[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 48 (Tuesday, March 17, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1149-S1154]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SAVE AMERICA ACT
Mr. LEE. Madam President, we often consider difficult, complicated
issues in this Chamber. It happens all the time. In fact, if it is not
complicated, we sometimes wonder why we are devoting time to any
particular matter. Very often, these are issues that don't enjoy
consensus among the American people. We might have a degree of
consensus over the existence of a problem but a thousand different ways
of tackling that problem. In other instances, there might not even be
consensus on whether a problem exists or what that problem might be.
This is not one of those moments.
This issue could not be simpler. American elections are for American
citizens. This is an assertion that is so elementary that its
controversy is itself the only remarkable feature. There are 83 percent
of Americans who support voter ID--83 percent. Out of 100 people, 83 of
them believe that we need that. That is 95 percent of Republicans and
71 percent of Democrats. That is still 71 out of every 100 Democrats
who agree with us.
Now think about that for a minute. How many issues in this country
unite 83 percent of all Americans? This is one of them.
For months now, I have been working with colleagues, working with
President Trump, and with citizens across this great country--citizens
who have rallied behind this effort in numbers and with a degree of
intensity that I have not seen in my entire time in the Senate, and I
am now in my 16th year here. All of them are begging us to pass the
SAVE America Act, not in a nonchalant, haphazard fashion but instead in
a way that indicates they really feel it--that they feel it strongly,
in fact. They understand the need for this.
I have heard one thing over and over and over again: Why would anyone
oppose this? Who would oppose the notion that only American citizens
can vote in American elections?
In this room, I can't imagine any of us would think that we, in not
being citizens of the United Kingdom or of Yemen or of Japan or of the
Philippines, could vote in elections in any of those countries. Why?
Well, because we are not citizens of those countries.
If we happened to visit those countries, would that change anything?
No, not a thing. What if we lived there for a few years but didn't
become citizens? Still not. It still makes no difference. If we are not
citizens, we wouldn't dream of being able to vote in their elections.
Why should American elections be any different? Why should someone who
is not a citizen of the United States of America be able to vote in a
U.S. election? Well, of course, they shouldn't.
Look, the SAVE America Act takes those dynamics into account, and it
says something very simple. It says that only American citizens should
be able to vote in U.S. elections. And it does something very
important. It
[[Page S1150]]
makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat. You need both of those
ingredients to have a good election. It has got to be easy to vote and
hard to cheat. You can achieve both at the same time just as you can
chew gum and walk at the same time, but this is a whole lot more
important than being able to chew gum while walking. In any free
society that purports to have a representative government of any form,
especially in a constitutional republic like ours, you must have both.
You can't cut corners on either one. That is common sense, and yet here
we are.
If you don't accept that only Americans should vote in American
elections, then what exactly are you defending? Tell us why you want to
make it easier for noncitizens to vote in our elections.
But, so far, what we have heard from Democrats is not that. What we
have heard from Democrats in the U.S. Senate Chamber--and I say here
``in the U.S. Senate Chamber'' because that is different than Democrats
nationwide wherein more than 7 out of 10 agree that we need reforms
like what the SAVE America Act would bring about. It is only here in
the Capital City of this great Nation; it is only here in this
building--in Congress, in the House of Representatives and in the
Senate--that this is considered volatile or somehow unacceptable by
Democrats. It is only these Democrats who inhabit these hallways and
who serve in these two legislative Chambers who regard this as somehow
phenomenally controversial, and what we have heard from these Democrats
here is nothing but fearmongering and outright lies.
Now, whether they themselves know that they are lies or they are just
believing lies others have told them, that is a topic for a different
day. I am not going to try to vet that out here. None of us can know
what any other person is thinking or feeling, but I can assure you that
these are, at their core, the product of fearmongering and of lies.
They told us that requiring proof of citizenship to vote in U.S.
elections is somehow ``racist.'' The minority leader himself called
this bill Jim Crow 2.0. Wow--what an accusation, what a crazy, absurd,
ridiculous, and, frankly, insulting accusation. I think he owes the
American people an explanation as to how requiring proof of citizenship
to vote is tantamount to racial segregation laws. Racial segregation
laws, under the banner of Jim Crow, the Democratic Party itself forced
on a substantial portion of the American population over many decades
in one of the most evil--evil legislative tirades in American history
for a prolonged period of time.
