Ranking Member Morelle Opening Remarks at Election Markup

Washington, D.C. — House Administration Committee Ranking Member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) delivered the following opening remarks at the Election markup.

Watch video here.

“Good Morning.

“Thank you, Mr. Chairman for gathering us together for this markup which consists of a series of eight separate measures dealing with election law.

“And I note because it bears repeating over and over.

“We are less than a year away from 2024 elections. There are 46 days until Republicans gather to caucus in Iowa.

“And over 150 million Americans, across every state and territory, will cast ballots next year.

“Everyone in this room would agree—there is a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done between now and next November to ensure that the United States is once again blessed with safe and secure elections, as we were in 2022, 2020, and every year before that.

“Unfortunately, election policy is often where those of us on this committee find our disagreements most profound.

“We remain open on our side of the aisle to finding common-sense, bipartisan agreement on provisions that expand access to the ballot, protect the franchise, and shine a spotlight on the influence of special interests.

“Let’s never forget, as a Justice for the Supreme Court said many years ago, the right to vote is “preservative of all rights.”

“I am optimistic, as you indicated Mr. Chairman, I’m grateful for this, that a few of today’s proposed measures hopefully will gain bipartisan support.

“And I want to express my appreciation to you and both majority and minority staff for months-long discussion on the Confirmation Congressional Observer Access Act of 2023. Which I hope will result in a bipartisan vote to report the bill out of committee.

“I am also optimistic that we will find consensus on a measure to ensure foreign nationals do not seek to influence state and local ballot initiatives, referenda, or recall elections – a proposal suggested as we all can recall as part of the FEC’s package of bipartisan legislative recommendations.

“Unfortunately, many of the other proposed bills before us are recycled pieces of the ACE Act, which, we feel, is a omnibus of anti-voter, pro-dark money package of bills previously reported by the Committee’s majority.

“Counterintuitively, as states and localities prepare to facilitate a colossal undertaking next year—this Committee is considering some extreme partisan messaging bills that frankly have zero chance of becoming law and will reduce resources available to state and local officials.

“And I can continue to believe that I think it’s a shame we don’t use our limited time before the next election to take steps necessary to adequately resource and support election officials, deter and prevent mis- and dis-information, and shine a spotlight on the oncoming torrent of dark money. 

“But as the old saying goes, elections have consequences.

“And today’s agenda sadly represents the priorities of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.

“From my perspective, the measures before us today are solutions in search of problems.

“We do not inspire confidence in our elections by parroting disproven claims of rigged elections, non-existent voter fraud, and supporting fraudulent audits of election results.

“And I do note that we had exhaustive testimony here, some would say exhausting testimony, over ten hearings, dozens of hours. And the suggestions that there was widespread fraud, suggestions that there have been elections which have been rigged had no evidence at all in any of those hearings, not a shred of evidence on any of it.

“And from my mind, what we do in Congress, what the legislative bodies do is, hold hearings on concerns that we may have and once we hear testimony and evidence presented, we work on a solution.

“Here we’ve got solutions searching for problems.

“Our Republican colleague from Colorado, Congressman Buck, recently said: ‘As a Republican Party, if we’re going to offer good solid policy answers to the real challenges we face in America, we’ve got to get past the lies, and we’ve got to have credibility with the American public. And I think we can do that. But we have to move forward.’

“I urge my colleagues to heed Mr. Buck’s call to restore their party’s credibility with the American public by ceasing the baseless insinuations and the constant undermining of the results of the 2020 election—knowing full well they lack any evidence of any kind of malfeasance or fraud across the country.

“Indeed, the record of this Committee, as I indicated, and the hours and hours that we spent: There is no evidence of significant voter fraud in 2020.

“Every witness called before us had the opportunity to present that evidence, did not do it. And all indicated that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. So this is a record that we built together and we should heed it.

“And I urge all of us to move forward, as Mr. Buck said, by working on common-sense, bipartisan legislation that addresses our most pressing concerns.

“I will have more to say on the bills obviously as they are called up for consideration.

“But again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your consideration and for the work on this, and I yield back.”

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