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Floor Speech

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Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today alongside my colleagues to speak out against an attack on a fundamental right of every American citizen--the right to vote. I want to thank Senator Padilla, the ranking member of the Rules Committee, for leading this important effort.

The deceptively named SAVE America Act is all about sowing doubt in our elections and making it harder for American citizens to register and to vote. It is all part of an effort by the administration to pick who votes rather than allowing voters to pick who wins.

Former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that the SAVE Act was important ``to make sure we have the right people voting, electing the right leaders.''

President Trump endorsed the SAVE Act because it will ``guarantee the midterms.'' He said that Republicans ``should take over the voting in at least 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.''

Steve Bannon agreed that, in his words, ``President Trump has to nationalize the election. You've got to put--not just, I think, ICE-- you've got to call up the 82nd and the 101st Airborne. . . . You've got to get around every poll.''

As I will explain, the SAVE Act is precisely the vehicle that Trump, Noem, Bannon, and others will use to trample the Constitution's provisions that States run elections and sow doubt about this fall's election result.

The SAVE Act isn't about election integrity. It is yet another power grab by President Trump. It is no different from him begging the Republican secretary of state in Georgia to find votes in 2020 or failing to act when a violent mob invaded the Capitol on January 6.

The President is interested in one thing and one thing only--himself. Look no further than putting his name on the Kennedy Center, tearing down part of the White House, or adding his face and signature to our currency. It is always about his ability to stay and seize more power, and the SAVE Act is no different.

Here is how the SAVE Act is another power grab for President Trump. First, under the guise of solving the illusory problem of noncitizen voting, the SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote. That means presenting your birth certificate and a government-issued photo ID in person at the time you register.

Well, many people, such as married women, do not have a birth certificate that currently matches their name or cannot find their birth certificate. Nationwide, there are 69 million married women who have changed their name, and 21 million people don't have ready access to a passport or a birth certificate. I do not think the Federal Government should be in the business of making it harder for these people to vote.

Second, it would require government-issued photo ID to vote in person. Now, I represent a State that requires voter ID. Rhode Island has taken a sensible approach. But the list of acceptable forms of ID to vote under the SAVE Act would be much narrower than what is required under Rhode Island law.

Every State has developed its own rules for verifying eligibility status because that is what the Constitution directs. I am opposed to the Federal Government telling Rhode Island what to do.

Third, it would require anyone voting by mail to also include a photocopy of their ID, adding more items to a mail ballot process, particularly for American citizens who are already registered. It will only make it harder to process the ballots in an accurate and timely fashion.

It also represents an invasion of privacy because election officials will see actual copies of Americans' most sensitive documents, containing their personal information, in a way that has never happened before.

We all treasure the secret ballot, which allows people to go into the polling place, register their approval or disapproval, but not have it identified with them unless they choose. And this bill will upset that tradition and that safeguard on democracy.

Fourth, it would require Rhode Island to turn over its voter rolls to the Federal Government, including your Social Security number and other private information. This is especially insidious.

It is an unconstitutional intrusion into Rhode Island's authority to determine the time, place, and manner of elections under article I, section 4 of the Constitution. And depending on how President Trump decides to implement this provision, he could require that some people reregister before the 2026 election, and he might just pick out blue States or swing States. But here is the key point: The SAVE Act gives Donald Trump the power to decide who has to reregister and who gets to vote.

And, fifth, it would place an unfunded mandate on Rhode Island taxpayers to pay for new voter forms and signage, as well as advertising to alert voters to the dizzying and complex array of Trump- mandated restrictions on their fundamental right to vote.

I note that my Republican colleagues used to be opposed to the Federal Government commandeering State officials and micromanaging their affairs.

In the New York v. United States case before the Supreme Court, Justice O'Connor wrote that, in her words, ``even where Congress has the authority under the Constitution to pass laws requiring or prohibiting certain acts, it lacks the power directly to compel the States to require or prohibit those acts.'' This case was decided in 1992 and overturned Federal mandates for States to dispose of nuclear waste.

And in the Supreme Court case of Printz v. United States, Justice Scalia took this anti-commandeering principle even further by writing:

We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. . . . Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the State's officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States' officers . . . to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. . . . Such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.

This case was decided in 1997 and overturned Federal mandates to States to conduct background checks on firearm purchases.

So based on the logic of the SAVE Act, it is fine under the Constitution for State officials to be compelled to help President Trump avoid the accountability that a Democratic Senate or House might bring after November, but State officials cannot be compelled to help clean up nuclear waste or make sure that violent felons don't buy firearms. That doesn't make much sense to me, and I hope my colleagues feel the same way.

Now, this legislation has not yet been passed through the Senate because I think it lacks votes on both sides of the aisle. Many of my colleagues know this is bad policy, know that it is unconstitutional, and know that it would disenfranchise millions of their own voters, particularly rural voters. They know that the SAVE Act would cause chaos because it is effective immediately.

The 2026 elections are already underway. Several States, like Texas, have already had primary elections. And all of my Republican colleagues were elected under the State-run election system that this bill would decimate. But today, because Trump has said so, they are claiming that this very system is rigged and must be completely overhauled, with immediate effect.

President Trump realizes the SAVE Act doesn't have the votes to become law, so he is running his usual playbook to try and implement pieces of this legislation in a lawless and haphazard manner.

First, Trump's Department of Justice has tried to amass private and personal voter roll data from nearly every single State. It has sued 30 States plus the District of Columbia for refusing to comply with those demands. I am proud that my State of Rhode Island is among them. But DOJ is not fighting fairly in court. According to reporting by WIRED Magazine, DOJ lawyers misled the Federal judge in Rhode Island overseeing this case about how the Federal Government is using this data. The lead DOJ lawyer initially told the judge that the Federal Government had not conducted any analysis on that data. But 2 weeks ago, DOJ filed a brief, in their words, ``to correct and clarify the record that preliminary internal data analysis of the nonpublic voter registration data has begun.''

They are using sophisticated cyber and AI tools to generate the list of people, I believe, who they think should not vote. That is very startling and disturbing. DOJ is already taking incredibly sensitive data--driver's license numbers, dates of birth, even Social Security numbers--and gearing up to remove people from the rolls. They are doing this even though the SAVE Act is not even the law.

And, mind you, the lawyers at DOJ who are doing this are not career prosecutors who do things by the book. They are being led by Eric Neff, a partisan loyalist to Donald Trump, a member of the MAGA movement, who helped Trump perpetuate the Big Lie that the 2020 elections were stolen. And that is exactly what they are preparing to do for 2026 and 2028.

Second, Trump has signed an Executive order to make it virtually impossible to vote by mail. He is trying to demand that the Postal Service deny a mail ballot from any voter who is not preapproved by his administration. That is a gross violation of States' constitutional authority to run elections, and that is an illegal and unfunded mandate for the Postal Service, which is already in deep financial trouble and has not been a part of the Federal Government since Richard Nixon was President.

You can bet that, under Trump's direction, the Postal Service, which is supposed to do the ministerial function of collecting and delivering the mail, will be conscripted to support his power grab.

I am very proud to be here today, joined by my colleagues, in sounding the alarm about this bill. We want to help our fellow citizens participate in our elections because only their participation will ensure that the government is truly accountable to the people it represents.

I hope that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will understand that and oppose these efforts to suppress the right to vote, which is a fundamental right of the people and has been protected by generations of American men and women wearing the uniform in the United States. And not only do we dishonor the Constitution through this bill; in my view, we dishonor their sacrifice.

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