Rep. Bryan Steil (R., Wis.) wants to Make Elections Great Again, and as the chair of the House Committee on Administration, he’s set about doing that by unveiling the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act — a “comprehensive election integrity reform package that lays out a series of reforms that are needed to improve the operations of U.S. elections, and in particular, reinstill Americans’ trust in our elections,” he explained during an interview with the Washington Reporter.
This bill follows years of Steil trying to reform American election systems and “jurisdictions that poorly administer their elections.”
Election integrity has been a longstanding priority of President Donald Trump, and Steil said that he “worked closely with the Trump administration as we were drafting this legislation to make sure that we were working hand in glove in a unified government on what’s actually needed to strengthen America’s election system.”
“We’ve incorporated in this legislation the president’s executive orders as they relate to elections,” Steil added, “and it’s my belief that passing this legislatively, rather than simply through executive orders, is essential so that future administrations can’t unwind many of these really important reforms.”
Steil wants the reforms to be codified because he fears that Democrats “would gut election integrity” provisions if they regain unified control of the government, he said, pointing to the “four horrific years of Biden administration policy, where they allowed millions of individuals to come into the country illegally.”
In contrast with Republicans, Steil said that “the national Democrats don’t want common sense election integrity reform, period, full stop. When you look at their position on the most obvious of all election integrity reforms, which is photo ID, it tells you everything you need to know. When I was home in Wisconsin, I went and bought a beer. The bartender recognized me, but then said, ‘Bryan, I need to see your ID.’ I showed him my ID and he handed me a beer.”
“It’s absolutely nuts that we protect our beer more than our ballots in jurisdictions across this country,” Steil said. “When you have pushback on photo ID by Democrats, it’s pretty clear where they broadly stand on election integrity.”
Steil’s counterparts across the aisle on his didn’t work on the MEGA Ac, he said. “I actually have a tough time understanding the Democrats’ opposition to common sense election integrity reforms,” he said. “You need a photo ID to board an airplane, to open a bank account, to buy a beer, and the pushback by Democrats on photo identification just shows you how out of touch they are with common sense reforms, and how out of touch they are with average Americans who do want our elections to be secure.”
The MEGA Act’s rollout comes as Democrats, led by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), have said that other GOP bills that deal with election integrity, like the SAVE Act, are dead in the water.
And while Steil’s MEGA Act is designed to be comprehensive, he also discussed other measures that he has both led and supported that would help restore Americans’ faith in elections. One is legislation he introduced which would prevent non-citizens from voting in local elections.
“U.S. elections should be for U.S. citizens only, and this idea that we are going to allow non-citizens to vote is ridiculous,” Steil said. “Somebody working at the Russian embassy with a Russian passport, could walk out of the embassy, walk down to a voting station, not even have to show their photo identification, which would be a Russian passport, and be able to vote in D.C. for City Council, for mayor, and for other positions. To me, that’s absolutely ridiculous, but it shows you the direction national Democrats would like to take this country.”
The other provision Steil supports, but which is not under the direct purview of his committee, is one to prevent illegal immigrants from being counted in the census; “I am fully supportive of that legislation and making sure that we instate that,” he said.
Below is a transcript of our interview with Rep. Bryan Steil (R., Wis.), lightly edited for clarity.
Washington Reporter:
Congressman Steil, you’re rolling out this giant elections package from the House Admin Committee. Tell me how rolling out transformational legislation on how American elections are conducted became a priority for you as chairman.
Rep. Bryan Steil:
The House Committee on Administration has jurisdiction of federal election law, and for the past three years, I’ve engaged in investigations of jurisdictions that poorly administer their elections. Last Congress, I introduced election integrity reform, and then built on that this year with our introduction of the MEGA Act. The MEGA Act is a comprehensive election integrity reform package that lays out a series of reforms that are needed to improve the operations of U.S. elections, and in particular, reinstill Americans’ trust in our elections. It’s my view that the House should move and pass this. We should sign this into law, and we have a real opportunity to strengthen our elections.
Washington Reporter:
It’s called the MEGA Act, channeling Make America Great Again. What is the White House’s level of involvement in this process, and where do you see them playing a role as you’re working to shepherd it to final passage?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
I worked closely with the Trump administration as we were drafting this legislation to make sure that we were working hand in glove in a unified government on what’s actually needed to strengthen America’s election system. We’ve incorporated in this legislation the president’s executive orders as they relate to elections. And it’s my belief that passing this legislatively, rather than simply through executive orders, is essential so that future administrations can’t unwind many of these really important reforms.
