[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 49 (Wednesday, March 18, 2026)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1195-S1202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                SAFEGUARD AMERICAN VOTER ELIGIBILITY ACT


                                S. 1383

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, here we find ourselves today, a little over 
24 hours after we began consideration of the SAVE America Act, having 
passed the motion to proceed to that measure yesterday afternoon.
  It is important to me. I think it is important to the American 
people, who overwhelmingly support this measure and the policy changes 
it would bring about when enacted into law, that we keep our running 
tally of the arguments being raised against it. The arguments for and 
against it are and properly should be monitored by the American people 
so that they can see what is going on.
  This does, after all, impact them, and it impacts them in a way that 
goes beyond the run-of-the-mill piece of legislation.
  Everything we do potentially affects the American people one way or 
another, some things more than others. A simple sense of the Senate 
resolution declaring ``National Sofa Care Week'' might impact them less 
than something like raising taxes, for example.

  This one is, in some ways, upstream from all of those because the 
SAVE America Act deals with something very fundamental. It deals with 
the way that the citizens are able to interact with and influence their 
own government. Really, it is the fundamental premise of the founding 
of our Nation and the creation of our Republic.
  In many respects, the Declaration of Independence, whose birthday we 
are about to celebrate this year--we are nearly 250 years since we 
became our own country, since we declared independence. In the 
Declaration of Independence, in addition to kicking off the creation of 
the greatest civilization that human history has ever recorded, it also 
set out a vision for the type of Nation we aspire to become and, in 
fact, have become. It established a few basic principles. In many 
respects, the Declaration of Independence, while not quoted as often, 
while not celebrated as much, and while it is maybe a step or two 
detached from the day-to-day operation of the government--in some 
respects, the Declaration of Independence is itself the picture that we 
look at when we assess who we are as a country. The Constitution is the 
frame--the structure that holds it in place, that sets the boundaries--
but the Declaration provides the picture.
  The Declaration acknowledges the existence of popular sovereignty. It 
acknowledges the natural fundamental rights that God and nature's God 
lay before us; that acknowledges the fundamental truths about who we 
are and what government is in relation to us; that we have these self-
evident truths, these God-given rights to life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness; the understanding that government exists for the 
well-being of human beings and not the other way around; and that 
whenever government becomes destructive of those same ends--life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for example--it is the right, it 
is the duty, it is the obligation to alter or abolish that government 
and to establish something that will secure their freedoms.
  Some 11 years after that document was penned, after several years, we 
won the war against what was then the world's last-standing great 
superpower in a conflict that could be analogized to David and Goliath. 
We were not Goliath. We were David--we were the underdog of underdogs--
and, somehow, we managed to win that war. We established a form of 
government, after winning that war, under the Articles of 
Confederation.
  Instinctively, intuitively, we adopted a form of national government 
that was weak, that was meek, that was mild--in part because we had 
just come off of an experience with our mother country where we saw 
that the risk of tyranny was greater at the national level than it was 
at the local level. Meanwhile, during our Colonial period prior to the 
Revolution, we had had a taste of local self-rule in a way that was 
somewhat different than local government had been prior to that time 
back in the mother country. Given how far we were removed 
geographically, physically, in miles from the mother country, that by 
itself offered a degree of independence from our London-based 
government, and we became accustomed to it.
  The amount of muscle flexed by the mother country would wax and wane 
over time depending on what was happening back in London, throughout 
the British Isles, and throughout the British Empire during periods 
where there were a lot of debts to pay off often from wars waged on 
multiple continents. There were times when our British overseers became 
more aggressive in the way they regulated us, in the way especially 
that they collected taxes from us, and they became more of a brooding 
omnipresence during those seasons. It was during one of those seasons 
in which the American people had decided that they had had enough and 
that it was time to break our ties with the mother country and become 
our own country.
  So years passed. We won the war against all odds, against all 
expectations. We set up the Articles of Confederation instinctively, 
reflexively, creating a fairly weak form of national government, but it 
was so weak that it couldn't perform the basic functions that we needed 
a national government to perform, and it was that set of circumstances 
that led the individuals who would write the Constitution to try to 
come together.

[[Page S1196]]

  They tried to come together in 1786 in Annapolis. They couldn't form 
a quorum, so they abandoned that project. They reconvened the following 
year in the late spring of 1787. By the time they formed a quorum in 
1787, the heat of the season was upon them. It was unseasonably hot, 
and it was muggy as Philadelphia often is during that time of year. 
They labored through a process that was intense, that was itself a 
system that you might describe almost as flying a plane while building 
a plane. They came together initially, ostensibly, to amend the 
Articles of Confederation to correct some of these inadequacies--the 
inability of the national government to forestall the economic 
balkanization that had started to take place among the former 
Colonies--now States--and to deal with some of the defects of the 
Articles of Confederation.
  What came out from all of that was, of course, a completely new 
document; and it was a document that, I believe, was written by the 
hands of wise men raised up by Almighty God under that very purpose, 
but it preserved these basic tenets--the basic tenets of popular 
sovereignty, of natural rights that had been articulated so well in the 
Declaration of Independence--and it gave them substance; it gave them 
form. It put in place a structure that would be there to guarantee 
their endurance and to make them a reality.
  How is this relevant to the SAVE America Act? Well, it has everything 
to do with the SAVE America Act.
  In that Constitution--predicated on the Declaration of Independence--
we made clear that the people are, in fact, the sovereigns; that this 
is their government. It set up these three coordinate branches of 
government. One branch of government--the branch of government in which 
we operate--makes the laws. They understood this government from the 
outset to be the most powerful and the most dangerous because the other 
two operated, would operate, or were designed to operate in some ways 
ancillary to this one. They certainly understood that this was the most 
dangerous branch, and we know that because it is the branch of 
government most routinely subject to regular elections. Every Member of 
the House of Representatives is subject to reelection every 2 years, 
and a third of the Members of this body are, likewise, up for 
reelection every 2 years.
  So it is no accident--it is not a mere coincidence--that the Founding 
Fathers subjected us to the most regular elections because we are the 
most dangerous branch. We make the laws. The executive 
branch implements and executes and carries out those laws. The judicial 
branch resolves disputes over the meaning of the laws that we put in 
place where two or more parties can't agree as to what a particular 
provision of Federal law--whether it is statutory or constitutional--
might mean.

