Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a sweeping new voter suppression bill into law on Wednesday that is meant to mirror the national documentary proof of citizenship legislation that, to right-wing activists’ great displeasure, is currently languishing in a Republican-controlled Congress due to the Senate’s filibuster rules.
The Florida governor is one of a handful of red state leaders who has stepped up to demonstrate his own ability to disenfranchise wide swaths of voters. While Florida’s law won’t go into effect until January next year — the bill’s sponsors originally wanted it passed and implemented by August, to be in place before the midterms — it will impose cumbersome new documentary proof of citizenship mandates and harsh voter ID rules on those trying to vote in the state.
DeSantis elevated the Republican Party’s favorite myth — that non-citizens are somehow voting en masse in U.S. elections — to laud the bill’s successful passage.
“This bill protects and expands integrity in our voter registration process,” DeSantis said. “Our Constitution in the state of Florida says only American citizens are allowed to vote in our elections, so we need to make sure that is the law.”
Florida’s new law tasks election officials in the state with checking and verifying a potential voters’ citizenship after they’ve registered to vote, in most cases via records from the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. While supporters of the legislation argue that many Floridians will have their citizenship records on file because they had to do so in order to comply with the new national REAL ID mandates for domestic plane travel, voting rights advocates say the law will disenfranchise people who were born in Puerto Rico, people who changed their names — like, married women — or vulnerable populations that have lost or never have had documents related to their citizenship.
National advocates have raised the same concerns about the SAVE America Act that Trump has been threatening Congress to pass. The Brennan Center for Justice has predicted that the SAVE America Act could disenfranchise millions if passed, as more than 9 percent of Americans who are eligible to vote do not have access to the required documents, for a variety of reasons.
“We are most concerned about impact as it relates to the most vulnerable Florida voters,” Jonathan Topaz — a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has already filed a lawsuit alongside the League of Women voters of Florida and other voting rights groups to challenge the new law — told NBC News.
“This could mean older Black voters who grew up in Jim Crow South who don’t have access to birth certificates, this could be naturalized citizens — we know naturalized citizens are flagged as noncitizens all the time,” he said.
Florida is just one of several red states that are picking up the voter suppression slack while Congress figures out how to pass the SAVE America Act. Since there is no strong appetite within the Republican Senate conference for nuking the filibuster in order to pass the legislation, Republican lawmakers are getting creative, with talk of trying to cram at least some aspects of it into a perhaps-impending budget reconciliation package that has been gaining momentum in recent weeks. (It remains unclear whether the GOP will be able to use the budget process to pass the very-not-budget-related voter suppression bill, as TPM has reported).
— Nicole LaFond
Johnson Caves to Senate GOP Leadership on DHS
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) put out a joint statement Wednesday afternoon saying they will end the ongoing Department of Homeland Security-specific shutdown and fund the department in “two parallel tracks: through the appropriations process and through the reconciliation process.”
Translation: though vague on details, the language in the leaders’ statement implies Republicans will fund all of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with a funding bill and later address ICE and CBP in a reconciliation bill — a process that only requires a simple majority vote in both chambers to pass.
That plan is effectively the same one the Senate GOP punted over to the House at the end of last week after passing a funding bill in the early hours of Friday. Johnson and the Republican caucus refused to vote on the Senate-passed bill then, calling it a “joke” and instead taking up a continuing resolution (CR) to fund all of DHS through May 22.
The timing of this new plan from GOP leadership remains unclear. Both chambers are on recess until the week of April 13.
The joint statement came just hours after President Donald Trump called on Republicans to pass their second reconciliation bill “no later than June 1st.”
— Emine Yücel
Dem Party Targets Vulnerable Republicans in Bid to Remind Voters of Medicaid Cuts
The Democratic Party is continuing to remind voters about the Republican-passed cuts to Medicaid last year ahead of the November midterms — particularly in parts of the country where vulnerable Republican senators face tough reelection prospects. The most recent campaign from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee targets seven GOP Senate candidates and/or incumbents running for election or re-election (all but three Republican senators voted for Trump’s social safety net-slashing reconciliation package last summer) in states where Democrats believe they may have a chance at picking up seats.
