Republicans, eyeing budget patch, look to tack on voter ID bill

WASHINGTON (CN) — With less than a month to go before the government’s latest fiscal deadline, debate over the federal budget is already spooling up in Congress as lawmakers prepare to return to Washington next week.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who faced a crisis of confidence over his handling of previous spending fights, is hoping to paste a Republican policy win to any forthcoming budget bill.

The GOP leader has said that the lower chamber will vote next week on a six-month continuing resolution, which would keep federal funding at current levels until around March and sidestep a government shutdown just months before the presidential election. But he has signaled that such a measure would be packaged alongside controversial voter ID legislation.

The policy rider would mirror a bill — the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act — which cleared the House in July. Texas Representative Chip Roy's proposed SAVE Act would require people to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

Republicans, especially those on Johnson’s right flank, have long pushed for the SAVE Act to become law and have applauded the move to tack it onto proposed budget legislation.

Virginia Representative Bob Good backed the rider in a Wednesday post on X, formerly Twitter. “Let Border Czar [Kamala] Harris and the Democrats explain to the American people why they do not want fair and secure elections,” he wrote.

Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert said, “There’s no reason at all to oppose the SAVE Act. If you’re not a citizen of our country, you should not vote in our country. This isn’t controversial. It’s common sense.”

Even some House Republicans who have been critical of continuing resolutions such as the one proposed by Speaker Johnson saw the measure as an opportunity to extract policy concessions.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote on X Wednesday that the short-term budget patch was “another kick the can down the road,” but she laid out an array of possible riders lawmakers could demand in return: the SAVE Act; a GOP border security bill passed last year; or a constitutional amendment requiring the government to balance its budget each year.

Greene polled her X followers on the list of possible demands. In the first hour after she posted the poll, more than half of its nearly 5,000 respondents had answered “all of the above.”

With Congress still out of session during the last week of its summer recess, it’s unclear whether Johnson’s plan to couple a spending patch with voter ID legislation has the Republican support necessary to pass the House. But even if the measure clears the GOP-controlled lower chamber, it’s likely dead on arrival in the Senate.

Democrats, who have roundly panned the SAVE Act, frame the measure as a cynical attempt to erode Americans’ confidence in elections. They have argued that the bill would disenfranchise millions of people by hiking costs and raising other barriers for voters, particularly in tribal or rural areas.

Democrats further contend that Republicans have provided little evidence that noncitizen voting is a pervasive issue in U.S. elections.

Federal law bars noncitizens from voting, but proof of citizenship is not required to register to vote. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, authorities “routinely” investigate and prosecute illegal voting and there is no evidence that it has affected the outcome of any election.

Meanwhile, the government’s 2024 budget will run out Sept. 30. Both chambers of Congress are slated to return Monday, giving lawmakers only a few weeks to iron out what will almost certainly be some version of a continuing resolution.

This latest episode of the budget battle in Washington comes just months after Congress approved this year’s spending plan more than six months late — a lengthy process which saw lawmakers flirt with a government shutdown on more than one occasion.

Republicans were furious with Johnson at the time, as he reached across the aisle to compromise with Democrats on the final budget.

Follow @BenjaminSWeiss

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