Calling it “unserious and unacceptable,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries rejected on Monday a proposal from Speaker Mike Johnson that links continued government funding for six months with a measure to require proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
The response frames the spending battle to come over the next weeks as lawmakers work to reach consensus on a short-term spending bill that would prevent a partial government shutdown when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1. Lawmakers hope to avoid a shutdown just weeks before voters go to the polls.
Johnson is punting the final decisions on full-year spending into next year when a new president and Congress take over. He’s doing so at the urging of members within his conference who believe that Republicans will be in a better position next year to secure the funding and policy priorities they want.
The implementation is usually the issue. If white people/wealthy don’t need to show documentation, for instance. Or they only check areas that are known democrat (or known Republican). And, at the end of the day, many people can’t necessarily prove it, and the government does not guarantee free/quick access to citizenship documents, so it disproportionately affects poorer people.
Imagine if they changed this law 2 weeks before an election, and your birth certificate is in Clark county Texas while you live in Florida. It is a very easy way to disenfranchise voters and skew election results.
Eta: there’s also no robust evidence that there is almost any voter fraud, much less wide spread. Especially around citizenship. Why risk deportation/prison to vote? So this probably won’t solve a problem that doesn’t exist, and will create “unintended” consequences for legitimate voters.