GOP links SAVE Act to Olive Garden's unlimited pasta deal

Virginia Foxx compared voter ID requirements to Olive Garden's unlimited pasta pass, and yes, we know how that sounds out of context. But strip away the punchline and the point actually lands. You need an ID to buy the pasta pass. You need one to redeem it at the restaurant. Nobody calls that voter suppression when it's breadsticks on the line, but suddenly when it's the ballot box, requiring identification becomes some grave threat to democracy.

That's the whole tell in this debate. We ID ourselves constantly, boarding a plane, picking up a prescription, opening a bank account, buying a beer, and nobody treats it as a barrier designed to keep people out. It's just how a functioning system verifies that you are who you say you are. The SAVE Act asks for proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections. That is not an outlandish ask. It's the same basic logic Olive Garden uses to make sure the guy redeeming a pasta pass is the guy who actually paid fifty bucks for it.

Foxx's analogy got mocked because it's a little goofy, and fair enough, it is a little goofy. Congressional Republicans probably could have found a more dignified comparison. But mocking the messenger doesn't answer the argument. If Democrats think requiring ID to vote is such an outrageous imposition, they should explain why the same principle doesn't apply to a chain restaurant loyalty program. Nobody's found a good answer to that yet, they've just found a good headline.