfully, enough members of Congress have refused to pass this bill that it has stalled in Congress, but that hasn’t stopped President Trump from using the bipartisan housing bill recently passed by Congress as leverage to try to pass the SAVE Act. Trump recently posted on social media “I will not sign the Housing Bill…in PROTEST over the fact that United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT…”. Make no mistake, he’s getting desperate about the midterms.
Finally, just today, Trump ousted the last remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, an independent, bipartisan commission whose mission is to help election officials improve the administration of elections and help Americans participate in the voting process. Coincidence? I think not. This is just the latest instance of this President trying to influence how U.S. elections are conducted.
Let’s not forget, this is the same President who orchestrated an attack on our own Capitol by spreading falsehoods about the 2020 election results. To be clear, Trump and his people were unsuccessful in the over 60 court cases they filed, challenging the election results. We have seen this movie before. If he cannot win, he will do whatever he can to cheat—the American voters be damned.
This is a five-alarm fire. Where is Congress? Where is Rep. Ron Estes? Why isn’t he checking this President’s power? Why isn’t he standing up for Kansans’ most fundamental democratic right—the right to vote?
Democracy doesn’t disappear all at once. It erodes when those entrusted to defend it choose silence instead. Stay vigilant, my friends. Our institutions are only as strong as the people willing to protect them.