House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.), Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Ranking Member Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), and Subcommittee on Elections Ranking Member Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) today are blasting two bills passed by the D.C. city council that allow illegal immigrants to vote in D.C. elections and make permanent D.C.’s practice of sending mail in ballots automatically to unmaintained voter registration lists. In a letter to District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, the Republican lawmakers are calling on her to reject these bills and to provide a briefing to address concerns.
“Republicans on the Committee on Oversight and Reform and the Committee on House Administration are troubled by two bills affecting D.C. elections that the D.C. Council has passed and now seeks your endorsement as mayor: the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act and the Elections Modernization Amendment Act. Pursuant to the Constitution’s vesting of authority over the federal district in the United States Congress, we urge you to abandon these bills. Fair elections are a prerequisite for any healthy republic, yet these bills would allow non-citizens to vote, including even those here unlawfully, and would formalize a dramatic expansion of D.C.’s poorly executed efforts to mail live ballots automatically—not upon a voter’s request—to unmaintained voter registration lists,” wrote the Republican lawmakers.
Under the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act, illegal immigrants would be permitted to vote in the nation’s capital. The original bill introduced in June 2021 expanded voting to legal non-citizens. The D.C. City Council then amended it to allow illegal non-citizens the right to vote in D.C. elections. Under the Elections Modernization Amendment Act, the D.C. Board of Elections’ current practice of mailing live ballots automatically to its unmaintained voter registration list would become permanent. Federal law requires that the District maintain its voter registration list to ensure those who are ineligible are removed promptly, but this maintenance is not occurring.
“The United States’ southern border is overrun, and criminals, human smugglers, cartel members, and deadly fentanyl are pouring into the country. Meanwhile, you have declared a state of emergency in the face of a tiny fraction of what border states handle every day. D.C. has had less than 10,000 illegal immigrants arrive by busses from border states. Texas alone encounters thousands of illegal immigrants per day. Yet, the D.C. Council has prioritized—while the city continues to suffer from increasing crime—giving illegal immigrants the ability to vote. Truly, the D.C. Council is divorced from reality,” continued the Republican lawmakers. “The D.C. Council’s arrogance and hostility toward actual Americans will have earned it profound repercussions, should the United States Congress change to more sensible stewardship in the near future.”
The letter to Mayor Bowser can be found here.
Original source can be found here.