  For all of this to work, popular sovereignty has to be maintained, 
and that means a close, tight connection to the American people 
themselves. These elections matter. It is one of the reasons why, in 
article I of the Constitution--the part of the Constitution that sets 
up the legislative branch--it gives the Congress the power to establish 
rules with some significant limitations but rules nonetheless that 
would apply nationwide with respect to the election of Federal 
officials--of Members of the House of Representatives and Members of 
the Senate. Those rules would need to have nationwide application 
because they involved, distinctively, national lawmaking powers. That 
is why we have the power to operate here to begin with.
  If at any point the Federal Government generally or in particular at 
this particular branch of government becomes untethered from the will 
of the people--from the elections and the decisions made in those 
elections concerning those who serve in the Congress of the United 
States, whether in the House or in the Senate--we have a problem. To 
the extent that our elections for these Federal offices lose their 
legitimacy--actual or perceived or a combination of the two--we end up 
with problems because the government itself starts to lose its 
legitimacy. And it is not just that, well, it is one of the three 
branches that is in question in this part of the conversation. It is 
that this is the wellspring of everything else that happens within the 
U.S. Government. What happens in the executive branch and what happens 
in the judicial branch are in many respects downstream from what 
happens in this body, in this building, whose job it is to make laws.
  So that is where the SAVE America Act comes into play, but it comes 
into play after decades of Congress previously adopting laws, enacting 
laws, putting laws in place that somewhat altered the landscape for how 
elections or, at least, Federal elections are carried out.
  One of those pivotal moments that we have to keep in mind as we 
discuss the SAVE America Act is a law that was passed in 1993--a law 
that really without which we wouldn't be here today having this 
discussion. The law passed in 1993 to which I am referring to is the 
National Voter Registration Act--the NVRA, also known as the motor 
voter law.
  What it does is it allows people in the United States and in any 
State that participates in the NVRA process--nearly all the States do, 
with only a very small handful of holdouts. An overwhelming, super, 
supermajority of the American population lives in those States that 
participates in it. It allows people in those participating States, 
when they apply for a driver's license--it is something that was 
unheard of, something that wouldn't have existed because none of the 
technology existed for it at the time of the American founding but 
that, today, is more or less ubiquitous among the adult, voting age 
American population--a driver's license. So the NVRA allows people, 
when applying for a driver's license in an NVRA-participating State, to 
show up at a DMV, and as they are filling out their driver's license 
application, they may simultaneously register to vote.
  The reason Congress had authority to do that was because of our 
authority under article I of the Constitution to set up rules governing 
these Federal elections to which I refer. It was a fairly simple 
concept, and it has been successful in many ways in helping a lot of 
people register to vote. There is some natural appeal to it in that a 
lot of the same information that a person has to supply in order to 
apply for a driver's license is information similar to what one 
supplies when registering to vote. So there seems to be a nice symmetry 
for it, and it has resulted in a whole lot of people registering to 
vote.
  A few things have changed in our laws and in our society since that 
law was adopted some 33 years ago. One of the things that has changed 
is that we do have a lot more noncitizens residing in this country 
right now than we did then or perhaps at any time in American history. 
Some 30 million-plus noncitizens reside in the United States.
  Between 2021 and 2025 alone, some 10 to 15 million people entered our 
country unlawfully during the Biden administration. That was a very 
significant development--a development that came about as another trend 
was also developing--a trend in which, in nearly every State, you can 
now apply for and receive a driver's license even if you are not a 
citizen of the United States. In 19 of those States, plus the District 
of Columbia, you may apply for and receive a driver's license even if 
you are a known illegal immigrant--someone who is in this country 
unlawfully. In 19 States, plus the District of Columbia, you can apply 
for and receive a driver's license.
  Something else happened in the intervening time period. Twenty years 
after the NVRA was passed by Congress, the Supreme Court of the United 
States--the highest Court of the land that sits just across the street 
from us--decided a case, a case called Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council 
of Arizona.
  And in that case, the Supreme Court did something that I still find 
puzzling, that I still find wrong--something that made the SAVE America 
Act very, very necessary. So I want to talk about that case for a 
minute and how that relates to this law, and why the reference to that 
law is so important in refuting some of the arguments that are made 
against this bill, because one of the arguments that you hear is we 
don't need the SAVE America Act. We don't need it because Federal law 
already prohibits noncitizens from voting, and so it doesn't happen. Or 
if it does happen, it is exceedingly rare, so much so that it almost 
never happens--more than likely to get struck by lightning twice while 
standing in the same place than

