Terminating Presidential Election Campaign Fund and Election Assistance Commission

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, listening to the prior comments, I can't help but wonder if certain Members of this body can't help but not do more than one thing at a time. But certainly, your secretaries of state and your local election officials can multitask, and they do an excellent job of executing the States' elections.

I want to focus on the portion of the bill that eliminates the Election Assistance Commission, Mr. Speaker. As has been said, I have a unique perspective on this. In 2005, as Indiana's secretary of state, and serving as the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, I coauthored the successful resolution that was talked about earlier to dissolve the EAC after the 2006 election. As the oldest organization of bipartisan elected officials in the Nation, we at NASS renewed the call to dissolve the commission in 2010.

And, no, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you, from the debates that we had in that organization, it was not a form letter. It was not a form renewal.

Furthermore, the vote for the renewal was 24-2, with 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats calling for its dissolution. This is not a partisan issue. We recognized, on a bipartisan basis, that the Election Assistance Commission cannot be justified on the grounds of fairness, justice, opportunity, or necessity.

EAC bureaucrats do not make elections fair. In fact, EAC makes them less fair by producing biased, inaccurate reports on the state of elections in our Nation and offering recommendations based on these junk studies. EAC bureaucrats do not enfranchise voters. States and individuals do that, as our Federal Constitution dictates.

Giving unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington more power over elections does not lead to more just election outcomes. If anything, it interferes with a just outcome because these bureaucrats, many with an ideological axe to grind, face little or no accountability for their actions, and they know it.

Voting is fundamental to our system and the legitimacy of our government. Ensuring qualified American citizens have an opportunity to vote is essential. The Constitution tasks the States with execution and maintenance of elections, not Federal bureaucrats.

Like I said, Mr. Speaker, I believe States do an excellent job. And by managing elections closest to the voters at the State and local level, we stand the best chance of ensuring opportunity for all and correcting injustice if the opportunity to vote is denied or interfered with.

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