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Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed Sunday that Senate Democrats will block the latest GOP bill for citizenship-backed effort to require proof of citizenship to vote.
“We’re not going to let it pass the Senate,” Schumer told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “We are fighting tooth and nail. It is a very bad proposal which, you know, shows the political bias of MAGA. They don’t want poor people to vote. They don’t want people of color to vote because most of the time they don’t vote for them.”
Schumer’s comments come after Tapper pressed him on his objections, noting that polls show that about 83% of Americans support some form of voter identification. This figure comes from a Pew Research study published last year that found that 71% of Democratic voters polled support introducing ID to vote.
COLLIN PROMOTES REPUBLICAN VOTER ID EFFORTS, BUT WILL NOT RUN A FILIBUSTER
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., announced that Democrats will not accept an extension of funding for DHS as there are days left until the partial shutdown. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Still, Schumer and the majority of Senate Democrats criticized the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which passed the House last week and is expected to face a vote in the Senate.
The bill would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and would establish a system for state election officials to share information with state authorities to verify voter rolls. It would also allow the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to prosecute immigration cases if noncitizens are found on eligible voter rolls.
Schumer and his caucus have framed the bill as voter suppression aimed at poor Americans and minority groups.
FETTERMAN SLAMS DEMOCRATS’ ‘JIM CROW 2.0’ VOTER ID RHETORIC AS ONE OF THE PARTY’S POINTS
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., also criticized his party’s messaging against the voter ID bill advancing in the Senate, arguing it’s “not a strong idea.” (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“What they’re proposing in this so-called SAVE Act is like Jim Crow 2.0,” Schumer said. “They made it so difficult to get any kind of voting ID that more than 20 million legal people, mostly poor people and people of color, would not be able to vote under this law.”
Without support from Senate Democrats — save for a possible defection from Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa. – the bill is likely to fail.
The only way around that would be to eliminate the Senate’s 60-vote limit — a move Republicans oppose — or to force a so-called filibuster that would require hours of debate and halt other Senate business.
HARDLINE CONSERVATIVES FALL AGAIN TO KEEP THE LAST LAW
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., called DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s involvement in the election “a load of bull.” (Ash Ponders/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Schumer also retracted the comments of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who said earlier this week that the election “may be one of the most important things we need to make sure that we trust them, that we are honest, and that when it comes to election day that we have the motivation to make sure that we have the right people voting, we choose the right leaders to lead this country.”
The comments come as Senate Democrats and the White House negotiate over DHS funding, which has been deadlocked since midnight Friday.
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Part of that discussion includes Democrats’ demand that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents be kept away from several places, including schools and polling places.
“That’s a load of bull,” Schumer said. “They don’t show evidence of voter fraud. They show that there is very little in the country. And having ICE agents, these criminals, be near the polling places, who are just looking at how democracy works, how we’ve had elections for centuries, very effectively.”
