WATCH: Padilla Rallies Against SAVE Act, Moves to Block Federal Agents From Policing Polling Centers

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Ranking Member of both the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the Senate Judiciary Immigration Subcommittee, took to the Senate floor to condemn Congressional Republicans' attempts to pass the SAVE America Act, an extreme voter suppression bill that passed in the House of Representatives last night. Padilla also announced an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill to stop any federal law enforcement and military personnel from illegally patrolling polling sites.

This comes after President Trump's threats to "nationalize" elections, his deployments of the National Guard into Democratic cities, and calls from his former White House advisor Steve Bannon for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to "surround the polls come November." It is already illegal for federal troops and law enforcement, including ICE, to intimidate voters and interfere in our elections; Padilla's amendment would prohibit funds from being used for those purposes.

Republicans' latest attempt to pass an updated version of the anti-voter SAVE Act threatens to disenfranchise millions of eligible American citizens in an election year by creating even more burdensome documentation requirements, among other voter suppression provisions. Despite investigations repeatedly showing that voter fraud is extremely rare, Republicans' voter suppression bills would make voting significantly harder for tens of millions of married women, military members and spouses, and rural, low-income, and minority voters. Padilla emphasized that the SAVE Act and SAVE America Act would risk disenfranchising 21 million citizens who can't readily access their passports and birth certificates, 69 million American women who have changed their name from what's printed on their birth certificates, and 60 million Americans living in rural communities who would have to travel long distances just to prove their voting eligibility in person.

The SAVE America Act would also fuel attacks against hardworking election officials and illegally require states to hand over their unredacted voter rolls with sensitive personally identifiable information to the Trump Administration.

• "Elections are the bedrock of our American democracy. And despite what the President and his big circle of election-denying conspiracy theorists would have Americans believe, the truth is that our elections are indeed free. Our elections are indeed fair. And our elections are indeed secure. That's why the revamped, new and made worse SAVE Act, passed by the House last night and designed to compel states to give over to Donald Trump their voter rolls, is not just a solution in search of a problem, it's a very bad solution at that."

• "Audit after audit, and investigation after investigation - in red states and in blue states - have all reached the same conclusion. That voting by noncitizens - which, by the way, is already a felony - is so exceedingly rare that it is statistically almost non-existent. Which tells us something very important though: it means our current laws are working."

Padilla blasted President Trump for perpetuating the repeatedly disproven Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen - a lie that compelled the Administration to send Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to join the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in raiding a Fulton County, Georgia elections office late last month. Earlier this week, Padilla and Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) demanded an Intelligence Community briefing on election security concerns as Gabbard, President Trump, and others continue to give inconsistent explanations of who tasked Gabbard with seizing these 2020 election materials and why she was involved. An unsealed search warrant affidavit on Tuesday also revealed that this fishing expedition was based on a referral from Kurt Olsen, the President's "Stop the Steal" lawyer now working in the White House.

With the first round of early voting beginning today in the midterm election primaries, Padilla warned that Republicans are laying the groundwork to restrict the right to vote in a desperate attempt to cling to power. He emphasized that "Republicans would rather change the election rules" than change their harmful agenda that is raising costs for working families and spreading terror across American communities. As President Trump calls for the federal government to "take over" elections, Padilla stressed that the Constitution gives power over elections to Congress and the states, not the Executive Branch.

• "It's important for the American people to understand [that] this Republican effort to jam the SAVE Act, as they call it, through isn't happening in isolation. There's a bigger picture here. This bill is part of a much broader effort by Trump and his Republican enablers to lay the groundwork for the rigging of upcoming elections, including the midterms this November."

• "It seems to me that the SAVE Act is really only intended to save Republicans and Trump from facing the consequences of their failed policies."

Padilla criticized the Administration's strong-arm tactics to force states led by Democrats to surrender their complete, unredacted voter rolls or face retaliation. 24 Democratic-led states, including California, currently face lawsuits targeting their voter registration lists. Last month, Pam Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz pushing him to hand over the state's voter rolls as part of an exchange for the Administration calling off its dangerous deployment of ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers and agents to Minneapolis, an operation that has already led to the unjustified killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.

Amid these threats to elections - as well as the threat that ICE or other armed federal agents could be deployed to polling places - Padilla concluded by offering his amendment to explicitly bar any federal funds from being used to direct federal law enforcement or military personnel to polling places or election offices. He underscored that his amendment would reinforce existing law to prevent voter intimidation and election interference and protect state and local election officials.

• "Armed federal agents at polling locations is voter intimidation and has no place in our democracy."

• "It is time to send the Administration a clear message that in the United States of America, elections will be decided by the voters - not by force. Colleagues, we, as a Congress, have a responsibility to act to protect the elections entrusted by the Constitution to us and to the states before it's too late."

• "We have a responsibility to reject this SAVE Act, to keep federal law enforcement away from polling locations, and to make clear once and for all that elections and our sacred right to the ballot box belongs to the people."

Video of Senator Padilla's remarks are available here and can be downloaded here.

Senator Padilla has led the charge opposing President Trump and Republicans' reckless attempts to restrict the right to vote. Last May, Padilla stopped Senator Mike Lee's (R-Utah) attempt to pass the anti-voter SAVE Act through the Senate by unanimous consent. He also convened a Rules Committee Democrats spotlight forum focused on Congressional Republicans' SAVE Act and Trump's illegal anti-voter executive order. As President Trump marked 100 disastrous days in office, Padilla led his Democratic colleagues on the Senate floor to speak out against the SAVE Act and the Trump Administration's attacks on election integrity. Last April, he warned Secretaries of State, Lieutenant Governors, and Chief Election Officials across the country of the devastating potential impacts of the SAVE Act, concerns that have been echoed by top election officials across the country. Padilla also led a letter sounding the alarm on the devastating impacts on voting rights in Native American communities of the SAVE Act and Trump's executive order. Most recently, he has strongly condemned Republicans' MEGA Act and SAVE America Act, which would impose even more severe restrictions than the SAVE Act.

Last month, Senator Padilla and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) led 26 Senate colleagues in pushing the Department of Justice (DOJ) to stop its unlawful pressure campaign to coerce dozens of states into providing the Trump Administration their voter rolls, which include voters' personally identifiable information. Padilla also spoke to the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) Elections Committee, sounding the alarm on the Trump Administration's serious threats to election administration and security, while pushing states' chief election officials to protect the fundamental right to vote.

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