When at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. So goes the motto of the Biden White House and the Democratic Party at large as they begin Round Four of trying to undermine the integrity of our state elections. After two rounds of coercion and one round of trickery, Democrats are now trying to turn agencies into “get out the vote” operations in our local districts.
Thankfully for state leadership, rejecting this federal election takeover is as easy as saying, “No.”
For three years, congressional Democrats fought to pass H.R. 1 to federalize state election laws. The bill would have abolished voter ID laws, limited the ability of states to maintain accurate voter rolls, and enacted the most chilling attempt at government control over political speech in recent history, including forcing nonprofit groups to release the names and addresses of donors. Fortunately for our free and fair elections (and our First Amendment rights), the Senate shut this effort down.
Democrats, next, considered abolishing the filibuster to force it through, but they eventually pivoted to H.R. 4, which would have required some (but not all) jurisdictions to obtain approval from the federal government before changing their own local election laws, throwing the bedrock constitutional principles of separation of powers, federalism, and equal sovereignty of the states out the window. This also failed in the Senate.
Being nothing if not persistent, Democrats tried a different approach in 2020, allowing Meta (then-Facebook) CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife to funnel more than $350 million into left-leaning counties to boost Democratic turnout and influence the outcome of elections nationwide. This private effort became known as “Zuckerbucks,” and since the incident, 20 states have banned or regulated the use of private funds for election administration. Not surprisingly, six governors (all Democrats) vetoed these bans.
This brings us to last year, when President Joe Biden passed Executive Order 14019 directing federal agencies to develop strategic plans to leverage taxpayer resources to “expand voter registration and voter participation.” This includes agencies you’d never associate with election administration, such as the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, and Health and Human Services.
When originally issued, the order was vague by design, and executive branch agencies did not give much when pressed for details. The Foundation for Government Accountability has issued multiple Freedom of Information Act requests to get more specifics on how agencies intend to make use of their power and resources in state elections. After our requests were stonewalled for months, we filed a lawsuit suing the Biden administration for access to these documents so that we may shed light on this illegal, unethical, and unconstitutional scheme.
The implications of Executive Order 14019 would be catastrophic to our free and fair elections. If it is implemented, Biden’s executive branch would be overseeing “get out the vote” efforts designed by the Left, to benefit the Left, in every single precinct in the country under the day-to-day management of partisan bureaucrats.
What’s worse, the federal election takeover would be funded on the back of federal taxpayers, making the appalling degree of outside influence seen during the 2020 elections a permanent tradition, rather than an isolated incident, and on a scale that makes Zuckerbucks look like pocket change. Just like H.R. 1 led to H.R. 4, Zuckerbucks paved the way for Bidenbucks.
A few agencies have already submitted plans to turn local federal facilities into voter registration agencies. The Department of Labor is planning to turn thousands of American Job Centers into VRAs and invite outside groups to conduct voter-outreach activities. These groups will be determined “non-partisan” by the White House, leaving the fox to guard the henhouse.
The departments of Health and Human Services and Housing and Urban Development have stated they would do the same with community health centers and public housing agencies, respectively.
The takeover has begun, but we have time to fight back. There is one detail that seems to have been overlooked: Executive Order 14019 is more of a suggestion rather than a rule. Leaders at the state and local levels have the power to diminish this threat significantly.
Under the National Voter Registration Act, only states have the power to designate an agency as a VRA, and only certain agencies are required to be designated as such. But Biden’s executive order and the agency guidance and announcements so far released suggest that the administration is ignoring the role of states in deciding which agencies may be designated as VRAs and is instead ordering all of its federal agencies to behave as if they have already received such designation. Thus, Biden is ordering his agencies to carry out activities Congress never granted them authority to carry out: voter registration and mobilization efforts. This he cannot do, and barring congressional action, states have the power to order their own agencies and state election officials to ignore the unlawful guidance in this executive order.
To further reinforce state sovereignty, state legislatures can pass a law (or governors can issue an executive order) to prohibit state officials from designating any state or federal agency as a VRA that federal law does not explicitly require to be designated. States could also pass legislation to strengthen oversight over election-related federal funding, guidance, and communications to promote transparency and ensure that the scales are not being tipped in favor of the party occupying the White House, whichever party that happens to be.
Democrats have made four attempts in four years to influence voter registration and turnout in our local communities. Keeping state elections free and fair is possible, but we need to act now. And believe it or not, in this case, it’s as easy as turning to the White House and saying, “Nope.”
Stewart Whitson is the legal director at the Foundation for Government Accountability.