[[Page S1197]]

you are to see noncitizens voting, so the argument goes.
  And the argument goes: Therefore, this legislation is not necessary. 
Go on with your lives, citizens. Don't worry about this. ``These aren't 
the droids you're looking for.'' Whatever argument you want to make 
from it, that is kind of what they say.
  It doesn't wash. In fact, we can reach exactly the opposite 
conclusion of that.
  Let's get back to this decision made by the Supreme Court in 2013, 
Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona. In that case, the Supreme 
Court of the United States ruled that States are prohibited from 
requiring proof of citizenship from those registering to vote in 
Federal elections using an NVRA supplied form, which is the form 
available at DMV locations across all of America, at least in those 
participating States, which are nearly all of the States.
  Now, this holding is problematic, especially considering, in many 
places, you are dealing with States that, even if they have reason to 
believe they might be registering people who are not citizens of this 
country, they still can't ask for documentary proof or any evidence of 
citizenship because the Supreme Court concluded that this was preempted 
out, that it was taken off the table, made something beyond the 
authority of the States under this law.
  It becomes doubly problematic in light of the fact that it is a 
relatively recent trend or at least a trend that most people haven't 
been familiar with until fairly recently. There are some places 
throughout the country in which noncitizens are fully permitted to vote 
in certain non-Federal elections, more typically in the context of 
local elections in certain States, including California, Maryland, 
Vermont, and the District of Columbia.
  And so while explicitly permitting noncitizen voting in that 
context--while doing that--you are registering people to vote in those 
elections who are not eligible to vote in Federal elections. So that 
raises the question: What steps, if any, are they taking to separate 
out those ballots, those voter registrations for people who are known 
noncitizens of the United States, making them eligible to vote in some 
of these local elections in those jurisdictions like California, 
Maryland, DC, and in Vermont? What are they doing to make sure that 
those same voters in those voter registrations are not able to vote in 
Federal elections?
  So why not have those jurisdictions certify that those voting in 
State-run Federal elections are, in fact, U.S. citizens and that they 
have excluded all noncitizen voters registered in those jurisdictions 
from voting in any Federal election? Why not enter into cooperative 
agreements, for example, with the Federal Government, allowing the 
relevant Federal Agencies to verify citizenship of anyone registered to 
vote, at least for purposes of voting in a Federal election?
  But the Democrat-run governments in those jurisdictions refuse to do 
this. In fact, more than half the States have currently entered into 
memoranda of understanding with the Federal Government, with Federal 
Agencies allowing for this cooperation to take place. But these 
Democratic States refuse to enter into any such MOUs.
  So while Democrats argue Federal law prohibits noncitizen voting and 
insist that noncitizen voting is not just rare but exceedingly rare, so 
rare that we shouldn't even consider it cognizable in this Chamber, it 
remains unknown--and, in many instances, unknowable--how many illegal 
votes are being counted in Federal elections or how many illegal votes 
cast by noncitizens might be cast in any future Federal election, 
including the midterm congressional elections taking place this 
November.
  There is currently no mechanism to verify the citizenship status of 
those registered to vote, and that is what this legislation was 
designed to provide--to fill this gap left quite inadvisably and 
unnecessarily by the Supreme Court of the United States in Arizona v. 
Inter Tribal Council of Arizona.
  Now, look, that interpretation of the NVRA was wrong. This Congress 
did not preempt out State authority to verify citizenship in the NVRA. 
It didn't speak to that; nor did it so preempt the field that one could 
look at it and reasonably conclude that that is what it did. The 
Supreme Court was wrong. Nonetheless, a majority of the Supreme Court 
did reach that conclusion, and it remains the conclusive authority on 
that.
  My former boss Justice Alito wrote a beautiful, masterful dissent, 
like so many others that he has issued. Nonetheless, this remains the 
holding of the Court, and it remains the law of the land to this very 
day, and that is why we are here.
  So Federal law prohibits noncitizen voting, yes, but a prohibition 
without a reliable verification process is an incomplete safeguard. In 
fact, it almost is at risk of becoming dead-letter law in much the same 
way it would be if--I don't know--other laws, for example, prohibiting 
the sale of alcohol to underage purchasers, if that too ran on the 
honor system, because, ultimately, that is how this NVRA form works. 
After this Supreme Court decision in 2013, all a person need do is go 
into a DMV, say, ``I want to apply for a driver's license,'' fill out 
the form, and here is what their proof of citizenship looks like. It 
consists of checking a box saying: Yes, I would like to register to 
vote, and then signing their name, certifying that, yes, I am eligible 
to vote. Nothing to see here, no worries. ``These aren't the droids 
you're looking for.'' Go on with your lives.
  That doesn't work, and it wouldn't work the same way if we borrow, by 
analogy, my point about underage drinking--if all you had to do is go 
into--I don't know--a 7-Eleven or a liquor store or wherever people buy 
alcohol these days and say: I am old enough to buy alcohol.
  The kid is maybe 12, doesn't have to shave, never even looked at a 
razor, and has got a high-pitched voice that hasn't even started to 
crack yet. All he has to do is check a box and sign his name. He is 
home free.
  It would then be almost impossible to detect, almost impossible to 
punish, in law. So you can have a law on the books, but if you leave no 
mechanism for the detection of violations or for any type of 
enforcement when a violation occurs, the law becomes more or less dead 
letter.
  That would be bad in any society that decides it is a bad idea to 
sell alcohol to children. It is not really heading in a good place. It 
doesn't lead to good policy outcomes. That would be bad.
  But I think it has got to be infinitely worse when that law deals not 
with just a general issue of public policy, as underage drinking does, 
but is at the very headwaters of all other Federal law because this 
determines the citizens' relationship with their national government.
  If they are no longer in charge of it but somebody else is going to 
be, you are allowing, in effect, and inviting foreign election 
interference in U.S. elections. That is a big problem. We have spent a 
lot of time, expended a lot effort in this body, talking about the risk 
of foreign election interference in U.S. elections. I can think of no 
greater risk of foreign election interference than that which is 
occasioned by the NVRA and the Supreme Court's interpretation of it and 
the circumstances we have now, in which almost every State issues 
driver's licenses to noncitizens--including close to half of them 
issuing freely even to known illegal aliens, when we have got 30 
million-plus noncitizens living in this country, 10 or 15 million of 
whom entered in the country unlawfully in the 4-year period between 
2021 and 2025 alone.

