House Republicans led the charge Tuesday to overturn the District of Columbia’s law that allows noncitizens — including illegal immigrants — to cast ballots in local elections, calling the city’s experiment in expanding voting rights a “dangerous” dilution of citizens’ power.
The 266-148 vote saw dozens of Democrats join in the effort. The measure faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.
“We should not allow foreign entities hostile to the United States to vote in our elections. Period. We should not allow illegal immigrants to vote in our elections,” said Rep. Erin Houchin, Indiana Republican.
Democrats who opposed the legislation said they weren’t necessarily defending noncitizen voting, but defending the city itself.
“We’re not voting to give noncitizens the ability to vote, we’re just saying let D.C. make their own laws,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, Florida Democrat.
Under the Constitution, the District is a federal jurisdiction under the control of Congress, which has the right to overturn local legislation.
Republicans repeatedly called the city law “dangerous,” saying it created chances for all sorts of mischief, including even a foreign diplomat being able to cast a ballot in city elections.
Under federal law, only citizens can vote in federal elections. But a growing number of jurisdictions have allowed noncitizens to cast ballots in their local matters.
The District has the broadest policy so far.
It applies to legal and illegal immigrants, as long as they have been a resident in the city for at least 30 days. They must renounce their right to vote anywhere else to register.
They can vote on races such as mayor and city council and on local ballot measures.
The city council adopted the policy in 2022.
The House voted in early 2023 to overturn it, using D.C. home rule laws that give Congress a veto over city matters. But senators never took up the measure.
Last year, the House approved a separate bill to overturn D.C.’s policy. That legislation also never saw action in the Senate.
It’s not clear whether this time will be any different.
The Senate is under Republican control now, but the measure would likely face a Democrat-led filibuster if it did come to the floor, and getting enough Democratic support to overcome that would be iffy at best.
Republicans focused heavily on illegal immigrants being allowed to vote.
Mr. Frost, who led Democrats’ opposition, said that was unlikely, given that the city’s voting rolls are public. He said illegal immigrants would likely be afraid to come forward.
Rep. Bryan Steil, Wisconsin Republican, said when he first started talking to constituents about noncitizen voting, they were staggered because they didn’t imagine it would happen.
“What the Democrats want to do is use Washington, D.C., as a petri dish for liberalizing voting laws across the country,” he said. “We need to make sure that U.S. elections are for U.S. citizens.”
Mr. Steil was optimistic that Republicans in the Senate can push the bill through.
“This is a bill that could actually be signed into law,” he said.
The office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, was noncommittal Tuesday.
Last year marked the first federal general election the city conducted under the new system.
The city currently has 980 noncitizens registered to vote. The Board of Elections tallied 480 noncitizen ballots cast in November.
That works out to about 1% of the city’s estimated noncitizen population that voted.
The House is making D.C. a particular target this week. It voted Tuesday to approve legislation restoring collective bargaining rights to the city’s police in disciplinary matters.
And later this week, the House plans to take up a bill that would eviscerate the city’s sanctuary policy that limits cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.