The House is set to vote on a bill that would make it illegal for noncitizens in Washington, D.C., to vote in local elections, with Republicans hoping to push Democrats into a corner just months ahead of the November election.
Lawmakers will vote on the legislation later this week, which would overturn a local law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections deciding city laws and electing members of the Council of the District of Columbia. Democrats are already looking to thwart those efforts, and House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) is urging party members to vote against the bill when it comes to the floor, according to Axios.
The vote comes one year after House Republicans previously tried to ban noncitizens from voting in the district, with that measure passing the lower chamber in a 260-162 vote. However, the legislation never made it to the floor in the Democratic-led Senate.
However, 42 House Democrats voted in favor of the legislation last year — prompting Republicans to put their counterparts on the record once again as they make election security a top issue heading into November.
“Extreme House Democrats are already on the record supporting giving illegal migrants the right to vote and any change in their position is just disgusting election-year politics,” National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Will Reinert said in a statement. “We will be watching and holding these frauds accountable if they try to pull the wool over voters’ eyes.”
The vote comes as GOP leadership looks to target election laws, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also working to advance a bill that would ban noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Republican leaders have sought to tie it to the surge of illegal immigration at the border, using it as a leading attack against the Biden administration.
“Due to the wide-open border that the Biden administration has refused to close, in fact, that they engineered to open, we now have so many noncitizens in the country that if only one out of 100 of those voted, they would cast hundreds of thousands of votes,” Johnson said last week.
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“It is also true that a growing number of localities are blurring the lines for noncitizens by allowing them to vote in municipal local elections,” he added. “Democrats have expressed a desire to turn noncitizens into voters. That’s what this open border has been all about.”
Even if the bill manages to pass the House a second time, it’s unlikely to be considered by the Senate. Even so, the measure would likely be vetoed by President Joe Biden should it reach his desk.