| Work with ICE? Nah, I quit. You all remember Kim Davis, don't you? She was the woman in Kentucky who refused to do her job (and refused to quit) because she disagreed with the Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage. Davis was an inherently flawed spokeswoman for traditional marriage. Now, with Trump in office and immigration on the front burner, we have a state-level employee refusing to do his job lest it help ICE deport people: On the way back to my desk, I dashed off a quick tweet. Three simple words. “Seriously, f— ICE.” It was some needed catharsis. I attempted to get some work done, but my heart wasn’t in it. I’ve always believed in the mission of the Department of Labor. Ensuring people are protected in the workplace and are paid for their work is something I can get behind, but it felt tainted now. All the data that was part of keeping the department running was going to be turned from a tool used to protect workers into a weapon used to hunt down some of the most vulnerable among us. I’d seen it in the news: a working father of three in New Jersey, whose wife is now terrified of also being deported; the people without criminal records who were supposedly “low priority” for deportation. The author, Jordon Dyrdahl-Roberts, chose to quit rather than refuse to do his job, processing subpoenas. (In that way, he is more commendable than Kim Davis, regardless of whether or not you agree with him.) Here's his conclusion: Even as I’m surrounded by the warm glow of love and support from strangers, I still have a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach. I wonder how many other people, working in other government offices, have unwittingly or unwillingly been drafted into ICE’s service. How many felt trapped by circumstance, or found a way to justify it to themselves. I stumbled into public service, but I stayed because I felt like I was doing something good. With the specter of ICE looming over all of that now, it has a chilling effect on the good work public servants are trying to do. But they don’t have to comply. They can say no. They can refuse to work with an agency that taints everything it touches. Like with Kim Davis, the rule of law moves forward. As gay marriage licenses are issued, so too, are deportation orders. Like it or not. Unlike conscience protections for those working at hospitals, these are not life and death decisions. Repo Man. Our opinion editor Barton Swaim shares this touching remembrance of his father, who passed away last week. Come on and take a free ride. Getting people to the doctor is tough. Folks on Medicaid, poor as they often are, have a far more difficult time getting there, much less making ends meet. So, what if we offered free Lyft drives to the doctor and back? Would that help? The Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania researched just that: The researchers looked at 786 low-income patients in West Philadelphia who were Medicaid recipients and received medical care at 1 of 2 Penn Medicine practices. Roughly half were enrolled in the intervention arm of the study, in which they received an offer, during an appointment-reminder phone call, for a ride with the ridesharing company Lyft. The other half were in the control arm and received no free-ride offer during their reminder phone call. Despite the freebie, there was virtually no difference between the proportion of missed appointments in the intervention arm (36.5%) and in the control arm (36.7%), according to the findings. Mitt is It. Our contributing editor Jay Cost has a worthwhile appreciation of Mitt Romney at the Pittsburght Post-Gazette: I also doubt that Mr. Romney is eyeing this seat as a steppingstone for the presidency. He is going to be 71 next month, which is already older than any newly elected president was on Inauguration Day. And, aside from the handful of Romney fans such as myself still hanging around, he probably knows that his time has come and gone. Instead, I think Mr. Romney is running to check Mr. Trump. This president has been fairly good on core conservative issues, especially judges, taxes and regulation. But time and again, he has said indecent or frankly crazy things that do not conform with legitimate expectations citizens have for how a president should act. And yet most congressional Republicans have kept mum. The main reason: Mr. Trump is popular with the GOP base, meaning that rebuking the president is politically dicey. We saw that, for instance, with Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, whose vocal opposition to Mr. Trump drained his political support and forced him out of a bid for re-election. Mr. Romney will not have that problem — certainly not in Utah. He can offer pushback on Mr. Trump, and not worry about the political consequences of such opposition. I think that is what his agenda is. That is a very good thing for conservatism. The absence of pushback from Republican officeholders against Mr. Trump has given Democrats the opportunity to claim they are the party of public virtue — a ridiculous claim, considering how long they stood by Bill Clinton. Nonetheless, it is a significant problem for the Republican Party to be tagged as a coalition of indecency. By offering a calm, anti-Trump voice while remaining true to basic conservative principles, Mr. Romney can perhaps change that. Time will tell. Save the date! Join us at the 2018 Weekly Standard Summit. This May 17-20 at the historic Broadmoor resort in Colorado Springs, join Stephen F. Hayes, Fred Barnes, and Michael Warren and special guests Bret Baier and A.B. Stoddard as they discuss the future of American politics. Book your tickets now. —Jim Swift, Deputy Online Editor Please feel free to send us comments, thoughts and links to dailystandard@weeklystandard.com. -30- | 