Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) faced questions on CNN about his opposition to voter identification legislation that polls show is widely supported by voters across party lines.
Appearing on CNN’s “State Of The Union” with host Jake Tapper, Schumer addressed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, commonly known as the SAVE Act, which Republicans have advanced in response to an ongoing Democrat-led government shutdown.
The shutdown affects several national security agencies within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
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All Senate Democrats except Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted to move forward with the shutdown after failing to secure federal immigration “reforms” during a two-week negotiating period. Several of the proposed reforms would have curtailed the Trump Administration’s deportation agenda.
In the House, lawmakers have passed the SAVE Act. The legislation requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, when registering to vote in federal elections.
It also amends the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 by mandating that states verify citizenship in person and prohibits voter registration without such documentation.
During Sunday’s broadcast, Tapper pressed Schumer on voter ID measures.
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“About 83 percent of the American people, including majority Democrats, support voter ID laws,” Tapper noted.
Schumer responded by distinguishing between existing state-level laws and the federal proposal.
“Well, yeah, the voter ID laws that, first, each state can have its own voter ID laws, and some do and some don’t,” Schumer said.
He then criticized the SAVE Act directly.
“But secondly, what they are proposing in this so -called SAVE Act is like Jim Crow 2.0. They make it so hard to get any kind of voter ID that more than 20 million legitimate people, mainly poorer people and people of color, will not be able to vote under this law,” Schumer claimed.
Schumer pledged to block the measure in the Senate.
“We will not let it pass in the Senate. We are fighting it tooth and nail. It’s an outrageous proposal that is, you know, that shows the sort of political bias of the MAGA right. They don’t want people of color to vote, because they often don’t vote for them.”
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Schumer’s comparison of the SAVE Act to “Jim Crow 2.0” echoes arguments raised by Democrats in 2021 during debate over Georgia’s election integrity law.
That legislation made several changes to the state’s voting procedures, including banning unsupervised ballot drop boxes. It also expanded early voting periods and allocated additional resources for voter registration.
At the time, critics characterized the Georgia law as restrictive.
However, the state subsequently recorded high voter participation in the 2024 presidential election, including among black voters.
Public opinion polling continues to show broad support for voter identification requirements.
One recent poll conducted by Quantus Insights found that 74 percent of respondents support voter ID measures, while 16 percent oppose them.
Republicans argue that requiring documentary proof of citizenship protects the integrity of federal elections and aligns with longstanding identification requirements in other aspects of civic life.
Democrats, including Schumer, contend that the federal mandate would create barriers for certain populations.
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