  This is a recipe for disaster, and we are kidding ourselves. We are 
lying to our constituents if we pretend otherwise.
  Look, the core issue is not whether the law against noncitizen voting 
exists. It does. It is whether there are consistent, enforceable 
mechanisms to confirm eligibility, because if there are not, this law 
is fake, and it can't protect us; it can't protect anybody.
  Pointing to an existing prohibition really misses the real issue: 
verification and enforcement. A law on the books is only as strong as 
the system used to enforce it. Federal law might prohibit noncitizen 
voting, but without reliable verification and cooperation between the 
States and the Federal Government and a reasonable mechanism by which 
the Federal Government may gain access to or insight into the voter 
registration files to verify, to

[[Page S1198]]

confirm, as to whether or not compliance is taking place, then that 
prohibition is not going to be enforced--certainly, not meaningfully 
enforced, not consistently, not reliably. So much so that, over time, 
the legitimacy and the perception of legitimacy of those elections is 
going to be badly impaired, and that is precisely where things stand 
today.
  This decision in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona created 
this massive structural gap. States administer Federal elections, like 
they do all elections. We don't want, we don't need, we never had, we 
never will have wholesale Federal election authority. This is 
appropriately left to the States.
  But as has been the case since the dawn of the Republic, we are 
allowed to make rules in the form of laws that govern what happens 
specifically in the conduct of Federal elections, elections for Federal 
office. That decision left States administering Federal elections 
without consistent tools to verify citizenship at the time of 
registration or subsequently.
  And, meanwhile, you have got these jurisdictions I have referenced--
including California; Washington, DC; Maryland; and Vermont--permitting 
noncitizens to vote in certain local elections. Well, those policies 
are limited to non-Federal elections on their face because otherwise 
they would be trampling on Federal law. They make it even more 
important to maintain clear, verifiable distinctions between those 
voter rolls used for local elections versus those that are going to be 
used in Federal elections. That clear separation and that possibility 
of verification between voter rolls is important. In fact, it is of 
such tantamount importance that it warrants us having this discussion 
today and requires us, as it were, to pass this law. It morally compels 
us to do so.
  So this current system relies far too heavily on self-attestation, 
just a basic honor code. ``You are on your honor'' system--don't make 
it up--on fragmented State processes.
  Instead of this fragmented and insufficient process, States should be 
anxious to make full use of cooperative verification tools such as 
data-sharing agreements or memoranda of understanding with Federal 
Agencies to confirm citizenship status where legally permissible.
  That is what Utah has done. It is also what nearly every Republican-
majority State in the whole country has done.
  And yet the Democrat States--the blue States--refuse defiantly. That 
should tell us something.
  And this is where the policy disagreement that is at the heart of 
this discussion becomes even clearer. While some States have pursued 
data-sharing arrangements and verification partnerships with Federal 
Agencies, others--led by Democrats--have refused to adopt these tools, 
defiantly so. This is cause for great alarm.
  Even if improper or fraudulent noncitizen voting is rare, the absence 
of uniform verification means that we cannot even measure it with any 
degree of confidence. And that, in turn, means we have no idea whether 
the problem is great or small, or as some implausibly suggested, 
nonexistent. And that uncertainty itself undermines trust, and that 
trust is at the core of any system of government that relies on self-
rule. Certainly, any constitutional republic founded on democratic 
principles, like ours, cannot afford and must never experiment with 
anything that can detract from that.
  This legislation would close that gap by strengthening verification 
mechanisms, encouraging consistent cooperation, and ensuring that 
Federal election rules are backed by enforceable processes--not just 
assumptions, not just faith and hope that everything will turn out well 
because, after all, nobody is going to do anything bad.
  Well, we know through sad experience and through an understanding of 
the human condition that faith, hope, and trust without any 
verification are no adequate system for any form of government.
  We see it depicted everywhere, and we have heard it recited from 
great Presidents throughout history, including most recently Presidents 
like Ronald Reagan have talked about the need to trust but verify.
  We see it in architecture and the art of this building--constant 
reminders that we are to trust but verify.
  On the balustrade designed by Constantino Brumidi just one floor 
beneath us right outside of this Chamber, there is this great bronze 
depiction of a cherub, an angel. On one side of the angel, we see a 
snake; on the other side, we see a dove. To me, that has always 
conjured biblical images of Jesus' admonition to be wise as serpents 
but harmless as doves.
  We see it in Statuary Hall, the old House Chamber--Enrico Causici's 
classic sculpture called ``Liberty and the Eagle.'' You have this angel 
with her right arm outstretched, holding a scroll, which we presume to 
be the Constitution--maybe the Declaration; maybe both. I don't know. 
On one side of her, there is an eagle preparing to take flight. On the 
other side, there is a bundle of sticks--known in architectural and 
artistic terms as a fasces. It is the symbol of ``e pluribus unum,'' 
that we are stronger than the sum of our parts. Normally, the fasces is 
bound up by leather straps or ropes. This one is bound up with a snake. 
It is another of these conjured biblical images--wise as serpents, 
harmless as doves.
  It is something buried deep within our DNA as Americans. It is 
something that inheres in any constitutional republic like ours--trust 
but verify. Be wise as serpents but harmless as doves.
  In the Book of Matthew, some of this stuff can be found in the 
teachings of Jesus and within the same sequence of verses that tell us 
to beware of wolves in sheep's clothing--again, the importance of 
remembering to trust but verify.
  So the concern is not simply that noncitizen voting is or might be or 
might later become widespread but that the absence of uniform 
verification standards makes it difficult to impossible to measure, 
detect, or confidently rule out ineligible participation.
  Fraudulent votes--cast by voters who may or may not be nice people, 
may or may not be friendly to the United States, may or may not be 
agents of a foreign power but are not citizens and are thus prohibited 
from voting in our elections. In that context, the legislation is 
framed as a preventive measure strengthening verification, improving 
transparency, and increasing public confidence in Federal elections.
  Look, if States are going to administer Federal elections, which they 
do, and I hope they always will, they should meet, they must meet 
certain baseline standards for verifying voter eligibility--including 
cooperation with Federal data systems where appropriate.
  Even if noncitizen voting turns out to be rare, the current system 
makes it difficult or impossible to detect that with any degree of 
confidence. Even if it were rare today--a point that I am not willing 
to concede--we have no guarantee that it would remain rare for very 
long. Why would it remain so when it is so easy to carry out this form 
of illegal voting with virtually no chance of detection, apprehension, 
or penalty as a result?
  A law that strengthens verification and ensures consistent 
cooperation is not redundant; it is not unnecessary; it is not a 
nuisance. It is a necessary, indispensable step to make existing 
prohibitions enforceable and credible.
  So what else did they argue? Well, they have a whole bunch of 
arguments. One of the arguments that they make goes something like 
this. It relies on the fact that in 2023, the Brennan Center for 
Justice partnered with VoteRiders, the Center for Democracy and Civic 
Engagement at the University of Maryland, and Public Wise to survey 
Americans about what identification they possess and what they know 
about voter ID laws in their State.
  They asked respondents whether they had documents that proved their 
citizenship--a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers, 
as the case may be--whether they had them and whether they had them 
readily available.
  Their research indicated that more than 9 percent of American 
citizens of voting age, or 21.3 million people, don't have proof of 
citizenship readily available. Now, they note that there could be many 
reasons for this--that documents might be in the home of another family 
member or in a safe deposit box. At least 3.8 million--or so they 
concluded--don't have these documents at all, often because they were 
lost, destroyed, or stolen.

