[Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 119 (Tuesday, July 21, 2026)]
[House]
[Pages H4695-H4696]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1130
                         CONGRESS MUST RESPOND

  (Ms. Mejia of New Jersey was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Ms. MEJIA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with urgency. Weeks ago, 
President Trump fired every remaining Commissioner of the Federal 
agency charged with protecting the integrity of our elections. This 
Chamber has not reckoned with that fully, and it should.
  The Election Assistance Commission exists to help carry out free and 
fair elections in this country. It was structured by law with four 
bipartisan members precisely so that no single administration could 
control how our elections are run. That structure is the point.
  For over a year, this administration pressed that very Commission to 
require a passport or original birth certificate as a condition for 
voter registration. Millions of Americans do not have ready access to 
either document.
  The Commission would not act on this demand, and the courts agreed. 
Both checks held.
  Then, days after the Supreme Court granted the President new 
authority to remove the heads of independent agencies in a case that 
had nothing to do with elections, the President used that very 
authority in order to eliminate every Commissioner.
  This was not incidental. It was the removal of the officials standing 
between this President and a policy his own Commission and the courts 
have rejected.
  Last Thursday night, he took his case to national television. In a 
prime-time address from the White House, the President declassified 
documents he claimed proved foreign interference and widespread fraud 
in the election he lost over 5 years ago.
  He alleged a foreign government has compromised the voter data of 220 
million Americans and that 278,000 noncitizens were registered to vote. 
Independent fact checkers, who reviewed those very documents, found 
that they did not support the claim made about them.
  He presented no evidence of a single fraudulent vote because 5 years 
and 64 court cases have never produced even one.
  This Chamber has now watched the same pattern twice: raise unproven 
claims of fraud, then use them to justify removing the very safeguards 
standing in the way; first the Commissioners and now a prime-time 
address built to manufacture support for legislation his own party 
could not pass on its merits, the SAVE Act.
  House Republicans have pushed it through, and Senate Republicans have 
tried repeatedly to force it through as a reconciliation amendment, 
needing only a simple majority, only to see it blocked each and every 
time.
  Under this bill, a driver's license does not satisfy the registration 
requirement. Only a passport, an original birth certificate, or 
naturalization papers would.
  Consider what that means: 146 million Americans do not hold a valid 
passport, and roughly 69 million married women hold birth certificates 
that no longer match their legal names. When Kansas tried a version of 
this requirement, 31,000 eligible citizens, 12 percent of all 
applicants, were blocked from registering--not noncitizens, citizens.
  Mr. Speaker, this has never been a matter of election integrity. It 
is a matter of who holds power in this country and who is permitted to 
participate in choosing it.
  When a party grows uncertain it could win on the merits, the next 
move is rarely to accept that outcome. It is to lay the groundwork in 
advance so any unfavorable results can be dismissed before a single 
vote is counted.
  This Chamber should be prepared to say clearly every time that 
surfaces that this is not a defense of democracy. It is a preview of 
what happens if this administration does not like what voters decide.
  Congress has an obligation to respond. We must enact durable, 
statutory protections for the administration of Federal elections so 
that no single official can dismantle them by executive action.
  We must pursue meaningful reform of the Supreme Court, including term 
limits and enforceable ethical standards because a Court that keeps 
expanding this President's authority is not exercising oversight. It 
is, in fact, removing it.
  Each of these actions taken individually may appear isolated. Taken 
together, however, they constitute a sustained effort to narrow the 
American

[[Page H4696]]

electorate at the exact moment this country is apt to render judgment 
on this administration. I will not treat this as acceptable, and I will 
not stop opposing it.

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