Rep. Ruben Gallego sides with GOP to ban non-citizen voting in DC in change from 2023 stance

Rep. Ruben Gallego voted Thursday with every House Republican to prevent Washington, D.C., from allowing noncitizens to vote in its municipal elections, a change from a year ago when he sided with most Democrats to allow it.

The latest measure easily passed the Republican-controlled House of Representatives but is expected to languish in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

That may make the bill symbolic more than anything else for most House members. The stakes may be different for Gallego, D-Ariz., who is running for the U.S. Senate, and allowing noncitizens to vote may be a tough sell with Arizona voters.

Gallego was one of 52 House Democrats to vote with 210 Republicans on the bill Thursday, which would prevent noncitizens from voting in city elections in the nation’s capital.

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In February 2023, Gallego voted against a bill that would have done the same thing. That bill also would have prohibited a legal challenge to the measure. The latest bill does not rule out legal challenges.

U.S. Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., voted with Republicans for both versions of the bill.

The bills are in response to a law passed in 2022 by the D.C. Council allowing noncitizens to vote in its municipal elections. It does not allow them to vote in federal elections. Congress has oversight of the District and can override its local governance.

The changes made to the latest bill on D.C. voting rules drew a net 10 extra Democrats, including Gallego.

He defended his vote in a statement afterward.

“I believe that only citizens have the Constitutional right to vote, which is why I voted for this legislation,” he said. “This bill made important improvements on the previous attempt, which was a half-baked proposal with dangerous implications, including the inability for American citizens living in D.C. to access our judicial system.”

In 2023, he said Washington, D.C., residents, not Congress, should determine the city's voting rules and advocated statehood for the federal district.

“I believe voting is a fundamental right reserved for the citizens of the United States, and I will oppose any effort to erode that right in Arizona and on the federal level,” he said then. “But Washington, D.C., is not Arizona, and I do not believe Congress should be in the business of telling the residents of Washington, D.C., how to hold their democratic elections. Today’s vote, if anything, is yet another example of why we need D.C. statehood, so those living in Washington no longer find themselves at the mercy of a vindictive Republican House majority.”

The District’s nonvoting member of Congress, U.S. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-DC, blamed Republicans for the passage of the bill, which she said reflects a contempt for the city’s home rule.

“If House Republicans cared about elections or D.C. residents, they would bring to the floor the D.C. statehood bill, … which would give D.C. residents voting representation in Congress and full local self-government,” Norton said in a statement after the vote.

“D.C.’s law is not unique. More than a dozen cities today allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. While the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act applies only to local D.C. elections, there is a long history in the United States, including before its founding, of allowing noncitizens to vote in local, state, territorial and federal elections. Congress should keep its hands off D.C.”

Gallego is running for the seat held by the retiring U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz. Kari Lake, the Republican front-runner in that race, ripped him for what she viewed as a U-turn.

“Ruben Gallego is nothing but a career politician and political opportunist. Flip-flopping on the issues now won’t trick Arizonans into thinking he’s a moderate after we’ve watched him vote for open-borders policies time and time again over his decade in Washington, D.C.,” she said in a written statement.

“I’m running for Senate to stop career politicians like Gallego and to be a true voice in D.C. for the everyday Arizonans who deserve a secure border, strong national security and safe communities.”

Republicans have long accused Gallego of changing his rhetoric and positions on border security in an effort to soften his image with voters, a charge he denies.

The vote on the city’s election rules comes as Republicans continue to argue that election integrity is under assault, a position refuted by election security experts across the country. Some Republicans have connected an uptick in illegal border crossings to a Democratic plot to bring in a new bloc of voters to keep them in power.

Earlier this month, Lake told “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News that she agreed “a thousand percent” that Democrats are allowing a flood of immigrants in part so they can “vote for the Democrats.”

Lake cited Democrats’ resistance to a Republican bill requiring proof of citizenship as evidence of the plan.

Then Lake went on to suggest the immigrants’ names are added to the voter rolls so an unidentified “they” can vote for the group.

“We’re not going to see all these people showing up at polling places,” Lake said. “What they want is to have a line in the voter rolls so that somebody can vote for that person, and that’s why they are asking them to register to vote when they get set up for Medicare and Medicaid because they’re giving them all of these services.

“They’re asking them to sign up to vote, then they have a line in the voter roll, and somebody will vote under that name.”

Lake suggested without evidence that Democrats want noncitizens voting in federal elections, which is a felony.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rep. Ruben Gallego changes sides on immigrant voting rights in DC