Not Even Hiding It: Democrats Strike Down Measure Opposing Illegal Immigrants Voting in Elections
On Friday, House Democrats blasted a Republican-backed proposal that condemned illegal immigrants voting in U.S. elections.
According to Fox News, almost every House Democrat voted to oppose the measure, which was introduced as part of the Democrat-backed H.R. 1 election reform bill.
House Republicans wanted to add language to the H.R. 1 proposal to state that “allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens.”
Federal law already says that only American citizens can vote in federal elections. However, the proposal pointed out that the city of San Francisco currently permits non-citizens, such as illegal immigrants, to sign up for voting in school board elections.
The motion was struck down 228-197, with only six Democrats voting to approve it and one Republican voting against it.
The Democratic opposition marks the party’s increasingly radical position on illegal immigrants over the last few years.
Lauren Fine, a spokeswoman for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, brought up how an identical proposal was approved by the House last September.
However, as of Friday, 41 more Democrats are now in favor of illegal immigrant voting. The latest vote reveals House Democrats’ concerning lack of interest in applying the rule of law to illegal immigrants.
“These 41 Democrats must now answer to voters why they were against illegal immigrants voting in elections six months ago, but are suddenly in favor of it now,” Fine said.
Later on Friday, the House approved the Democrat-pushed election bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the bill is aimed at restoring “the people’s faith that government works for the public interest, the people’s interest, not the special interests,” according to Fox News.
The bill would require presidential candidates to publish their tax returns and would put public financing of congressional campaigns in place.
Civil libertarians and Republicans have been critical of H.R. 1.
The Conservative Action Project posted a memo on their website in January that read, “Conservatives are united in opposing H.R. 1, the attempt by House Democrats to fundamentally undermine the American electoral system.”
The American Civil Liberties Union wrote a letter to lawmakers encouraging opposition to the proposal on account of its “provisions that unconstitutionally impinge on the free speech rights of American citizens and public interest organizations.”
Illinois Republican Rep. Rodney Davis, the top Republican on the Committee on House Administration, said, “This bill is a Democrat push to elect more Democrats and to put more money into the pockets of members of Congress and anyone running for election … under the guise of campaign finance reform,” according to USA Today.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already said that the resolution is dead upon arrival in the Republican-controlled Senate. McConnell scorched the resolution in an Op-ed for The Washington Post.
“Under this bill, you’d keep your right to free association as long as your private associations were broadcast to everyone,” he wrote.
“You’d keep your right to speak freely so long as you notified a distant bureaucracy likely run by the same people you criticized. The bill goes so far as to suggest that the Constitution needs an amendment to override First Amendment protections.”
While the bill won’t make it past the Senate, House Democrats’ approval of some of its radical provisions shows how far left the party has become.
This is made abundantly clear by the overwhelming majority of House Democrats who struck down what should be a redundant measure, stating that non-citizen voting diminishes the voting power of Americans. Even this basic fact is no longer accepted by the mainline Democratic position.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
