House Republicans and a handful of Democrats on Wednesday approved a bill that seeks to expand proof-of-citizenship requirements for voting in federal elections and impose voter roll expungement requirements on states, legislation that was praised by former President Trump.
The legislation — formally titled the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — passed the chamber by a vote of 221 to 198, with five Democrats voting yes. It now heads to the Senate, where it is almost certain to be ignored amid opposition from Democrats.
President Biden promised to veto the measure.
Opponents of the bill say its central idea – making non-citizen voting illegal – is redundant and argue that its provisions will more likely lead to U.S. citizens being denied the right to vote than the prevent foreign citizens from voting.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) argued on the House floor Wednesday that the legislation is necessary because noncitizens voted in U.S. elections despite it being illegal to do so.
“Even though it’s already illegal, it’s happening,” Johnson said.
In May, Johnson told journalists: “We all know, intuitively, that many illegals are voting in federal elections. But it is not something easily demonstrable. We don’t have that number.
“This legislation will allow us to do just that – it will prevent that from happening. And if anyone tries to do that, it will now be illegal within the states,” he added.
But most researchers who have studied voting patterns say Johnson’s intuition is wrong.
A study by the Brennan Center for Justice found 30 suspected – not confirmed – cases of noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million.
The claim that non-citizens are voting – and that Democrats are deliberately importing undocumented immigrants to vote – is the bill’s raison d’être.
Johnson, however, brought the legislation to the floor as a show of unity between himself and members of the right flank on an issue that is also one of Trump’s favorites.
The House speaker supported the idea of banning non-citizens from voting in US elections through legislation during a joint press conference with Trump in April, at a time when the House leader was trying to drum up support from the Republican Party as a small group of Republican legislators threatened to remove him. .
The former president urged GOP lawmakers to pass the legislation, in a Truth Social post on Tuesday, writing, “Republicans must pass the Rescue Act or go home and cry yourself to sleep.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who introduced the bill in May, said at the time: “Radical progressive Democrats know this and are using open borders policies while attacking election integrity laws to remake fundamentally America.”
Roy and Johnson have clashed in the past, especially over the House speaker’s bipartisan budget efforts, but the two former Judiciary Committee colleagues see eye to eye on immigration.
In a May op-ed, Roy wrote that “radical progressive Democrats are no longer even trying to hide it – they are publicly admitting their intention to take advantage of open borders and the tens of millions of illegal aliens in the US to fundamentally remake America by consolidating the one-party government.”
Roy’s stated proof for this claim was a verbal failure by President Biden on a radio program in May – widely reported by right-wing media – where Bidenseems to referto Hispanic immigrants as “voters”.
Roy also criticized Democrats for voting against a bill that would have changed the distribution of the Census to exclude non-U.S. citizens.
“I think they believe in their own heads that somehow immigrants are bad and you know, we’re terrible and we’re always going to do bad things when we know that’s not true. We know that data shows that immigrants commit fewer crimes. You know that communities with a lot of immigrants are actually safer,” said Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who emigrated from Peru at age 5.
And supporters say the bill would make it harder for some U.S. citizens to register to vote and would eliminate more citizens than noncitizens from the voter rolls.
“We are seeing increasing threats against election officials and voters at the polls, especially in places where Latinos are a growing and significant part of the eligible voting population,” said Juan Espinoza, senior civil rights advisor at UnidosUS.
“Harmful and false rhetoric from non-citizen voters also spreads misinformation that targets and harms Latino voters. This bill is a dangerous political maneuver used to suppress voting in communities of color and further undermine voting rights in this country.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
