{"id":1341,"date":"2012-09-25T07:23:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T11:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/?p=1341"},"modified":"2012-09-25T07:23:59","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T11:23:59","slug":"are-you-a-united-states-citizen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/?p=1341","title":{"rendered":"Are You a United States Citizen?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/MLMG034.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1342\" title=\"Are You a United States Citizen?\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/MLMG034.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"388\" srcset=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/MLMG034.jpg 560w, http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/MLMG034-300x207.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 560px) 100vw, 560px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gdata.com\/?art=\/2012\/09\/MLMG034.jpg&amp;name=Are You a United States Citizen?...\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/auchtoon.2gtech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/buy.png\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Originally published in the <em>Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News<br \/>\n<\/em>September 23, 2012<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">When I was at the editorial cartoonist convention last week, one of the events was a reception at the US Capitol, specifically the House Committee on Agriculture\u2019s Hearing Room. I\u2019m not really sure what the exact connection to agriculture was, but it was a big room with comfy seats and a pleasant place for House Majority Whip Rep. Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Jim McGovern to talk with us. After the formal niceties, we were able to ask the congressmen a few questions. Rep. McCarthy had brought up immigration and voting rights, and things go very testy very quickly. Rep. McCarthy extolled the virtues of voter integrity; the cartoonists challenged him on ulterior motives. Rep. McCarthy strained smiles and explained in a patronizing way the big picture; the cartoonists disassembled the big picture and questioned his logic. Soon aides stepped in and whisked Rep. Kevin McCarthy to his next appointment (whether he actually had one or not). Rep. McGovern stuck to stories about how his father was a liquor store owner. Things went better for him.<\/p>\n<p>This cartoon has been kicking around my head since the primary vote in August. Our Secretary of State in Michigan, Ruth Johnson, decided (despite Governor Snyder\u2019s opposition) to have this question on the ballot: Are you a United States citizen? A valid question for a voter, sure, but one that had never been on a ballot before. It caused a lot of confusion. At first, you had to check Yes to vote. But then <em>during the election day<\/em> a clarification was sent that voters could opt out of answering the question. Now it is supposed to be on the November ballot. Ms. Johnson thinks it&#8217;s &#8220;a helpful reminder.&#8221; But decisions were not made in time for it to be on absentee ballots. Messy to say the least. If we could just get Ms. Johnson to address a room full of cartoonists, I\u2019m sure we could get this straightened out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Originally published in the Ann Arbor News, Bay City Times, Flint Journal, Grand Rapids Press, Jackson Citizen Patriot, Kalamazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, Saginaw News September 23, 2012 When I was at the editorial cartoonist convention last week, one of the events was a reception at the US Capitol, specifically the House Committee on Agriculture\u2019s Hearing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlive-media-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1341"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1345,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions\/1345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/auchtoon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}