Why he would want to draw any parallel to Jim Crow is beyond the
ability of this Senator to understand. I don't get it. Frankly, the
American people aren't buying it, nor should they.
They have told us that requiring photo ID somehow ``disenfranchises''
women. I can't think of anything more racist. I can't think of anything
more misogynistic than saying people of color or women, whether married
women or otherwise, are incapable of obtaining an ID and proof of
citizenship. That is frankly insulting.
It is something that millions of Americans do every single day--often
many times a day--to get a job, to board a plane, to open a bank
account, to enroll in school, to shovel snow in New York City; for that
matter, to go to the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys, the Super Bowl,
almost any theatrical production, and, yes, to get into the Democratic
National Convention. To get into the Democratic National Convention,
you have to show photo ID, and you have to establish credentials
showing that you have a right to be there and participate in that
event.
So if the SAVE America Act is Jim Crow 2.0, then so, too, is the
Democratic Party itself; so, too, are the campaign rallies hosted by my
friend and colleague the Senator from Georgia, up for reelection this
year, who recently advertised a campaign rally and announced on the
same website that to get into said campaign rally, you would have to
show photo ID.
We are not getting the story. We are not getting the complete story.
We are not getting anything close to the complete story, and we are
going to talk about that tonight.
Look, millions upon millions of married women navigate documentation
requirements every single day for a whole host of reasons. To suggest
that Americans, that women, that people of color are somehow incapable
of doing something so basic is deeply, fundamentally insulting, and it
is beneath the dignity of this Chamber and all who occupy it for these
arguments to be raised here in this hallowed Chamber.
I can't think of anything more patronizing, more dismissive, more out
of touch than telling Americans that they can't meet the same basic
requirements that govern so many other parts of daily life--not just
some people's daily lives but the daily lives of pretty much everyone
in this country.
This bill does not suppress voters. It protects them. It treats them
like capable citizens in a functioning republic and ensures that their
votes actually do matter.
And let's be honest. There is only one reason to oppose this bill and
what it does--one reason: They want to cheat. This bill makes it easy
to vote and hard to cheat. They are happy with exactly half of the
equation and not the other half. But you can't have both and have a
functioning representative government. You can't have half of the
equation and have a successful constitutional republic. It doesn't
work.
Here is today's headline from POLITICO. I am not exaggerating this. I
don't write the news; I just report it.
Why climate champions are sweating the ``SAVE America
Act.''
It goes on to say:
If Republicans do ultimately succeed in getting a version
of the bill passed, environmentalists and some Democrats fear
it could damage the democratic process ahead of November's
midterm elections and suppress the will of climate-minded
voters and candidates.
The level of hyperbolic panic, of paranoid fantasy from the Democrats
and the media enterprises they control is telling, and it is stunning,
because the only way this bill changes election outcomes is if those
outcomes have been dependent on votes that shouldn't have been counted
to begin with. If that is part of the plan, then I can understand the
panic. That is the reality.
We are closer than ever to getting this bill across the finish line.
Just a few hours ago, we voted to proceed to this bill, and that is
because the American people have made their voices heard. They have
shown up. They have spoken out. They have demanded that our elections--
their elections--be protected.
Failure here is not an option, and it must never become such because
if we cannot secure the most basic element of our elections, of any
free and fair system of elections, we are inviting a level of distrust
that this country cannot afford.
I would say this to my Republican colleagues: If we do not act on an
issue that commands this level of support, not just from our own base
but from the entire spectrum among the American people--this level of
support--we should not be surprised when the American people lose
confidence in our willingness to fight for them if we fail to get it
done and to do everything along the way in order to ensure its passage.
This is our moment. Stand for a simple principle. Let the American
people see who is willing to defend their sacred right to vote and who
is not.
I am confident that the principle at the heart of this legislation
will, in fact, prevail. It will prevail because it is fair, because it
is right, because it reflects the truth, because it reflects how our
laws are written and how human nature interacts with our system of
laws.
This is the line. We have drawn it, and we must defend it. You are
either willing to say that only American citizens should vote in
American elections or you are not. There is no middle ground.