The vulnerable Republican politicians supported the “toxic plan that cut Medicaid, ripped away health care coverage, and spiked costs,” hurting their own constituents, the DSCC campaign says.
Drawing on a report released Tuesday by the Public Citizen, a progressive thinktank and research center, the DSCC called out Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), John Husted (R-OH), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Susan Collins (R-ME) for their support of healthcare cuts codified in the One Big Beautiful Bill. Collins notably did not vote for final passage of the bill, but provided support for it to reach the Senate floor. Democrats also highlighted Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), who is running for the open Senate seat in Iowa; former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), running for the seat vacated by Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI); and former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, who a recently released poll suggests is losing early to North Carolina’s Democratic ex-governor Roy Cooper for the open Senate seat there.
Apparently Alaska’s Sullivan is in trouble too, according to a poll released earlier this week that shows him trailing Democrat Mary Peltola. Senate races in Maine, Michigan and Ohio are a tossup according to the Cook Political Report, and Texas Republicans are facing a costly civil war since President Donald Trump has basically refused to endorse anyone.
Meanwhile, the Public Citizen analysis found that 446 hospitals across 44 states and the District of Columbia are at risk of closing or axing services because of those Medicaid cuts. The report especially spotlights the risks the cuts pose to urban hospitals after rural hospitals were previously the focus for advocates. Republicans secured a $50 billion bandaid fund to help cover up the devastating impacts of the nearly $1 trillion Medicaid reduction passed in the OBBBA.
The campaign also comes as congressional Republicans are floating further cuts to social safety net programs, which they claim are necessary to fund Trump’s war in Iran.
— Layla A. Jones
In Case You Missed It
New piece out this morning about the bizarre, symbiotic relationship between far-right MAGA online influencers and Trump’s mass deportation campaign, from Josh Kovensky: Inside the Bizarre Feedback Loop Between DHS and MAGA Influencers
Morning Memo: Bros Will Be Bros: Hegseth Intervenes in Kid Rock Flyby
Kate Riga and Josh Kovensky covered today’s oral arguments on the birthright citizenship question that Trump has brought before the Supreme Court. Catch up on their live coverage here: The Supreme Court Decides Who Is Really American In Blockbuster Arguments
And takeaways here: Justices Express Skepticism Over Birthright Citizenship Case They Never Should Have Taken in the First Place
Nativists Loom Over SCOTUS Birthright Citizenship Arguments
Yesterday’s Most Read Story
Neutrality, Authoritarianism, and Thoughts on the Cult of Both Sides
What We Are Reading
When ICE Blows Through Rural America
Donald Trump faces deep public skepticism about Iran war ahead of White House speech, CNN poll finds
Deep thought for the day: nothing reveals The true motivation behind our oppression of immigrants more than the concern for undocumented immigrants voting. It is all about power.
Of course undocumented immigrants don’t vote, because most undocumented immigrants are living in fear of being exiled for who they are. The last thing they want to do is break the law in such a documented way. Obviously.
The other side is that, of course, undocumented people live here too. There is absolutely no reason for the concept of citizenship to even exist let alone determine who gets to have a say and how we govern our shared society.
I know it’s a pipe dream, but it’s my dream. America should welcome all.
Edit: those trees are dead. I need a tree person. Anyone know a good tree person in the inland Pacific Northwest?
So, if InSantis disenfranchises a bunch of voters, they will still be a red State. I don’t see much of an influence on the national midterms. They were always going to be Republican/MAGAt - that doesn’t change.
Florida voters can do something about that. It’s called sue the State. I’m guessing the average voter will be just fine with it.
I’m angry about what Florida is doing, but I’m not frightened. The attempts to limit the franchise will backfire.
I know I personally would crawl over broken glass to vote, I also know I really don’t want to have to do that.
No one should have to, especially not using the ridiculous logic these morons are using.