This week, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a bill to stop non-citizens from voting in local elections in Washington, D.C.
The bill, which was originally introduced last Congress, would ban the Washington, D.C. local government from using federal funds to facilitate non-citizen voting in the city’s elections.
Cruz’s bill is co-sponsored in the Senate by Senators John N. Kennedy (R-LA), Steve Daines (R-MO), J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Rick Scott (R-FL.).
The bill comes as a response to the D.C. City Council’s recently passed measure that would allow non-citizens – including illegal immigrants – to vote in local elections. According to a press release from Cruz’s office, he also plans to introduce a Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn this measure.
“Allowing non-citizens, including aliens occupying our nation illegally, to exercise a right reserved for American citizens not only violates the constitutional principles our nation was founded upon, but also naively invites foreign meddling in our elections,” Cruz said.
“Voting is a privilege and the tool by which American citizens exercise their say in who leads our country, how we spend our tax dollars, and what policies should be instituted. I am vehemently against unconstitutionally cheapening the votes of American citizens and ignoring the rule of law in this nation,” he added.
R.J. Hauman, head of government relations and communications at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), also blasted the D.C. City Council’s decision to allow illegal immigrants to vote.
“Two and a half centuries ago, our nation was founded on the principle that sovereign people should determine their own destinies,” Hauman said. “Last year, the city council of our Nation’s capital fundamentally violated that founding principle in an effort to empower noncitizens – including illegal aliens and employees at embassies of governments that are openly hostile to the United States – to determine the outcome of local elections.”
“The right to vote is at the very core of the principle of self-determination and what it means to be a citizen,” Hauman added. “The actions of the D.C. city government are the next and most damaging steps in an ongoing effort to erase any distinction between American citizens and noncitizens. We applaud Senator Cruz for stepping up to the plate in an effort to pre-emptively address this radical measure.”