[[Page S1199]]

  So on that basis, some are arguing that the SAVE America Act, if 
enacted, would somehow disenfranchise 20 million or so Americans. Well, 
let's see if we can disentangle this argument so we can respond to it.
  I have some questions.
  First, did the Brennan Center verify the citizenship of the 
respondents? What if only noncitizens responded to the survey? If that 
were the case, then certainly those folks wouldn't have access to those 
documents that prove citizenship because they wouldn't be citizens.
  Second, let's assume that they positively verified the citizenship of 
those surveyed. Even if that were the case and even if those surveyed 
did not have access to the documents noted in the survey, it would not 
change the reality that this legislation does not disenfranchise them 
or anyone who is a citizen or keep any citizen from registering to 
vote.

  The bill allows for use of more than just the documents noted in the 
survey, and importantly, it includes multiple fail-safe mechanisms to 
provide flexibility and to ensure that those who may not have their 
documents due to whatever mishap or misfortune they may have 
encountered--to make sure that they can still register to vote with the 
help of an affidavit submitted to an election official, an affidavit 
setting forth the basic facts surrounding their birth if they are 
natural-born citizens or surrounding their naturalization if they are 
naturalized citizens.
  So to the Brennan Center and to those organizations and individuals 
who have been peddling this false narrative of voter suppression and 
disenfranchisement--which, remember, is a really aggressive claim 
suggesting that 20, 21 million Americans will be disenfranchised if 
this becomes law--that is a lie. That is an absolute lie. It is just 
not true.
  To those peddling this lie, I strongly suggest--I implore you to 
check your cross tabs, verify your survey participants, do your 
homework, and more than anything, even if you don't spend any time with 
the survey at all or inspect the methodology, read the bill.
  If you just read the bill, you will see right there in black and 
white, in plain English, in the bill now before us that was recently 
passed by the House of Representatives that we proceeded to yesterday--
go to page 12, line 22. Right there in black and white, you will see 
this is so much easier than anyone is making it out to be.
  Those who are lying about the bill are ignoring this provision 
altogether because whether you are missing one document or you are 
missing all of them, either because your house burned down or your dog 
ate them or you never had them to begin with or you belong to some 
religious sect that doesn't allow you to keep such documents in the 
home--I don't know if such religious beliefs exist, but if they do, 
somebody might raise them. They can still get around this because all 
they have to do is, when they register to vote, swear on an affidavit 
setting forth the basic facts behind their citizenship, and the burden 
then shifts to the State election official to confirm or refute those 
basic assertions to which they have sworn under penalty of perjury are 
true, and they can carry it from there. You don't have to shell out a 
dime. You don't have to go back to grandma's house and dig through a 
mountain of documents in order to find the magic documents.
  Now, I will note here that there are other circumstances in which you 
have to prove who you are. There are other circumstances in which 
Americans routinely are required to not only show who they are with a 
photo ID but to prove their U.S. citizenship.
  Perhaps the most common of these can be found in the form known as 
the I-9. Any American who has ever worked as an employee has filled out 
an I-9. You cannot get a job and begin new employment as an employee 
without filling out the I-9. When you fill out the I-9, the I-9 is 
very, very prescriptive, and it is very strict.
  There are a few ways you can establish citizenship. One is through a 
U.S. passport establishing the fact of your citizenship. If you don't 
have a U.S. passport, as many people don't, you can supply a birth 
certificate and, with the birth certificate, a form of government-
issued photo ID. In some instances, a social security card gets 
factored in. But it is very rigid. It is very prescriptive.
  It is very, very important for us to remember that this is far easier 
than anything in connection with the I-9 form.
  So if you have ever had a job, you have already had to prove your 
citizenship, if you are an American citizen, before starting that job, 
and you have had to do so under a set of standards far more exacting, 
far less forgiving, far less permissive than what we are dealing with 
right here.
  So this whole argument about 21 million people being 
disenfranchised--well, I mean, even 1 person being disenfranchised--it 
is a lie. You have to willfully, consciously disregard and lie about 
the existence of the text beginning on page 12, line 22 of this bill.
  Another argument that gets raised is that the right to vote is 
constitutionally protected as a right and it should not be restricted 
by requiring documentation. Now, this is an interesting argument. There 
are lots of constitutional protections that we have. Yes, we have 
multiple constitutional protections that deal in one way or another 
with the right to vote. Voting is important. The Constitution not only 
protects that, but it is built around your right to vote. But it 
doesn't mean, it can't mean, has never meant, and will never mean that 
the government can't take steps to make sure that people are voting 
lawfully and that they are entitled to vote. To suggest otherwise would 
make a mockery of all elections.
  The fact is that we have done everything we can to make this bill 
comply with our mantra: Let's make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.
  There are some in this body who are perfectly content with forgetting 
the second half of that equation altogether and saying anything that 
makes it anything other than easy to vote must be unconstitutional 
because it is a constitutionally protected right.
  It is hard to identify a single constitutional right that is not 
without some limitation dealing with, among other things, curtailing 
the risk of fraud, of manipulating a right to harm or injure others.
  There are plenty of other constitutionally protected rights where you 
have to comply with steps in order to exercise them. The Second 
Amendment, for example, protects your right to bear arms. Yet, if you 
want to buy a firearm from any federally licensed firearms dealer, you 
have to fill out a fairly onerous set of forms; you have to prove who 
you are; you have to establish under penalty of perjury that you are 
entitled to own a gun, that you don't fall under any of the prohibited 
categories under 18 U.S.C. section 922(g), either as a convicted felon, 
as somebody who has been declared by a court of competent jurisdiction 
to be mentally insane, as an alien illegally or unlawfully inside the 
United States, or any of the other categories of prohibited persons 
under 18 U.S.C. section 922(g).
  You have to submit this information with a government-issued photo 
ID, and then you have to wait--sometimes minutes, sometimes hours--in 
order for a background check to be completed.
  Is this a burden on your Second Amendment right to bear arms? Yes, 
but it doesn't make it unconstitutional--just like whatever incremental 
burden that you face in establishing that you are who you say you are 
and that you are entitled to vote in Federal elections doesn't undo 
your constitutional right to vote. And it doesn't make this 
unconstitutional that we are just making sure that we don't make a 
mockery of our own elections.
  (Mr. RICKETTS assumed the Chair.)
  So the fact that something is a constitutionally protected right 
doesn't mean that you have a right to do it in a completely uninhibited 
manner. I don't know anyone who believes that. I don't think I have 
ever heard anyone make that argument here in this Chamber--at least not 
seriously. And, in fact, making it easy to cheat directly undermines 
the very same right that these people purport to be espousing because 
it undermines the right of law-abiding Americans to cast their vote and 
to not have their vote diluted, offset, rendered meaningless by 
noncitizen voting.
  We just want to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. We can and we 
must accomplish both. We can't skip over either one.

