Veterans Accessibility Advisory Committee Act of 2025

Floor Speech

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Mr. FINE. Mr. Speaker, sometimes in this room I feel like I am in the twilight zone. We are hearing that the world is going to end, but Americans need to understand that this bill does two and only two things. By the way, these are things that we already do in Florida today, and we don't have issues with our elections.

Number one, it says you have to show a photo ID in order to vote. This is something that people overwhelmingly support because we have to do it in every aspect of our lives.

Second, it says you should have to prove you are a citizen in order to register.

Now, the argument that is made against these things is it is somehow racist to require them. What I find repulsive about that argument is it is racist to imply that minority communities somehow don't have the ability to go and get a photo ID, somehow don't have documentation to prove that they are an American. I have talked to my constituents about this, and they are aghast at the idea that anyone would make this claim.

Now, look, this is a real issue. In Florida, I worked on a bill when I was in the legislature where people would call who had been accidentally put on jury duty and say: Hey, I don't know how I got registered to vote, but I am not an American. We had to take them off jury duty. Democrats opposed our efforts even there to clean up the rolls.

There is nothing we have more important to do here than to make sure that Americans are confident in our elections and the results that they achieve, particularly with the kind of heated rhetoric that we say here.

Why do they oppose it? There is one simple reason: It is because they want to cheat. We pass this bill, we clean up our elections, and we make sure that Americans can have confidence in not only what we do here but in the elections that we are going to have this November.

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