Sure, we can talk about whether this word or that word would most
capably accomplish what we need it to. We can argue over a semicolon
here or a comma there. But unless we are talking about how to achieve
the same objective of making sure that only Americans vote in American
elections, we will have missed the boat in a very dangerous way.
The American people are, to be sure, paying attention--very close
attention, indeed--because they understand what is at stake. They
understand that if
[[Page S1151]]
their vote is diluted, it is taken from them; if their elections are
compromised--if their elections are compromised--their voice is
diminished. That is what this bill prevents.
So let's stop pretending this is complicated. It is not. If you
believe, as I do, that only American citizens should vote in American
elections, then this should be the easiest vote of your entire
legislative career--not just that which has passed already but that
which you are likely to see ever while you are here.
Now, sure, there are all sorts of votes about, you know, recognizing
National Sofa Care Month or this or that awareness resolution, but in
the world of actual laws coming into being in this Chamber, you are not
going to find something much similar--much more true to this principle
of being clear, of getting the message right, than this one, of this
being a very simple equation. We have to get this done, and we have to
get it right.
While we are on this topic, I want to talk a little bit about why
this bill is necessary and walk you through some of the legislative
history, some of the history in American law and American society that
has made this bill so necessary and so timely today, because there have
been times in our history when this wasn't the same risk that it is
today. But it will help if we set the table by explaining how we got
here and why it is that we need this so badly, so immediately, right
now.
Let's start with something that happened about 33 years ago when
Congress passed a law back in 1993 called the National Voter
Registration Act. It is frequently abbreviated as the NVRA and
sometimes known also as the motor voter law.
The NVRA says in essence that in any State that chooses to
participate, as the overwhelming majority of States do--nearly every
State participates--in any participating State, anybody going into a
DMV to apply for a driver's license may simultaneously register to vote
if they would like to do so. It made it easier for more people to
register to vote doing something that most Americans--the overwhelming
majority of all Americans do from time to time, which is get a driver's
license.
So you could go in, and while filling out the paperwork, after
establishing who it is that you are, you could also say, ``I would
like, with this same paperwork, to register to vote'' because, after
all, they have your address, they have your name, and they have other
information about who you are.
So the same State that is processing your driver's license
application can also in that same moment harness the power of a State
to register you to vote. That is one of many things that made the NVRA
appealing.
A couple of things have happened since the NVRA passed that warrant
our careful consideration of this legislation now and that make this
legislation so very necessary.
For one thing, over time, you have seen different trends in States in
how they issue driver's licenses, to whom they issue them. There have
been times when States didn't necessarily have occasion to even
consider the question of whether or under what circumstances to give
driver's licenses to those who are either not citizens of the United
States or perhaps, in addition to being not citizens of the United
States, are here illegally.
As some of this became a little bit more complicated when legislation
passed in 2005 dealing with the REAL ID issues, with this move toward
establishing a REAL ID driver's license that could have some indication
as to whether somebody was a citizen, States have paid careful
attention to that.
Most States today--the overwhelming majority of States today will
issue a driver's license to a person who is not a citizen of the United
States. In I believe 19 States, plus the District of Columbia, you
could get a driver's license even if you are not just a noncitizen but
a noncitizen who is here without documentation, without legal
permission, authority to be here. If you are an illegal immigrant, you
can still get one in 19 States, plus the District of Columbia.
So if you can do that, if you can walk into a DMV in any of those
jurisdictions and check a box and sign your name, in theory, you can
register to vote.
Well, some of this came to a head about 20 years after the NVRA was
passed when, in 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States decided a
case called Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona. In that case,
the Supreme Court of the United States conclusively interpreted the
NVRA as preempting out any State authority that might have otherwise
existed when it comes to requiring proof of citizenship of someone
registering to vote, using an NVRA form at a DMV while applying for a
driver's license.
In other words, they said: Even if a State is worried about perhaps
inadvertently registering noncitizens to vote, even if in certain
circumstances they might have affirmative reason to believe that one or
more voters are not citizens of the United States, they may not ask for
any proof of citizenship in that moment.
Now, I believe that interpretation was misguided. I believe it was
wrong as a matter of statutory construction. Justice Alito, my former
boss, wrote a masterful dissent explaining why the majority got it
wrong. Nonetheless, the majority ruling still stands. It conclusively
interpreted the NVRA as prohibiting the States from making any effort
to figure out whether somebody was a citizen as long as they were using
the NVRA-supplied form when registering someone to vote.
