Exactly one year ago this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson made a pilgrimage of sorts to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Donald Trump’s ring and hold a joint press conference with the then-former president. It was not, however, a simple photo-op: The Republicans unveiled a proposal they appeared to be rather proud of.
The GOP duo pitched legislation that would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. The absurdity of watching two notorious election deniers pretend to be deeply concerned with the integrity of elections was a detail the political world was apparently supposed to overlook.
Soon after, House Republicans followed through, introducing the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act” (or “SAVE Act”). As NBC News reported, that same bill has now passed the chamber.
The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, would amend the National Voter Registration Act so that states would be required to obtain proof of citizenship in person from people who are registering to vote. It would also require states to establish a program to remove undocumented immigrants from existing voter rolls and would allow American citizens to sue election officials that don’t follow proof of citizenship requirements.
The measure cleared the chamber on a 220-208 vote, with four Democrats — Reps. Ed Case of Hawaii; Henry Cuellar of Texas; Jared Golden of Maine; and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington — voting with the majority. No GOP members opposed the bill.
The principal concern with the legislation is that it’s a solution in search of a problem. To hear Republicans tell it, policymakers must prevent noncitizens from voting, which probably sounds reasonable. In fact, it’s so reasonable that the SAVE Act is redundant: There are literally zero locations in the United States where noncitizens can vote in federal and/or state elections.
GOP lawmakers have also argued that legislation is needed to curtail the scourge of noncitizens who are already voting. Except, Republicans have gone searching for evidence of this problem and found effectively nothing.
The House speaker, while touting the SAVE Act last year, said Republicans “intuitively” know that “a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections,” which was a hilarious way for the Louisiana Republican to effectively say, “We have no evidence to bolster our beliefs.”
At this point, some on the right might argue that the SAVE Act is worthwhile anyway. Sure, noncitizens are already prohibited from voting in federal elections, and yes, evidence of noncitizens casting ballots is nearly impossible to find, but maybe there’s no harm in simply passing the legislation anyway? Just to be safe?
Except, that’s wrong, too, because the legislation would add new and entirely unnecessary hurdles for Americans who want to participate in their own country’s elections, forcing them, for example, to produce documents such as a passport or birth certificate to register to vote.
What’s more, as The Associated Press reported last month, state elections officials — from both parties — have expressed practical concerns about how these costly proposed procedures would be implemented and paid for. The same article added, “Voting rights groups have said married women who have changed their name could have trouble registering under the SAVE Act because their birth certificate lists their maiden name.”
For good measure, let’s also not overlook the ugly motivation behind the GOP leaders’ push. Johnson has also argued that an influx of immigrants is “one of their designs” that Democratic officials created “because they want to turn these people into voters.” That’s absurd for all sorts of reasons, including the yearslong process in which some of these immigrants might be able to become citizens, but it served as a reminder that the SAVE Act is, as a Washington Post analysis summarized, “the ‘great replacement’ theory … in legislation form.” On the House floor, 216 Republicans and four Democrats voted for it anyway. The bill now heads to the Senate, where Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah is championing a companion bill. The odds of the legislation overcoming a Democratic filibuster, however, are poor. Watch this space. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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