Leader Schumer Floor Remarks Slamming Republicans For Trying To Disguise Their Radical Voter Suppression Legislation

Washington, D.C. - Today, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) spoke on the Senate floor slamming Republicans for their attempts to disguise radical voter suppression legislation as simple voter ID policy. Below are Senator Schumer's remarks, which can also be viewed here:

Today, Senate Republicans are once again wasting time on voter suppression instead of paying TSA.

Republicans have an amendment on the Senate floor dressed up as what they call common-sense voter ID.

But let's be very clear what this amendment is: it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. And it's a giant cover up, to cover up what their bill really does, which is dramatic voter suppression, kicking 20 million or more people off the rolls without their knowledge or consent.

The point here is not at all about voter ID. In fact, 99% of the SAVE Act doesn't talk about voter ID. Most of their bill is about kicking people off the voter rolls and making re-registering once you're kicked off, a bureaucratic nightmare. An almost impossibility for many people.

And once again, the public saw the SAVE Act for what it really is-a voter suppression bill-and once that happened, Republicans had to do something. So they cobbled together this amendment as a cover up. It was never in the original bill. And now they pretend it's just a reasonable policy on voter ID.

But let's get to the facts: the amendment Republicans are pushing today would impose the single strictest voter-ID law in America.

Stricter than Texas. Stricter than Florida. Stricter than any state in the country.

Republicans are calling this amendment common-sense. But if it is so common-sense, why is it stricter than what every single red state already does? Most states already have rules in place for voter ID. And every state has some method to verify the identity of voters. Republicans pretend like states don't have backup verification systems, backups to those backups, and redundancies in place to ensure that our elections are safe and secure. But we do, and it's why voter fraud is so rare. This whole bill is hidden coverup because they say they need to stop voter fraud, there isn't any to mention at all. That's how absurd this is.

The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing conservative organization, studied voter fraud and found only 77 cases of noncitizens voting in 24 years. And we're going to upend our whole system of how people register to vote because of those 77 case, in 24 years? Just 0.04% of voter verification cases are returned as noncitizens. Now you see what Republicans are doing. It what Trump said-they want to determine who should vote and Trump wants people, and Noem said it as well, the only people who should vote are people who agree with them. It's disgraceful. Disgusting.

This radical amendment would toss out every single ID requirement in all fifty states, for federal elections, and put in place an overly restrictive, one-size-fits-all approach that accepts only a handful of IDs.

And let's talk about vote by mail. Under this ridiculous amendment, voters who choose to vote by mail-which was about 1 out of 3 Americans in 2024-guess what they'd have to do? They'd have to add a photocopy of their ID with their ballot. So the election officials would open up the envelope and could see how you voted. The sacred secrecy of our ballot would be undone by this amendment. It's ridiculous. Again, anyone who voted by mail would have to put a voter a voter ID inside the envelope and the board of elections would have to open it up and see how you voted.

It would also leave people susceptible to identity theft. It would violate basic privacy. Most people wouldn't like the idea of having to stick a copy of their photo ID with their ballot in the mail, so this requirement is just another trojan horse for trying to weaken and kill vote by mail altogether.

Democrats are supportive of commonsense voter IDs standards. Just look at the Freedom to Vote Act, which had the full support of the Senate Democratic Caucus. It set flexible, comprehensive standards based on West Virginia's then-law for voter ID requirements.

This amendment is not about security-it is about exclusion. It's not about security, it's about exclusion. And the SAVE ACT is not about protecting our elections. It is about suppressing the vote.

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