House Republicans Say It's Too Late For Proof-Of-Citizenship Voting Bill To Help This Year

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Tuesday that Congress must pass new rules for voter registration to head off the supposed threat of noncitizens illegally voting in November’s election.

“The American people understand this,” Johnson said at a press conference. “They want us, and they deserve us, to take this action and to make sure that illegals cannot taint the election.”

Johnson has scheduled a Wednesday afternoon vote on a Republican bill that would add new paperwork requirements aimed at stopping noncitizens from registering to vote in federal elections, which is already illegal.

Johnson has attached the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, to a must-pass government funding bill to boost its chances of getting through Congress. The gambit likely won’t work.

But even if Congress were to approve the SAVE Act, and President Joe Biden signed it into law this week, multiple House Republicans, all of whom support the legislation, said Tuesday that there wouldn’t be enough time for the new rules to have an impact before Election Day.

“I think most of the states already have in place all the rules and regulations that are going to guide this election,” Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) told HuffPost. “I don’t know that anything that we did that would be signed into law between now and November that would have much of an impact.”

Rogers is one of several Republicans who have come out against Johnson’s plan to tie the SAVE Act to government funding, citing concerns that the funding levels are too high. He voted for the SAVE Act when the House passed it as a standalone measure in July, as did every other Republican in attendance. (The Democratic-controlled Senate ignored it.)

Rep. Ralph Norman