President Joe Biden will veto the House GOP proposal to combine a short-term spending measure with an election integrity bill if it passes through both chambers of Congress, the White House announced on Monday.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a statement that said the Biden administration “strongly opposes” the passage of H.R.9494, which would provide funding for the federal government for six months — through March 28 — in addition to instituting the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
“Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to keep the Government open and provide emergency funding for disaster needs, House Republicans have chosen brinkmanship,” the OMB said in its statement of policy, adding later, “If the President were presented with H.R. 9494, he would veto it.”
The SAVE Act, which passed the House as a standalone bill in July with some bipartisan support but never got taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate, aims to require that individuals show proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in elections for federal office and pushes states to remove non-citizens from voter rolls.
Proponents of the SAVE Act argue the bill is necessary to shore up the security of the voting process. In vouching for the legislation, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) released a white paper that warned of a National Voter Registration Act “loophole” in which states do not ask for proof of citizenship when registering an individual to vote in federal elections and cited evidence of noncitizens appearing on voter rolls in places such as Massachusetts, Ohio, and Virginia.
“There is a danger that the NVRA loophole, combined with the Biden Administration’s willful disregard of U.S. immigration law that has allowed the U.S. foreign-born population to grow by 5.1 million people in the last two years alone and by 6.6 million since President Biden took office, could lead to millions of noncitizens registering to vote,” the paper said. “Should this happen, it would jeopardize the integrity of our elections, turning the outcome of the 2024 election over to foreign persons and potentially even foreign interests.”
The OMB’s policy statement claimed the SAVE Act is “unnecessary” because it is already a federal crime for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and states already have “effective safeguards” in place. Further, the bill would make it “much harder for all eligible Americans to register to vote and increase the risk that eligible voters are purged from voter rolls,” the statement added.
Congress is running out of time to reach a deal on a short-term spending measure if lawmakers returning to Washington, D.C., from their summer recess are unable to pass appropriations legislation to fund the various federal agencies for the coming fiscal year. A government shutdown could happen by the beginning of October without some kind of agreement in the coming weeks.
Democrat lawmakers, joined by at least a couple of Republicans, have come out against the House GOP plan to link a six-month spending bill combined with the SAVE Act. There also seems to be disagreement over how far a continuing resolution should go. Axios reported Democrats and the White House prefer a three-month spending measure, which would lead to a December lame-duck session on government funding — once it is clear which party won the presidential election and control of the two chambers of Congress in 2025.
The OMB statement criticized the six-month continuing resolution on a number of fronts, saying it would be particularly “irresponsible” in regard to national security because it would “would erode our military advantage relative to the People’s Republic of China, degrade readiness, and fail to provide the support our troops deserve.” It also said a “CR ending March 28th also takes the Congress dangerously close to the deadline when across-the-board cuts would come into place next year, as dictated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023.”
Fox News reported on Monday that Johnson said he believes the House can pass a continuing resolution with the provision of requiring proof of citizenship. In a post to X, senior congressional correspondent Chad Pergram noted that he asked the speaker what his fallback position was, to which Johnson replied, “There is no fallback position. This is a righteous fight.”
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