“As we have said repeatedly, avoiding a government shutdown requires bipartisanship, not a bill drawn up by one party. Speaker Johnson is making the same mistake as former Speaker McCarthy did a year ago, by wasting precious time catering to the hard MAGA right, Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York and Patty Murray of Washington state said in a statement, referring to Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. “This tactic didn’t work last September and it will not work this year either.”
They said that if Johnson “drives House Republicans down this highly partisan path, the odds of a shutdown go way up, and Americans will know that the responsibility of a shutdown will be on the House Republicans’ hands.”
Schumer is the Senate’s majority leader. Murray leads the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The voter registration measure is popular with House Republicans. The House Freedom Caucus, which generally includes the chamber’s most conservative members, called for it to be attached to a stop-gap bill that would keep the government funded into early 2025.
Republicans say that requiring proof of citizenship would ensure U.S. elections are only for American citizens, improving confidence in the nation’s federal election system, something that Trump has sought to undermine over the years.
Opponents say it is already against the law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and that the document requirements would disenfranchise millions of people who do not have the necessary documents readily available when they get a chance to register, say at a concert, county fair or at a college voter registration drive.
In an earlier vote on the voter registration bill, Republicans unanimously backed it while all but five Democrats voted against it. President Joe Biden’s administration strongly opposed that measure, saying the the alleged justification for the bill is easily disproven.
Some Republicans are arguing that if Schumer will allow a vote, assuming the bill passes the House, then a government shutdown would be on him.
“If Chuck Schumer decides he doesn’t want to bring it, then Chuck Schumer will be deciding that he wants to shut down government. It’s not us,” said Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, during an interview on Fox Business News.
Trump and other Republicans have revved up their complaints about the issue of noncitizens voting with the influx of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border under Biden’s administration. They are contending Democrats let them in to add them to the voter rolls. But the available evidence shows that noncitizen voting in federal elections is incredibly rare.
Another major question to address as part of the short-term spending bill is how long to extend funding. Before the August recess, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, An Oklahoma Republican, said he preferred that the next president be able to pursue top priorities without the distraction of a messy spending fight.
But the House Freedom Caucus is banking on Trump winning the White House and putting the GOP in better position to secure the spending cuts and policy priorities they desire. So they want to extend funding until after the inauguration in January.
Congress returns to Washington on Monday after spending the past five weeks back in their home states and districts. The short-term bill is necessary because the House and Senate are nowhere near completing their work on the dozen annual spending bills that keep government agencies and programs operational during the coming budget year.
So far, the House has passed five of the 12 annual spending bills, while the Senate has passed none, though the Senate has opted to take a more bipartisan approach to the challenge by moving 11 of the bills through the Senate Appropriations Committee with broad support from lawmakers in both parties. Meanwhile, Republicans in the House are using their majority to push bills through with the vast majority of Democrats in opposition.
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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Associated Press
9 comments
Alexa is Biased
September 8, 2024 at 9:05 am
What’s the problem. I’m off to the airport today and I will not be allowed to go through security without an ID. I also can’t get into my place of work without an ID. Want to travel abroad? Need a passport.
Tom
September 8, 2024 at 9:13 am
I’ve never voted without producing a license so I don’t see an issue there either but I hope they shut the government down anyhow just to reinforce the fact that republicans are not qualified to govern. The last two House sessions have been amongst the least productive in our history and we need less clowns on both sides of this circus.
PeterH
September 8, 2024 at 9:44 am
I vote by mail ….. haven’t been to the polls to vote in 15 years.
Michael
September 8, 2024 at 9:15 am
‘Opponents say it is already against the law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and that the document requirements would disenfranchise millions of people who do not have the necessary documents readily available when they get a chance to register, say at a concert, county fair or at a college voter registration drive.’
I am a registered independent with strong libertarian leanings. This is one issue where I fail to see the agita from Democrats. Citizenship sometimes requires effort….lack of convenience in bringing a document for the one time you are registering to vote is an extremely flimsy excuse.
ELVIS PITTS AMERICAN
September 8, 2024 at 9:21 am
Hey Sage Patriot House Republicans,
It’s weeks prior to the elaction and y’all are just now waking up to the fact that The Left let all these boarder-crossers in for a reason…To Vote.
You cucks make me, ELVIS PITTS AMERICAN, sick.
Thank God Trump has a plan to work around you cucks.
ELVIS PITTS AMERICAN
JD
September 8, 2024 at 11:04 am
Oh, Elvis Pitts American, it must be exhausting to live in a world where facts are a distant memory, replaced by delusions about “boarder-crossers” (nice spelling, by the way) voting en masse. If Trump had a plan that worked as well as your spelling, we’d really be in trouble. But hey, keep clinging to those fantasies while the rest of us live in reality, where the idea of mass voter fraud is about as real as your grasp of grammar.
WE THE PEOPLE reject you.
Michael K
September 8, 2024 at 10:02 am
These protections already exist in all 50 states. Just look at Georgia, which found ZERO instances of voter fraud out of tens of millions of ballots cast.
This is nothing more than another stunt from a party that is unable, unwilling, and unfit to govern – held hostage by headline-grabbing right-wing narcissists like Matt Gaetz who cripppled the US Congress for more than a month when the Israeli war broke out.
Ron Ogden
September 8, 2024 at 10:58 am
In the long history of democracy, the right to vote has always belonged only to citizens. Americans cannot merely fly to Canada and demand the right to vote. Oh, you say that it should depend upon where you live? Fine! I’ll spend a month in Montreal practicing my French in the hope that I can vote Conservative. But that would be silly. Membership is foundational to the right to have your opinion heard within a group, and in this case your vote is your opinion and the group is the USA, and if you are not a member, that is to say, a citizen, then your opinion should not matter. The people speaking against this basic theory are nothing more than proggie manipulators who care for nothing more than gaining and keeping their cherished power to run everyone else’s life. If you are a citizen, then prove it.
JD
September 8, 2024 at 11:02 am
So, you’re saying non-citizens voting in local elections is a slippery slope to chaos, huh? Remind me again, when did Montreal start offering ballots to tourists? Comparing long-term U.S. residents to casual visitors seems like a stretch. If the issue is really about preventing voter fraud, why not show us where this supposed flood of fraudulent votes is coming from? Or is this more about keeping the “right” people voting?