[[Page S1200]]

  Another argument is that the SAVE America Act somehow violates what 
they refer to as States' rights, which is a term I hate. It is a 
misnomer. States don't have rights; States have authority. Authority is 
the opposite of a right. A right is a privilege against authority, 
whether by a State, by the Federal sovereign, or otherwise.
  So States don't have rights. I don't like it. It conjures George 
Wallace images, and it is a complete misnomer. So let's refer to that 
as federalism, State sovereign authority, the relationship between the 
States and the Federal Government, whatever you want. Don't call it 
States' rights. But a lot of people are calling it that.
  And the people calling it that this week are the people opposed to 
this bill for completely ridiculous reasons that overlook the purpose 
of the bill, the text of the bill, and the constitutional structure in 
which we find it.
  Look, States work to protect individual rights, with the authority 
granted to them by their State Constitution and within the bounds set 
by the U.S. Constitution. And, unfortunately, Federal law currently 
prevents States from using this authority to protect voters and the 
integrity of our elections when it comes to protecting the rights of 
voters by excluding noncitizen voter participation.
  This law that we have been referring to is an existing Federal law, 
the NVRA--the National Voter Registration Act--which the Supreme Court 
decided prohibits the States from requiring proof of citizenship, even 
though the statute itself says nothing about that. That is the Supreme 
Court's conclusive, binding interpretation of it.
  It needs to be changed in response to this ruling. It is a statutory 
interpretation, not a constitutional one, so we have the power to do 
that. It doesn't require a constitutional amendment--just a simple act 
of Congress--to do it.
  So what I am saying is that, for those invoking federalism, the 
sovereign authority of the States, it is just nonsense. This is absurd. 
If what they are saying is that the Federal Government has no place 
operating here because it involves elections and elections are 
conducted by States, even when they involve Federal office, then the 
true remedy there would be then let's undo the NVRA because the NVRA is 
a Federal law that imposes obligations on States.
  Nobody is calling for that. I am not calling for that here. But what 
I am saying is you can't accept the NVRA as law, which we all do, and 
simultaneously say that Congress may not make laws governing the 
election of Federal officials because that might infringe on the 
authority of the States. That is an absurd argument.
  The only reason this bill became necessary is because we have an 
existing Federal law that has been badly interpreted, is prohibiting 
the States from making any inquiry into a voter's identity and 
citizenship, thus thwarting the purpose of Federal laws prohibiting 
noncitizen voting.
  Here is another charge. This is an interesting one. Another 
accusation, another argument being raised against the SAVE America Act 
is that this legislation would establish a private right of action that 
could be used to penalize hard-working election workers. OK. That 
sounds scary to a lot of people if you don't do any inquiry, if you 
don't do any digging into what the law actually says because what we 
all imagine when we hear that--we think of these great people, whether 
they are employed full time by the State or whether they work during 
election season, either to help people register to vote or help them 
cast their vote or otherwise, and it would seem unfair to put them in 
the position where they could become subject to litigation over it.
  But when you look into what the law actually says and the context in 
which it arises, it is not scary at all. It would be scary if we didn't 
have it. It would be unthinkable to not have it because otherwise the 
law could become completely meaningless and unenforceable, absent some 
sprawling Federal bureaucracy, which we are all loathe to create 
another one of those.
  The fact is that private rights of action against election workers 
engaging in voter fraud already exist under Federal law--the same set 
of Federal laws that we are amending and that we were required to amend 
in this very act, making the SAVE America Act necessary to begin with. 
Those private rights of action already exist under these existing 
Federal laws. This provision in the SAVE America Act merely extends the 
same provision that exists elsewhere in the NVRA to violations of the 
additional requirements of this legislation. And it would be insane not 
to do it because, again, we would render that dead letter, just as we 
are rendering dead letter the criminal prohibition against noncitizen 
voting. That is not an argument against this bill; it is an argument 
for it.
  Another argument is that Americans are simply not comfortable with 
government management of personal information for use in the database 
that would be used to help give meaning to all this: the Department of 
Homeland Security's SAVE system. This is a really interesting argument.
  Look, the information that the Federal Government uses to verify 
citizenship is already in the Federal Government's hands. It is already 
available for its use. The State voter data is not fully made available 
to the Federal Government under existing law but should be in order to 
verify the citizenship of those voting in State-run Federal elections.
  The U.S. Government is the only entity on planet Earth that has data 
already whereby we can ascertain the citizenship or lack thereof of 
anyone in this country; and it would be an absolute absurdity, an 
absolute shame, an absolute miscarriage of justice to say that the 
Federal Government can't use that, it can't maintain that database, and 
it can't use it in such a way as to prohibit noncitizen voter 
participation in the context of Federal elections. This is absolutely 
crazy.

