The late British actor Alan Rickman (Harry Potter’s Professor Severus Snape) said “my idea of a real treat is Magic Mountain without standing in line.” The U.S. Congress has taken, and is considering taking, actions that ensure American citizens will not enjoy the treat of avoiding lines. The lines Congress is affecting do not relate to queueing up for an amusement ride. They pertain to our safety when exercising our right to travel and our essential right to vote in our nation’s democratic electoral processes.
Currently, as a result of the Congress failing to fund the Department of Homeland Security and its Transportation Security Administration (TSA), egregiously long lines face air travelers at our nation’s airports.
The TSA, an agency that was created after the September 11 terrorist acts in order to keep us safe as we travel, has not been funded. Regardless of how one feels about the tactic about not funding a government activity for a political goal, there have to be better ways to achieve those goals that making the public suffer. I am sure that the members of Congress are not waiting in long lines as they make there weekly weekend trips to their home states or take their junkets to foreign nations.
But the public is fair game to be victimized in these political maneuvers.
Now, the public’s battle with lines may extend to the next election when we attempt to exercise our fundamental right to vote.
President Donald Trump says the so-called SAVE America Act would “guarantee the midterms” for Republicans. However, the impact on the public is ignored. Provisions in the SAVE legislation would severely limit voting by mail. Thus, lines at polling places will get longer. When I worked as legal counsel for former Seminole County Supervisors of Elections Sandy Goard and Dennis Joiner, their main goal was to maximize the number of voters voting at each election and the ease for voters to vote. It is generally known that long lines at polling places are the bane of election administrators nationwide. Long waits can take hours out of a voter’s day and can deter citizens from voting, robbing them of their voice in the election. Elections are for the public and should not be targeted as ways to torture the public for political gains by a political party.
Lonnie Groot is a Daytona Beach Shores attorney who has represented municipal governments throughout Central Florida. (Courtesy photo)
Alex Stone, in his 2012 New York Times piece “Why Waiting Is Torture,” noted that “Americans spend roughly 37 billion hours each year waiting in line. The dominant cost of waiting is an emotional one: stress, boredom, that nagging sensation that one’s life is slipping away. The last thing we want to do with our dwindling leisure time is squander it in stasis.”
Congress should act now to fund TSA and stop the needless bottleneck inflicted on the public as it travels through the air. Congress should also reject SAVE and allow us to save our time for being with our families at work and avoid more stress in our daily lives.
Lonnie Groot is a Daytona Beach Shores attorney who has represented municipal governments throughout Central Florida.