This created a big problem--a big problem that a lot of people,
myself included, hadn't thought much about until relatively recently,
until just a few years ago. I got involved in this, started writing
this bill 2 or 3 years ago when I put all of these pieces together and
I realized what it could spell for the American Republic if we didn't
solve the problem.
Without regard to what might have already happened and what might be
happening today, when you play this forward, even if you were starting
from the assumption that none of this ever happens, that nobody ever
has registered to vote in the past who was not a citizen or never had
voted in any election who was not a citizen--that is an assumption
contrary to fact, but even if you were to reach that conclusion, you
play this forward, and this could and ultimately will lead to a whole
lot of mischief when you put all of those factors into the mix,
especially when you consider what happened between 2021 and 2025.
On or about--I don't know--let's say January 20, 2020, through to
January 20, 2025, there were policies in place in this country that led
to relatively open borders, you might say, in which an estimated 10 to
15 million people entered this country unlawfully, with many of them
here to this day.
(Mrs. MOODY assumed the Chair.)
Some people have estimated that the total population of noncitizens
inside the United States today stands in the neighborhood of around 30
million people. That is a lot of people--a lot of people who, in most
States, could apply for and receive a driver's license, particularly if
they live in some States more than others. And all they have to do is
walk into a DMV, apply for a driver's license, check a box saying,
``Yes, I would like, while applying for my driver's license,
simultaneously to register to vote.'' And all that remains after that
is you sign your name. And by signing your name, you are certifying
that you are entitled to register to vote, that you are a citizen and
not under any kind of legal impediment from voting. And that is done.
So even if you were someone who assumes, contrary to fact--and
contrary to more facts that I believe will be coming out in greater
detail in the coming days and weeks--even if you were someone who
believes that this does not happen, that people don't register to vote
if they are not citizens of this country, this still would be a trend,
given all of the circumstances that I have just outlined, all the
things that have happened since the NVRA became the law of the land
back in 1993.
This is something that we should all very much worry about. This
should concern us greatly; that is, you don't want people voting in a
system in which they are not entitled to vote.
You think about every other circumstance where people vote. It is not
just in U.S. Federal elections for Federal office, which is the concern
of this particular legislation. In countless interactions--separate and
apart from Federal elections, separate and apart
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from State elections--people hold elections of one sort or another.
One set of elections that people sometimes encounter are within
voluntary organizations or within a homeowners association. They might
have elections to decide different issues, to elect their leadership.
They might have those on a PTA, on different charitable organizations,
fraternal organizations that they might belong to. In every one of
those circumstances, you don't want somebody who is not entitled to
vote, who is not part of the organization, to be casting a vote.
If it is a homeowners association, you don't want somebody who is not
part of that organization, because they don't own a home within the
homeowners association's jurisdiction, to be casting a vote. If it is a
shareholder election in a corporate context, you don't want
nonshareholders casing a vote. Why? Well, they don't have the same
interest that the shareholders have.
We sure as heck don't want foreign nationals voting in U.S. elections
because what unites us is the fact that we are citizens. We may come to
things from different perspectives, different parts of the country,
different origins. We might have inherited different language patterns,
different languages, belief systems, political beliefs, cultural
customs--whatever. But what unites us is that we are American citizens.
If you start inviting in and allowing those who are not U.S. citizens
to do it, bad things could happen. You talk about the risk of foreign
election interference. It is really significant here, as every
American's vote is threatened to be diluted every time this happens.
Now, it is not just there that it matters, that we prove who we are
or that we are entitled to do the thing that we want to do. Think of
many other circumstances you encounter. When you go to the bank and you
are going to withdraw money, we should all hope that any place anybody
has money deposited on account isn't going to allow somebody else to
show up and withdraw money from that account without having to prove
who they are. That would be its own form of chaos.
When people go to pick up a prescription drug, to go to the doctor,
to seek medical treatment, to apply for a hunting license or a fishing
license, to apply for Social Security benefits, to board a plane, to
pick up theater tickets, to do all kinds of things where it matters who
you are, your ability to engage in the activity that you want to engage
in depends, hinges, on your ability to demonstrate that you are who you
say you are and you have the right to participate in the thing you want
to participate in.
