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Chairman Steil's full floor remarks:
Mr. Speaker,
I rise in support of S.1383, the SAVE America Act.
I thank my colleague Chip Roy for his work on this bill, as well as my colleagues on the Committee on House Administration.
Today, Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity to move forward with election integrity, to regain the trust of the American people and the way that we operate our elections.
The SAVE America Act has two key principles, both of which are commonsense:
Individuals that want to vote in U.S. elections should be U.S. citizens, and we should have a proof of citizenship when individuals register to vote.
The second principle is that individuals, when they vote, should show voter ID.
Both of these are commonsense principles.
Now, we know there's some on the other side of the aisle that want noncitizens to vote in our elections.
In fact, we could just look at our nation's capital, which allows noncitizens to vote under current law in municipal elections.
I'm of the view that U.S. elections should be for U.S. citizens only, and that we should be proving that citizenship at the point in time that an individual registers to vote.
We should also be showing voter ID when we go and vote.
This is a commonsense principle.
The American people know that you need to show a photo identification when you board an airplane, you open a bank account, or you buy a six pack of beer.
I'm often reminded we had a debate at Committee and I flew home to my home state of Wisconsin.
I went to go buy a six pack of beer. The clerk recognized me and said, "Hi Bryan said, how are you doing?"
He said, "I need to see your ID." I handed over my ID, he confirmed it allowed me to buy the beer.
I think it's nuts that we protect our beer in this country more than our ballots in jurisdictions.
This is our opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to change that, to instill significant election integrity.
But before I close, let me tell you today, during this debate, we're likely to hear all sorts of comments from my colleagues on the left.
They'll make arguments about disenfranchisement.
They'll use terms like "Jim Crow 2.0."
I'll remind everyone watching to reflect back on the same language that was used when Georgia instituted election integrity provisions in 2021.
And we can actually look, because the state of Georgia operated two significant elections since then and voter participation remained high.
The University of Georgia conducted a significant survey to determine how did people experience the election in the state of Georgia.
And what they found was people had a positive experience of how that election was conducted across all key demographic groups.
And the survey found statistically, 0% of blacks had a "poor" or "negative" voting experience in the state of Georgia.
Making sure that it's easy to vote and hard to cheat is a core principle.
As we instill election integrity in our system, we will see more people participating because they will have faith in our elections.
I encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of S.1383, the SAVE America Act.
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