EXCLUSIVE — Republicans’ latest plan to address voter identification would create a new grant program for states that provide IDs at no cost to those who cannot afford one.
The Voter ID Act, first shared with the Washington Examiner, was introduced Thursday by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI), chairman of the House Administration Committee. The legislation would require voters to show a photo ID when casting a ballot in a federal election.
Recommended Stories
The bill would also compel absentee and mail-in voters to attach a copy of their ID to their ballot.
“Americans should be confident their elections are run with integrity – voter ID is a commonsense measure to restore trust in our elections,” Steil said in a statement. “This legislation will help improve voter confidence and strengthen election integrity nationwide.”
By creating the grant program, which tribal governments are also eligible for, Republicans hope to stamp out criticism that a voter ID requirement would create barriers to voting in federal elections. The program would be administered by the Election Assistance Commission.
The proposal from the House Administration Committee, which oversees federal election policy, is the latest push from Republicans to institute a nationwide voter ID requirement. Republicans’ flagship voter ID bill, called the SAVE America Act, has stalled in the Senate.
The legislation opens a potential avenue for Republicans to attach voter ID to a third proposed party-line spending bill, as including the measure in a third reconciliation bill would allow Republicans to sidestep the filibuster. It’s unclear whether the language would pass the Byrd requirement — which governs policies allowed in reconciliation bills — in the Senate in its current form. Still, the inclusion of the grant program would create a budgetary impact, one of the measures by which reconciliation is governed.
The Voter ID Act could also be moved as a stand-alone piece of legislation or attached to another package, though it would need to garner some Democratic support in the upper chamber to pass under the filibuster.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded that Senate Republicans pass the SAVE America Act, going as far as to threaten to veto an extension of a key government surveillance program that expired last week if it is not attached.
“We need it for our elections,” Trump said of voter ID last week. “We need to have voter identification, which we don’t have right now on a national basis. We need it for — and the voter ID is very important — we need it for proof of citizenship.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has been under increased pressure from Trump and his base to eliminate the 60-vote filibuster to pass the party’s agenda, including the SAVE America Act, but the majority leader has maintained that the votes “aren’t there” even if the Senate moved to do so.
Tensions flared in the Senate on Wednesday from some Republicans toward Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), a leading author and proponent of the SAVE Act, another version of the flagship voter ID legislation, with his colleagues accusing him of misleading Trump on the Senate’s ability to pass a measure that has repeatedly failed in floor votes.
