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Republicans in the House Oversight Committee advanced a bill last week that would overturn a Washington, D.C., statute that allows noncitizens to vote in local elections.
The GOP-led Oversight Committee’s approval of House Resolution 884 can be viewed as a step toward fulfilling President Donald Trump’s call for the federal government to “take over” the nation's capital. Though it's illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, a few cities across the country allow them to vote in certain local elections.
For years, Republicans have peddled conspiracy theories about noncitizens fraudulently holding sway in federal elections, and they’ve introduced legislation to target this nonexistent crisis in states across the country. In this case, they’re using Congress’ authority over Washington laws to treat the district as a petri dish for their illiberal voter suppression policies, realizing a nightmarish scenario I warned about in 2023 when then-President Joe Biden signed a law rolling back criminal justice reforms in the city.
In announcing the bill’s passage out of committee and onto the House floor, the Oversight Committee stated on social media that “Voting is a RIGHT of citizenship.”
A statement from House Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, representing Washington, D.C., addresses the apparent hypocrisy in that statement.
“Last Congress, Republicans introduced 14 bills or amendments to prohibit noncitizens from voting in D.C. or to repeal, nullify or prohibit the carrying out of D.C.’s law that permits noncitizens to vote,” Norton said in a statement. “Yet Republicans refuse to make the only election law change D.C. residents have asked Congress to make, which is the right to hold elections for voting members of the House and Senate by passing the D.C. statehood bill.”
The congresswoman has a valid point. Indeed, if Republicans were truly concerned about voting rights in Washington, one might expect they’d be moving toward solutions like statehood — which would grant more of the district’s residents a say in consequential electoral processes — rather than focusing on ways to restrict residents’ rights to cast ballots in local races.
And the fact that Republicans don't want to stop at Washington when it comes to their manipulation of electoral processes should be a warning to the rest of the nation.