  Now, if we want to start talking about the Federal Government having 
too much data about us, look, join the club. Sign me up for that 
parade. It bothers me too. But it is really absurd to say that this one 
can't be used, especially because the citizenship data is already 
there. The Federal Government has already got all kinds of information 
on you, on me, on every one of us--more than I wish it had. But if 
there is anything, any set of data the Federal Government ought to have 
and maintain and be able to use, it is data on who is a citizen and who 
is not. Show me any American who believes otherwise, any American 
outside of this building, and I will be shocked.
  Another argument is that the SAVE system is somehow a DOGE-like 
system, given to the same Department that runs ICE. Oh, horrors.
  Look, for people who think that we should have immigration laws but 
we can't enforce them, it makes perfect sense why they want to oppose 
the SAVE America Act. They want to render vestigial our criminal 
prohibitions against noncitizen voting, just like they want to render 
vestigial our immigration laws.
  In any event, this is a terribly misleading correlation. The SAVE 
system verifies citizenship and highlights ineligible voters. 
Citizenship verification happens across government. It does happen. It 
will continue to happen. It must happen. That is one of the fundamental 
duties of any government is to know and have access to information to 
ascertain whether somebody is a citizen. Verifying citizenship through 
the SAVE system would protect Federal voters, would protect actual 
American citizens who are allowed to vote while noncitizens are not.
  Another argument: Well, if you don't have a passport, you won't be 
able to vote. And passports cost money. You are going to have to shell 
out close to 200 bucks in order to get one, and this is going to end up 
disenfranchising everybody who doesn't have a passport. This is one of 
the most pernicious lies in the entire pantheon of paranoid-fantasy-
derived lies against the SAVE America Act.
  See page 14, line 15, of the bill. If you don't have documentation, 
you don't have a problem. Page 14, line 15, is in the substitute 
amendment. In the text of the original House-passed vehicle which we 
are now considering, I believe that is on page 12, line 22.
  Again, maybe your house burnt down and all your documents burned with 
the house. Maybe your dog ate your passport, your birth certificate, 
and every other document or maybe all that stuff got stolen when you 
went to Europe or Mexico. Maybe your Aunt Madge took off with all of 
them before

[[Page S1201]]

