No Foreign Election Interference Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. MALLIOTAKIS. Mr. Speaker, I thank Chairman Smith for advocating for this bill, working to bring it to the floor, and making sure that we do not have foreign election interference.

Mr. Speaker, my legislation, H.R. 8314, the No Foreign Election Interference Act, closes a loophole in our tax code that foreign citizens and potentially foreign adversaries have used to influence and derail the will of the United States people.

Under current law, foreign nationals are prohibited from donating to political committees, as my colleague on the other side pointed out.

However, what my colleague on the other side of the aisle failed to mention is that there are no restrictions on foreign nationals flowing money through tax-exempt organizations and then moving that money into super-PAC issue advocacy organizations that get involved in American elections with the intention to influence our elections. This is a major loophole.

Public reporting suggests that foreign nationals who are barred from directly contributing to candidate campaigns by the FEC are exploiting tax-exempt organizations as a pass-through, something that as current law stands is permissible.

For example, a Swiss billionaire has used a network of nonprofits to steer tens of millions of dollars to influence our elections and undermine our democracy.

According to The New York Times, the same individual between 2016 and 2020 donated significant sums of money to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which subsequently sent over $60 million to super-PACs that supported exclusively Democrats. Perhaps that is why we all of a sudden see this opposition to this legislation after it passed committee almost unanimously.

We should all be uncomfortable with any noncitizen having so much sway over our electoral decisions and public discourse. Our elections are our elections. They do not belong to individuals who cannot even cast a ballot in the United States.

This bill would prohibit any tax-exempt organization that receives foreign national contributions from subsequently making contributions to political committees, such as super-PACs, for 8 years. Failure to comply would result in significant fines and eventually revocation of tax-exempt status.

Let me be abundantly clear: To address the concern brought up by my colleague on the other side of the aisle, this legislation does not include any dues-paying trade organizations or labor unions. The sole intent of this bill is to keep foreign mega-donor money out of our elections.

Again, I thank Chairman Jason Smith of Ways and Means for working with me on this legislation, and I hope that my colleagues will support this legislation today and that it will pass with bipartisan support as it did out of the committee.

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