Harkening back a moment ago to my discussion of the Democratic
National Committee, the Democratic National Convention would be crazy
to allow people in there who have not been elected as delegates to the
Democratic National Convention--same with the Republicans. And so what
do they do? Well, they have to show ID.
What about here? Look, in order to get here, all of us who have been
elected to the U.S. Senate had to go through a series of processes and
procedures that involved showing who we are and that we are entitled to
participate in this process, in several, very meaningful steps.
I remember, the very first time I filed to run for the U.S. Senate, I
had to go to the Lieutenant Governor's office. The Lieutenant Governor
in Utah, under the Utah Constitution, performs the secretary of state
function. It is the Lieutenant Governor who oversees the conduct of
elections in our State, and it is the Lieutenant Governor's office that
files and processes the candidate filing information.
I had to go to the Lieutenant Governor's office all three times I
have run for and been elected to the U.S. Senate, establish who I am,
establish my citizenship and my residency in the State. And, of course,
there is payment that has to go along with it. And after all of that
process, you have the opportunity to be on the ballot. If everything
goes well, if you are nominated by your political party or otherwise
get on the ballot, then you are considered.
But long before any of us ever showed up here to cast our very first
vote or give our very first speech as Senators or even be sworn in,
there was other paperwork that we had to process in order to establish
who we are and that we have a right to be here and that we have a right
to cast a vote.
Obviously, we had to win elections. So there is a very important
document without which I wouldn't be here, without which any of us
wouldn't be here: our election certificate. In my State, again, that
too is issued by the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, performing that
secretary of state function, that certifies the election results.
All three times I have been elected to the U.S. Senate, I have had to
produce that document, and that document has been sent by the
Lieutenant Governor of the State of Utah to the Secretary of the
Senate, who had to review that.
I had to produce ID when I showed up here in multiple forms. In fact,
I had to, just as everyone does, every time they start a new job as an
employee. If you are an American citizen, anytime you start new
employment with a new employer, you have to fill out a form. The form
is called the I-9. It is not just that you fill out the form. You have
to fill out the form, and you have to produce, yes, proof of
citizenship--because if you are not a U.S. citizen, then you have to
produce a visa, and you have to show that your visa status allows you
to have the type of employment from the employer that has hired you.
But even if you are just an American citizen, you have still got to
prove that.
And the I-9 and the requirements that go with it are very exacting.
As I recall, there are a few ways of proving that. You can prove it by
showing up with a U.S. passport. If you don't have a passport, as many
Americans don't, then you can show up with a birth certificate and a
government-issued photo ID. At some point there has been a Social
Security card involved, but not everybody I know carries around their
original Social Security card all the time. So there are other ways
that allow you to do it without the original Social Security card, but
there are other ways of doing it. But it is pretty exacting. And you
can't start the job unless or until you have proven who you are and
that you are a U.S. citizen.
Now, when we wrote the SAVE America Act, we allowed for those same
documents to be used in order to establish your citizenship. But we
didn't stop there because even that, in some circumstances, could be
more difficult for some people. So we made it even more flexible. Yes,
you can establish it by producing a U.S. passport, if in fact you have
one, if that U.S. passport establishes your citizenship; likewise, a
passport card, if you don't have the whole thing, and that establishes
your citizenship. You can do it by a REAL ID-compliant driver's
license, if that REAL ID-compliant driver's license also establishes
your citizenship conclusively, as some do and others do not. That will
also suffice. As with the I-9, you can also do it with the combination
of a birth certificate and a government-issued photo ID.
But in addition to all of those things, we also have some catchall
exceptions that cover all kinds of territory, including one of my least
favorite arguments but one of the most frequently arising arguments
that is made, that somehow this is going to disenfranchise women
everywhere, especially married women who obviously, at the time of
their birth, neither they nor their parents could have had any idea,
first of all, when or whether they might be getting married; secondly,
if and when they got married later, whether they would choose to take
on the last name of their husband, of the person they married, and what
that name would be.
