148 Democrats back noncitizen voting in DC as GOP raises alarm about foreign agents

The majority of House Democrats voted in favor of allowing non-citizens to participate in Washington, D.C. elections on Tuesday.

The House of Representatives passed a bill led by Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, to prohibit non-U.S. citizens from voting in elections in the nation’s capital.

It passed 266 to 148, with 56 Democrats joining Republicans in passing the measure. One Democrat voted “present,” while 148 voted against the bill.

“I believe strongly in not having federal overreach, but we have jurisdiction, Congress has jurisdiction over Washington, District of Columbia…and we don’t like to utilize our jurisdiction and our authority, but in this case, they’ve gone too far,” Pfluger told Fox News Digital in an interview before the vote.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries voted against the bill (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

D.C.’s progressive city council passed the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act in 2022, granting non-U.S. citizens the ability to vote in local elections if they’ve lived in the district for at least 30 days.

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Noncitizens can also hold local elected office in the D.C. government.

Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla. (House Oversight and Accountability Committee )

The local measure has been a frequent target of GOP attacks, with Republican national security hawks raising alarms about the possibility of hostile foreign agents participating in D.C. elections.

But progressive Democrats like Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., who spoke out against the bill on Tuesday afternoon, have dismissed that as an implausible scenario. 

“Republicans claim that Congress has a constitutional duty to legislate on local D.C. matters, but this is historically and legally incorrect. Republicans legislate on local D.C. matters only when they think they can score political points, such as by demonizing immigrants,” Frost said during debate on the House floor.

“They only bring it up to the floor when they think they can score political points, taking away the democratic rights of people here in D.C. and home rule.”

Republican Study Committee Chairman August Pfluger, R-Texas. (Getty Images)

Frost also argued that it was “highly unlikely” foreign officials would vote in those elections, claiming they would have to “renounce their right to vote in their home country” and because “D.C. has no authority in federal matters.”

But Pfluger, who spoke with Fox News Digital before the vote, was optimistic that it would get at least some Democratic support.

He noted that 52 Democrats voted for the bill when it passed the House in the previous Congress. It was never taken up in the formerly Democrat-controlled Senate, however.

“It’s hard to go back to your district as a Democrat and say, yeah, I want foreign agents to be able to vote in our elections – ‘Oh yeah, it’s not federal elections,’ some may say. But it has an impact on the way the city is run,” Pfluger said.

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“This could be Russian embassy personnel, they could be Chinese embassy personnel – a number of folks. It’s just wrong. It goes against the fabric of our society,” he added.

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Another bill receiving a vote on Tuesday is legislation that would grant D.C. police the ability to negotiate punishments via collective bargaining, and would help shield the capital’s police force from at least some liability by installing a statute of limitations against the Metropolitan Police Department. 

That legislation was introduced by New York Republican Rep. Andrew Garbarino.