she went crazy and sent all of it to the dry cleaners and then ended up 
having all of it burned for some inexplicable reason.
  No worries. Even if all that happens to you, there is this 
attestation process administered by State officials to put the burden 
back on the State--not on you--without a single additional document 
other than what you provide to them in the form of a sworn affidavit, 
made under penalty of perjury. You put the obligation on them to 
complete the process without a single scrap of official additional 
documentation.
  Another argument is the SAVE America Act would somehow disenfranchise 
millions of citizens, including and especially women and persons of 
color. Look, no one--no one in this body, Democrat or Republican, 
should ever disrespect the dignity of racial minorities or women by 
claiming that they are somehow incapable of obtaining an ID and proof 
of citizenship. An ID is necessary in daily life to drive a car, to get 
a job, to board a plane, to open a bank account, or even to attend the 
Democratic National Convention.
  Yes, you have to show who you are. Yes, you have to prove that you 
have the right to be there, to attend and participate in the Democratic 
National Convention. No, you will not get in; no, you will not be able 
to participate in that because you don't have the right to do that. You 
have to have the proper documentation to prove who you are.
  So if this is somehow Jim Crow, then so, too, is the Democratic 
Party, the party which, after all, is the original gangster behind the 
Jim Crow movement. So this is stunning to me that anyone from that 
party, the party of Jim Crow, the party that subjected so many millions 
of Americans, over so many decades, to hateful, racist laws, 
prohibiting them from participating in the most basic activities of 
human existence, let alone their participation in civic life, in 
government, in education--for them to call this Jim Crow is 
inexcusable. It is illogical. It does not reflect well on them, and 
shame on anyone who makes that comparison because that is not what that 
is.
  Moreover, the soft bigotry of low expectations comes into play in 
here and to every woman and to every racial minority I know is deeply, 
deeply offensive. Shame on anyone who makes this argument. It is not 
credible.
  Mr. President, I have been passed a note from my friend and colleague 
the distinguished Senator from Minnesota. The distinguished Senator 
from Minnesota needs to speak.
  I don't know whether this is in the form of a question to the 
speaker--
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Just finish.
  Mr. LEE. May I proceed? Thank you.
  Mr. President, another accusation, another argument that is being 
made here that is quite spurious and that just isn't accurate is that 
U.S. elections are already free and they are already fair and so we 
don't need to mess with them; that we shouldn't mess with them; that if 
we do anything to mess with them, that will upset that.
  Well, yes, look, Americans are promised free and fair elections. That 
means that the elections should be rid of any election fraud and any 
voter suppression because an election isn't free and it isn't fair if, 
in fact, we allow people who don't have the right to vote to vote, 
especially if we set in motion a sequence of events that will 
inevitably culminate in not just a few but ultimately thousands, then 
tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions of noncitizens 
to vote in these elections. This is not hyperbole, with an estimated 
30-plus million noncitizens in this country and with nearly every State 
freely issuing driver's licenses to noncitizens--19 States plus the 
District of Columbia issuing them to even known illegal aliens.
  And all you have to do is fill out the form and check the box and 
sign your name at the bottom. No problem. ``These aren't the droids 
you're looking for.'' I am just fine.
  You think nobody is going to do that? You think a lot of people 
aren't going to do that? Shame on all of us if you fall for that. That 
is absurd.
  The threat of noncitizen voting--the mere potential for it--violates 
these standards. Citizens should not have the force of their vote--the 
meaning of their vote--diluted, bastardized, adulterated by noncitizen 
participation.
  The SAVE America Act works to verify and protect the votes of 
American citizens.
  Now, here comes another one, an argument that is also really 
sophomoric--that is probably too polite, but I will use that term for 
the moment--that somehow the SAVE America Act will suppress voters 
generally but protect Republicans. That is offensive, and it falls 
under its own weight.
  Look, the SAVE America Act will protect the value of each citizen's 
vote. It is utterly agnostic. It cares not whether you are a Republican 
or Democrat, a member of the Giraffe Party or the yet-to-be-formed 
national party of people who are opposed to vote for Democrats and 
Republicans, the Green Party, the Purple Party, whatever party you want 
to belong to, or no party at all. It protects your vote. It is party-
agnostic.
  It in no way, shape, or form controls the priorities that the voters 
bring to the ballot box or preferences one group of them over another 
and, instead, ensures the priorities developed into law by way of our 
elections accurately reflect the will of U.S. citizens and only U.S. 
citizens, because remember that concept of popular sovereignty that we 
have been talking about this entire time.
  In fact, the entire 250 years of the American Republic, we have been 
talking about popular sovereignty. It is the fundamental building block 
of Congress, on which all of our laws and our Constitution and our 
Declaration are built--the idea that the people are sovereigns. We have 
no King. We the people are the sovereigns. We the people collectively 
enjoy that right.
  Identifying what the franchise is and who has that right to vote is 
so fundamental to protecting the popular sovereignty. As the saying 
goes, if everyone is family, no one is. So too here--if everyone is a 
citizen or everyone has the same prerogatives as citizens, no one does. 
It ceases to be meaningful because it gets diluted past the breaking 
point.
  Here is another argument that is patently fraudulent. On its face, it 
fails. It is made with reckless disregard for the truth or knowledge of 
its falsity when it is made--that the SAVE America Act would somehow 
require every American now registered to vote to reregister.
  There is just not a scintilla of truth to this. I have never really 
known what a scintilla is. It is a very small thing. There is not even 
a particle of truth to this. It is not only guilty of being false; it 
is the very definition of false argument and should not be countenanced 
in this or any self-respecting legislative body.
  Nothing--nothing at all--in the SAVE America Act, no plausible 
interpretation of it, would require voters to reregister.
  At the end of the day, we can scan the horizon for as many straw-man 
arguments as we can fathom. I have yet to conceive of, much less hear 
articulated, any legitimate reason for anyone to oppose this bill, 
which in me raises a question--a question I don't like to ask myself: 
Why, for the love of all that is sacred and holy, all that is good in 
our constitutional Republic, why would somebody oppose this? What 
legitimate reason? Who benefits? Cui bono, as they would say in Latin. 
I don't know why, but it sounds more impressive when they say it in 
Latin. Who benefits from the status quo? Who benefits from allowing 
noncitizens to continue to register to vote?
  And yes, it does happen. Those on the other side of the aisle 
continue to insist that it does not. It does. More information comes 
out every day on it, and it is going to continue to come out in larger 
and larger numbers.
  I don't know whether it has anything to do with the fact that, so 
far, some of those--a whole lot of them--most of them that I have seen 
where they have dug in, looked at the voter registration files, looked 
at which way they have registered to vote--a lot of them happen to be 
registered Democrats. I hope that is not the reason, but it does make 
you wonder: Why are they so opposed to this?
  If the best they could come up with is it is already against the law, 
well, there are a whole bunch of things that if we use that same 
argument, that argument would collapse.
  Yes, it is also against existing law to sell alcohol to minors, and 
yet we have laws in place to make people identify themselves with 
documentation establishing who they are and that they

[[Page S1202]]

meet the criteria necessary to purchase alcohol.
  We have countless other instances in Federal law, in State law, in 
daily citizen interaction in which we have to prove that we are who we 
say we are in order to access that which we want to access.
  We don't flinch. We don't question it because we understand, when we 
allow somebody else access to--I don't know--our bank account, our 
medical records, our flight logs, our airplanes in interstate travel, 
our Social Security benefits, our veteran's benefits, our Federal 
benefits, hunting licenses, fishing licenses, ballparks, the Emmys, the 
Grammys, the Super Bowl, or the Democratic National Convention, bad 
things happen when we allow just anyone to come in, even if they don't 
have the right to do the thing that they want to do in the moment.
  It is not only not wrong for us to insist on this proof; it would be 
morally irresponsible of us. It would be a reckless disregard for one 
of the most sacred principles underlying our constitutional Republic 
for us to ignore it.
  I will not ignore that, and I intend to continue to come back here, 
day after day, week after week, as long as it takes until this bill is 
passed into law. The American Republic, the oath to the Constitution, 
and those who have elected to us this office require nothing less.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Dakota.

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