This isn't really a problem. I mean, this actually happens all the
time in other contexts. Whether it is for your interaction with the
Internal Revenue Service, with the Social Security Administration, a
driver's license, there are all kinds of ways to deal with that. And
the SAVE America Act makes clear, if you have changed your name as a
result of getting married, obviously a marriage certificate will
suffice. If you change your name through some other mechanism, some
record of the change in circumstance, whether that is an adoption
certificate, a divorce decree that with it came another change of
names, you can supply that.
But it also contains something else that is available not just for
people who have changed their name but people in lots of other
circumstances in which, for whatever reason, they don't
[[Page S1153]]
have the documentation. So imagine, for instance, that you are somebody
who had changed your name upon getting married, but you can't find your
marriage certificate. No problem. We take care of that as part of the
same provision that we take care of those who may have lost all their
documentation of all their citizenship. Maybe their house burned down
yesterday and everything is gone. Poof, up in flames--it is gone. Maybe
your dog ate all of your documentation that you would otherwise use
when starting a new job and filling out your I-9 form. Maybe you never
had it to begin with. This bill takes care of it. We made clear of
that. We went out of our way to make sure that that would be the case.
In this legislation, the House-passed SAVE America Act that we
proceeded to just a few hours ago in the U.S. Senate, it can be found
at page 12, line 22. Or if you want to look at the Schmitt-Lee
substitute amendment that may be discussed later this week, it is on
page 14, line 17. Either way, the text says the same thing: If you
don't have the documentation, whether of a name change or of any of it,
you can supply it by a sworn statement that you yourself can fill out,
a sworn affidavit in which you provide the basic details surrounding
your birth, if you are a natural-born citizen of this country,
describing when and where you were born, to whom and so forth; or if
you are a naturalized citizen, the circumstances surrounding and dates
involved in your naturalization. You then hand it over to the State
election official who is in charge of those things, and it then becomes
the burden of the State to confirm or refute what you have submitted
under oath, under penalty of perjury, to do this, with the
understanding that if it checks out, if you are who you say you are,
you are still going to be able to register to vote and, in fact, cast a
vote, notwithstanding the fact that you may not have any of those
documents, either because your house burned down, your dog ate them, or
you never had them or otherwise.
So these arguments are not legitimate, and these arguments, which I
see made every single day--sometimes in this Chamber, sometimes on
social media or elsewhere--these are false arguments made with
knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard for their truthfulness
or both. And they are inexcusable. They do not carry water.
This is all about making it easy to vote and hard to cheat. We have
to do both. We must do both.
Now, getting back to what I was talking about a minute ago, when we
show up here, by the time we have shown up here, we have had to
establish who we are, our right to run for the U.S. Senate, and we have
to produce other documentation showing that we have, in fact, been
elected to the U.S. Senate.
When we do that, we also have to fill out the I-9 form here and
establish, again, that we are who we are, who we say we are, and that
we are, in fact, U.S. citizens. And if we do all of that right, then
they give us a sort of cheat code version of the documentation, this
pin right here.
I remember when I first got here, the day I was sworn in, January
2011, after my first election had occurred a few weeks earlier in
November of 2010, I stood right over there. I was sworn into the
Senate.
Right after I was sworn in, they had me sign a little book indicating
that I was, in fact, sworn in as a Senator, and they gave me a pen and
then they gave me this little pin. I wasn't sure what to think about
the pin. I am not really into accessories or jewelry, but it was in a
nice little box, and I wasn't sure what to do with it. Because I don't
wear such things frequently, I put it in a drawer of my desk and I
closed the drawer and I kind of forgot all about it.
After I had been here for a while, I commented to one of my
colleagues: Is it me or does everybody get carded a lot here?
When I first showed up, I had a great head of hair, by my standards
today. It is gone now. But I looked young. I was 39 years old when I
was elected to the Senate. In the Senate, being 39 can feel like you
are sort of like 12 years old or something like that.
I got carded a lot, in part, because I didn't--maybe I didn't yet
look like a Senator to them. In any event, they didn't recognize me as
a Senator, and I found, regularly, that I was having to pull out my ID,
you know my Senate ID, and the cops would look at it as I would
approach the building, make sure that the tamper-resistant strip was
intact, and they would say: Well, I guess we have got to let him in.
I commented to a colleague saying: How long will it take before I
stop getting carded every time I come into the Senate?
And this colleague said: Well, you got to wear the pin.
What pin?
