A Fit of Presidential Petulance

The New York Sun favors the measure at the center of the feud between President Trump and the Congress — the so-called SAVE America Act, which would require voters to supply evidence of citizenship, and show identification, in order to cast ballots. We’re not so confident that Mr. Trump has aided his cause by vowing not to sign any legislation until the bill is passed. Whatever signs of character a president requires, petulance is not among them.This is not to overlook the merits of the legislation. Backers of the SAVE America Act say it will “ensure that our federal elections are decided by U.S. citizens — and U.S. citizens alone,” per a statement by Congressman Chip Roy. To that end the bill mandates would-be voters to supply photo identification before casting their ballots. States would be required to get evidence of citizenship as part of the registration process, and to purge the voter rolls of non-citizens.It’s hard to find fault with any of these goals. It’s true that, as the League of Women Voters cavils, “it is already illegal for noncitizens to register and vote in federal or state elections.” The league reckons that requiring proof of citizenship “to vote in federal elections is unnecessary and seeks to divide us.” The measure would impose a “barrier to voting,” the league says, and warns “many communities” of voters “would be unnecessarily burdened.”The league argues, too, that “citizens of color are three times more likely” than whites “to lack documents such as birth certificates, passports, naturalization certificates, or certificates of citizenship.” These minority voters, the league asserts, more often than whites “face difficulties accessing” such documents. Isn’t the integrity of American elections worth the inconvenience of stricter requirements to register and vote? The grousing by the left-leaning league is of a piece with the Democratic Party’s antipathy toward electoral rigor. The Democrats have for decades been trying to make it easier to get on the voter rolls, sometimes running roughshod over concerns by the states over dubious registrations. Feature, say, the “Motor Voter” law of 1993. That measure mandated that states let people register to vote when they applied for a driver’s license.Democrats pushed through “Motor Voter” over GOP objections. President George H.W. Bush had vetoed it, warning that it opened “the election process to an unacceptable risk of fraud and corruption.” This was partly because at the time, few states even had requirements of residence, much less citizenship, to get a license. The law forced states, too, to offer the option of registration to voters when they visited welfare offices or applied for benefits.“Motor Voter,” too, made it harder for states to clean up their voter rolls. This led to litigation as recently as 2024, when Virginia sought to remove from the rolls some 1,600 non-citizens. The Supreme Court in the end okayed the move just before Election Day. All the more reason, it would seem, to strengthen the nation’s procedures for making sure only citizens can cast ballots. That said, it seems the SAVE America Act faces uncertain prospects on Capitol Hill. The GOP, after all, would, despite its majorities in both chambers of Congress, have to surmount a Democratic filibuster to pass the SAVE bill. These columns have cautioned that eliminating the filibuster, even if enticing in the short term, could cause unintended consequences in the long term, as the Democrats learned to their chagrin. Mr. Trump would be better served by using his powers of persuasion, rather than threats of obstruction, to get the bill passed.

A Fit of Presidential Petulance

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