Tennessee U.S. Representative Diana Harshbarger (R-TN-01) said congressional Republicans are planning on introducing a continuing resolution tied to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act upon returning to D.C. next week.
The SAVE Act “seeks to ensure that only U.S. citizens participate in federal elections” by amending the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to require proof of citizenship to register an individual to vote in federal elections.
The bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives in June; however, the White House formally announced that President Joe Biden would veto the legislation if it passed the U.S. Senate and was sent to his desk.
Despite this, Harshbarger, who has a history of voting against continuing resolutions in the past, said congressional Republicans are looking to get a “win” by taking a stand in support of the SAVE Act and risking a government shutdown just before the November 5 general election.
“We’re going to get a CR [continuing resolution]. We only have five of 12 appropriation bills passed, so instead of getting the Christmas omnibus, like we always do, we might as well get a win. And that win is going to be doing CR through March. You freeze spending, you put the SAVE Act onto the CR which prevents illegal aliens from voting. It blows my mind that you would have to do that, but that’s the one thing we can win,” Harshbarger, who is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said on The John Fredericks Show.
Harshbarger added that while conservative members “do not want” to pass a continuing resolution, the representative admitted it’s the “only option we have right now.”
In the case that Senate Democrats reject congressional Republicans’ continuing resolution proposal due to the attachment of the SAVE Act, Harshbarger said Republicans should be prepared to “walk away” and allow the government to shut down.
“You have to instill the backbone in the Republican Party and you just have to walk away. You have to shut the government down if you want to send a message…When you do this, you just say, ‘Look, you take it or leave it’ and you walk away. Then it’s their problem, and that’s what we have to do as a party and as a conference is pass the CR with the SAVE Act and tell Schumer to do something about it, or to stick it, or to just leave town. Just tell us to go home because we’re not going to get the appropriations passed, which is what we should have done. But you can’t go backwards, you have to go forwards. That’s the plan,” Harshbarger explained.
When pressed on the effects a government shutdown may have for Republicans in the November 5 election, Harshbarger said she believes freezing spending would be “keeping her word” to the people that she serves.
“Right now, that’s the only plan we have. Look, you have to take a stand at one point in time. You could keep spending money, but the American public has said stop. Just stop. Make sure that you’re bold enough to go in and say, ‘This is how we’re going to do it.’ You freeze that spending and you keep your word to the people that you serve. This is what they told us they wanted us to do. When you go across the country and 85 percent of Americans say, ‘Look, tell them that you want to send that message – if they can’t live within their budget, then just shut her down.’ That’s what we’re going to do, and let’s hope that the Republican Party can stick together and do that,” Harshbarger said.
Congress has until Monday, September 30 to negotiate and pass a budget to avert a government shutdown.
Watch the full interview:
– – –
Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
