WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders on Sunday announced a deal to fund the federal government for about three months and avoid a government shutdown before the November election, but the stopgap measure won’t include provisions pushed by Utah Sen. Mike Lee to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.
The spending package — which is expected to be voted on later this week — would generally fund the government at current levels through Dec. 20. It also includes an additional $231 million for the Secret Service following two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump.
An earlier version of the package failed on Wednesday, after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, linked government funding to a mandate that states require proof of citizenship when people register to vote. Fourteen House Republicans voted against that package. Lee appeared alongside Johnson at a press conference in Washington in May to promote the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, for which the Utah Republican is the Senate sponsor.
Federal law bars noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and states are required by federal law to regularly remove ineligible voters from their rolls. However, Lee and other Republicans have raised fears of undocumented migrants voting in the upcoming presidential election in pushing for the proof of citizenship requirements in the SAVE Act.
Lee shared an article about undocumented migrants being added to voter rolls on social media Monday, saying it “proves the need for the SAVE Act.”
“The left dismisses the need for the SAVE Act, citing an existing law under which noncitizens ‘are already barred from voting in federal elections,'” the senator said on X. “That law has proven unenforceable. The SAVE Act would fix that.”
“If only we had a bill to stop noncitizen voting that we could attach to the spending bill. Oh wait …. ,” he said in another post.
Lee also said he agreed with former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who tweeted: “Here’s a reasonable deal: if we pass the SAVE Act right now, both sides can agree that neither will complain about a stolen election afterward.”
Research and audits of past elections have found it is rare for noncitizens to try to vote, and most attempts to register to vote by noncitizens are caught by election workers.
But Johnson pushed for the provisions in the spending bill to require proof of citizenship, noting that even a small percentage of illegal votes could change the outcome of what is expected to be an extremely close presidential contest.
“It’s very, very serious stuff, and that’s why we’re going to do the right thing,” Johnson said. “We’re going to responsibly fund the government and we’re going to stop noncitizens voting in elections.”
Trump weighed in on Truth Social, accusing Democrats of “registering Illegal Voters by the TENS OF THOUSANDS” and saying Republicans should oppose any continuing funding if they “don’t get the SAVE Act, and every ounce of it.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, had said the spending package with the voting provisions was “running into a dead end” in the upper chamber, and Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-California, called the package, “Republican theatrics that are meant to appease the most extreme members of their conference, to show them that they are working on something and that they’re continuing to support the former president of the United States in his bid to demonize immigrants.”
Lee and other proponents of the SAVE Act were involved in the efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election after Trump falsely claimed he won. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas — the House sponsor of the SAVE Act — and Lee both texted a top Trump aide to challenge the 2020 results, with Lee pledging “unequivocal support for you to exhaust every legal and constitutional remedy at your disposal to restore Americans’ faith in our elections.”
Lee later appeared to distance himself from the efforts to keep Trump in office and acknowledged that Biden won the Electoral College.
While the House is expected to take up the temporary spending package by midweek, the Senate has until next Monday night to prevent a government shutdown. Politico speculated that Senate Republicans “could take advantage of the chamber’s time-consuming procedures to drag the process out through the weekend ahead of the Monday night deadline,” mentioning Lee by name as one of those senators known for using Senate rules to hold up unfriendly legislation.
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Publish date : 2024-09-23 12:04:00
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