Well, when you got sworn in, they gave you that little pin.
Then I remembered the little pin that came in the little jewelry box.
I put it in the desk drawer and I closed the drawer and I forgot all
about it.
I said: Why do I need to wear the pin?
They said: Well, the security personnel in and around the Capitol
recognize that pin because it is worn only by Senators, and it is sort
of like your portable ID badge. You won't have to get carded as much.
Ever since then, I have worn the lapel pin, and it works like a
charm. I have even named it. I call it my ``Sorry, Senator'' pin
because if I get carded, I point to it, and they say: Oh, sorry,
Senator. You can come on in.
I remember one day I was standing over there at one of those desks in
between two votes. I had one arm gently resting on the desk in front of
me. One of the nonuniformed security personnel came up to me and said
in a somewhat harsh tone of voice: Excuse me, sir. Will you please not
lean on the Senator's desk.
I, still being new, I was very sensitive to not want to do anything
wrong.
I said: I am terribly sorry. I will try not to put any weight on it--
because a lot of these desks are original equipment, which means they
are, you know, 150 years old or more, and we want to be careful with
them. I thought he was concerned about the fact that I had one arm
gently resting on the desk in front of me.
But the inquiry was not over. He wanted to interrogate a little bit
further. He then said: Are you with minority?
The Republicans--I am a Republican. We were in the minority party at
the time.
Are you with the minority?
I said: What do you mean, on this vote or the next? I often vote with
my party. Sometimes they get it wrong. Sometimes I don't vote with my
party. I am not sure why you are asking this.
He said: Are you with the minority leader?
And I said: Well, he is our leader. Why wouldn't I be with him? I
don't understand your question. Is this a loyalty test?
And then he asked me another question that made me realize what was
really going on.
He said: Are you part of the minority leader's staff?
Then I realized, oh, OK. That is why I am getting the third degree.
So I pointed to the ``Sorry, Senator'' pin, thinking that would be
the end of the inquiry. All it got me was a blank stare for some
reason.
And at that point, I realized what was happening, and I used my
title. I didn't want to use my title. I don't like to use my title. It
makes me feel uncomfortable to this day, even after 15, going on 16
years.
So I kind of mumbled the answer. I said: I am Senator Lee.
He said: What?
And I said: OK. My name is Mike Lee. I come from the State of Utah.
It is sort of squarish and chair-shaped. It is in the Rocky Mountains,
best snow on Earth, really well-known place to visit.
And then he realized what was happening and what I was saying. And he
said to me in one hurried breath: I am terribly sorry for the
misunderstanding, sir. My name is Steve if you want to report me.
And then before I could tell him it was OK, Steve was fast, and he
got out of Dodge. So he was too quick.
But from then on until the day he retired, I always said hello to
Steve, and I smiled. I said: Hi, Steve, just to make sure there were no
hard feelings because it was an honest mistake; it was not a big deal.
Steve retired a few years ago, and I miss him. Only recently it
occurred to me that his name is probably not Steve. Maybe Steve is
somebody he
[[Page S1154]]
worked with that he didn't like, but he was looking for that badge of
authenticity. And when he finally saw it and contextualized it, he
realized, yes, that is worn only by Senators. He can be here.
My point is this: In order for us to be here to make these decisions
in this building, in this Capitol, affecting 350, 360 million
Americans, we first have to prove that we are who we say we are and
that we have a right to be here to make those decisions. So, too, with
our elections.
We don't want people choosing those who will make laws on their
behalf unless they themselves are the people who are the people
referred to in the Constitution who get to make those decisions. So
let's get this right.
Let's not get it wrong. Let's not pretend that this is something that
it is not. It is fundamentally unfair and dishonest in every way,
shape, and form to refer to this as racist, misogynist, as voter
suppression. It is none of those things.
This is entirely about one thing, which is making sure that our
elections are secure, that they are legitimate, that they are fair. We
want to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.
Yes, we can have both of those things, and we must pursue both of
them or in the long run, we will have neither. We will have none of
them, and it will become a problem. So let's nip this thing in the bud,
and let's get this right.
Let's make it easy to vote, and let's make it hard to cheat.
Nothing short of chaos ensues if we don't have that, especially
whereas here we have an existing system of laws that make it so
unbelievably, undeniably easy for someone to lie with no further proof,
no proof of who they are, no proof of why it is that they have the
right to vote.
