Burgess Owens Criticizes Opponent of Voter I.D. Laws: ‘Why Is Showing I.D. Voter Suppression?’

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) fired back at an opponent of voter I.D. laws Thursday and accused them of assuming because of his skin color he is unable to get an I.D.

“You know what’s racist? Assuming because I’m black that ‘I just don’t have the capability of getting an I-D.’ Disclaimer: We are capable of getting and I-D (and even using the internet!),” he tweeted in reply to the critic:

You know what's racist? Assuming because I'm black that "I just don't have the capability of getting an I-D."

Disclaimer: We are capable of getting and I-D (and even using the internet!) https://t.co/WpF2zQ4KYX

— Burgess Owens (@BurgessOwens) March 11, 2021

Prior to the post, Burgess wrote, “I use my I.D. to drive a car, to get a job, to board a plane, pick up prescriptions, and virtually everything else in life… So tell me again, why is showing an I.D. ‘voter suppression’?”:

I use my I.D. to drive a car, to get a job, to board a plane, pick up prescriptions, and virtually everything else in life…

So tell me again, why is showing an I.D. "voter suppression"?

— Burgess Owens (@BurgessOwens) March 11, 2021

Owens declared his opposition to H.R.1, also known as the “For the People Act,” in a press release March 3:

H.R.1 has nothing to do with the people and nothing at all to do with fortifying our country’s election system. Taxpayer-funded political campaigns, nullified voter I.D. laws, and nationalized elections are not a successful recipe for restoring faith in our democracy or protecting the voice of American voters. Not to mention, the proposed changes would drastically re-engineer our federal form of government by centralizing power in Washington. Our elections should be free and fair, not a bureaucratized power grab that benefits only the Democratic majroity.

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita told Breitbart News if H.R.1 is enacted into law, it will prohibit voter ID laws nationwide and automatically send ballots to people on poorly maintained voter rolls.

“H.R. 1 makes photo ID illegal in the United States. Meanwhile, it mails out live ballots to everyone on the voting list — alive or dead — and it makes it much more difficult for states to take dead people off the voting rolls, to take people who moved away off of voting rolls,” Rokita said during an interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

“If the people don’t think and don’t have reasonable confidence backed by facts and observation that they still are in power — that they have the power through the electoral process to put in place who they want — then this country is lost,” he concluded.