No Foreign Election Interference Act

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to H.R. 8314, the No Foreign Election Interference Act.

While the title and the intent of the bill sound reasonable, in its current form, the bill ultimately fails in its goal to defend democracy. Instead, this bill would unfairly hurt American workers and the unions that represent them.

This bill has many unintended and harmful consequences. Although the intent and the spirit of the bill are good, in the current form, it falls very short of its intention.

It imposes penalties on organizations that make contributions to political committees and receive contributions or gifts from foreign nationals during an 8-year lookback period. However, it does not define a contribution or gift for this purpose or contain any reasonable cause exception. The penalty equals twice the amount of the contribution made to the political committee. If a tax-exempt organization makes more than two political contributions described in this bill, the organization loses its exempt status as of the third contribution.

I am particularly concerned about the severe penalties the bill would impose on organizations that have international members and make political contributions. This bill is opposed by unions, including the AFL-CIO, which represents 60 affiliate unions and 12.5 million workers.

Labor unions are obligated to represent all workers in a bargaining unit, but they have no role in who is hired.

An employer may hire a citizen, a permanent resident who holds a legal green card, or an immigrant holding a temporary visa.

Accordingly, if union dues are considered a contribution or gift and the dues are received from a foreign national, that is, a noncitizen, this would restrict the union's right to give to a political committee.

It is imperative that they be able to advocate on behalf of workers and fully engage in the political process. Since this bill only applies to nonprofits, for-profit corporations don't face this same danger.

Finally, the bill is also redundant because foreign nationals are already prohibited from donating to political candidates in any Federal, State, or local election under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971.

If Republicans were serious about removing dark money from politics, the bill under consideration today would be the DISCLOSE Act.

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Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, I am prepared to close, and I yield myself the balance of my time

Mr. Speaker, as I stated earlier, the intent of this bill is noble and even reasonable, but as it is written, it is fundamentally flawed.

While it is true that the bill passed out of committee on a nearly unanimous vote, and in that iteration, I did vote for it. Upon further scrutiny of the bill, we noticed that there were some very troubling aspects of this bill, which make it not fulfill the solution to the problem that it is seeking to do.

If my colleagues on the other side of the aisle were correct in saying that it doesn't unfairly target unions, they could tighten up the definition of what contributions are in this bill, or they could amend it to specifically exclude labor unions from the provisions of this bill that are so punitive.

My question to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is I can understand wanting to remove foreign influence from our elections, but why do they want to silence the voices of working families in the United States, because that is what this bill does.

I support removing dark money from politics, but this bill is not the right bill, and it is certainly not the right approach.

Its significant penalties on tax-exempt organizations unfairly target workers and the unions that represent them, and there is nothing swampy about wanting to defend those workers.

This bill does not fail to meaningfully reduce foreign election interference, so I must urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' in opposition of this bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. SANCHEZ. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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