So how does that happen, and how do they justify it? One of the most
amusing, if bewildering, arguments that I hear--and I hear it all the
time and have since the day we first introduced the original SAVE Act
about 2 years ago--is that we don't need it. We don't need it. Why? Why
don't we need it? Because it is already illegal for noncitizens to
vote.
In fact, it is a felony offense. So we know it doesn't happen because
it is already against law.
Well, let's think about how that would work elsewhere. Let's take a
really familiar example. If you want to buy alcohol, you want to go
into a bar or convenience store, liquor store, you want to buy alcohol,
what can and should and must every American expect? To get carded.
Now, this is as a teetotaler something that I see mostly on TV and in
the movies, but I also see it in real life when I see somebody buying
something, something that I as a teetotaler don't drink, but you get
carded when you buy alcohol.
It doesn't matter where, you are going to get carded. It doesn't
matter how old you are, you are going to get carded.
Now, if it were acceptable there to say it is illegal for a minor to
buy alcohol or it is illegal for anyone to sell or otherwise give
alcohol to a minor, somebody who is too young to buy alcohol, somebody
who is not yet past the age of 21, so they don't do it, so we don't
need it because it is already unlawful--well, guess what would happen?
There would be a whole lot more procuring of alcoholic beverages in
retail establishments by people who are too young to drink. It would
happen left and right.
It would be folly to assume: Well, it is already illegal, so it
doesn't happen, so we don't need to do anything about it.
So what did we do? Well, we instituted a series of laws to make it so
that you have to show ID when you buy alcohol. It doesn't mean that
nobody can ever cheat to break their way through it. It doesn't mean
that some people don't figure out clever ways of getting a fake ID or
going through an intermediary, but there are more steps.
But to assume at the outset that it doesn't happen because it is
already illegal, regardless of whether you are taking any steps at all
to verify that somebody is who they claim to be and that they are
eligible to do the thing that they are trying to do is absolutely
ridiculous, and we cannot assume that our laws can be enforced,
especially against the backdrop of the vulnerabilities that I have
described.
The National Voter Registration Act, coupled with the 2015
interpretation by the Supreme Court in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council
of Arizona, coupled with the trend among States to issue driver's
licenses to noncitizens, with 19 of those States and the District of
Columbia issuing them openly, even to known illegal immigrants, and
then with an estimated 10 to 15 million Americans--some people think
more--coming into this country unlawfully just in the 4-year period
from 2021 to 2025, to say that we would be acting recklessly is a gross
understatement.
So, no, this is not some sort of subterfuge to engage in Jim Crow 2.0
any more than the Democratic National Convention or a Jon Ossoff
campaign rally is about Jim Crow 2.0--and shame on anyone who stoops to
that level of stupidity and dishonesty as to make that argument--nor is
this about voter suppression.
If this is about voter suppression, then literally any law that is
designed to make sure that there is no fraud, that there is no cheating
in elections, would also be voter suppression.
Now does it add a step? Yes, of course, but we add steps all the time
to make sure that we don't make it too easy, especially when it matters
for somebody to just go in and take something that doesn't belong to
them. And by taking something that belongs to others, cheapening it for
them, diminishing substantially the value of what those who actually
have that right, who own that thing--namely, U.S. citizenship--would
otherwise have access to, you are taking it from them. We can't allow
that to happen.
This is why I am proud to be the original author and sponsor in the
Senate of this bill, proud to have worked with my House counterpart
Congressman Chip Roy from the great State of Texas on this legislation.
We can get this done. And now that we are on the bill, we are going
to debate it. I look forward to hearing the debates. I look forward in
each and every instance to being able to refute the absurd arguments
against it because, let's face it, there is no legitimate reason to
oppose this bill. I stand by that, and I will continue to stand by that
in the coming days and weeks. And I am ready for many, many weeks.
We are going to stay on this bill until it damn well passes because
the American people demand and deserve nothing less than that. Our
Republic will not function, our country will not thrive unless we can
protect the sanctity of the elections that determine who makes the
laws, who sets the policy in this country.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can make it easy to
vote and hard to cheat at the same time. We can, we must, and together
we will.
We must pass the SAVE America Act.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
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