Washington Reporter:
Why do you, as a conservative, feel comfortable with the federal angle here in how states administer elections?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
That’s a great question. There’s explicit constitutional authority under Article I, Section 4, for the legislation in front of us, but four years of Biden policies of allowing millions of individuals to illegally enter the country requires Congress to take this action, to make sure that we are keeping U.S. elections for U.S. citizens, to ensure that we are documenting the identity of people who are voting, and to make sure that we’re regaining the trust of the American people that our elections are being run accurately and fairly. Further, it’s essential that we’re cleaning up American voter rolls and our legislation not only enhances how states can do that, but forces states to clean up their voter rollsroles.
Washington Reporter:
This is an incredibly comprehensive package. Is there anything in it that was left on the cutting room floor that you wanted to add to it?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
No, I think this is the comprehensive package. The negotiations were about the nuances of exactly how you lay out these policies, but in my conversations with the Trump administration, and with others who are experts in the space, we believe that this comprehensive package covers what is needed to strengthen American elections.
Washington Reporter:
As far as these negotiations are concerned, where were your Democratic colleagues on all of this?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
The national Democrats don’t want common sense election integrity reform, period, full stop. When you look at their position on the most obvious of all election integrity reforms, which is photo ID, it tells you everything you need to know. When I was home in Wisconsin, I went and bought a beer. The bartender recognized me, but then said, ‘Bryan, I need to see your ID.’ I showed him my ID. He handed me a beer, and it’s my opinion that it’s absolutely nuts that we protect our beer more than our ballots in jurisdictions across this country. And so when you have pushback on photo ID by Democrats, it’s pretty clear where they broadly stand on election integrity.
Washington Reporter:
You’ve seen firsthand how in California, you need to present a photo ID to get your marriage license. But every single Democrat from California is all but certain to oppose the MEGA Act. What is that?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
I actually have a tough time understanding the Democrats’ opposition to common sense election integrity reforms. You need a photo ID to board an airplane, to open a bank account, to buy a beer, and the pushback by Democrats on photo identification just shows you how out of touch they are with common sense reforms, and how out of touch they are with average Americans who do want our elections to be secure.
Washington Reporter:
One of their oppositions is not going to be the federal angle of this. When they were in control of the House, they rolled out HR1 and HR4; at that time, Republicans talked about how those would be a federal takeover of elections. You were in Congress when those were not signed into law. As you were crafting this federal elections package, how did you approach this issue differently?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
I think two things took place. One, you had four horrific years of Biden administration policy, where they allowed millions of individuals to come into the country illegally. And two, it’s very clear what Democrats would do if they ever gained unified control: they would gut election integrity. So this is our window, when Republicans are in charge, to put in place principled, common sense election integrity reforms, with the goal of strengthening Americans’ confidence in our elections.
Washington Reporter:
Does anything in this bill handle counting illegal immigrants in a census towards congressional reappropriation?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
Not in this bill, but I am fully supportive of that legislation and making sure that we instate that. Just from the technical side, thatthat that is not under the jurisdiction of the Committee on House Administration. I actually think it’s E&C, because they oversee commerce, which oversees the census. What we did is we focused in on the administration of elections.
Washington Reporter:
I was looking at some of the local pushback you’re getting to this bill in Wisconsin, and one activist said that non-citizen voting is already illegal, and it is extraordinarily rare. What do you make of the objections that you can anticipate that you’re going to get?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
This bill, as it relates to non-citizen voting, is about enforcement of the law. Yes, it is illegal for a non-citizen to vote. It was also illegal for people to enter the country across the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, but that didn’tthat did that didn’t stop millions of people from doing that, because the Democrats were happy to look the other way and not enforce the law. It’s really important that we’re enforcing the law on the books, and that we have the tools necessary to enforce the law. The Democrats’ argument that it’s already the law is like telling you what the speed limit is on the interstate. I’m not only interested in what the speed limit is, I’m interested in whether or not it is actually being enforced. And what I want to see is, from an election integrity standpoint, is for the law to be fully enforced and flawlessly enforced. The other argument that Democrats will make is that people won’t be able to vote. But there’s an actual case study of this; the Democrats made incredibly similar arguments when Georgia passed their election integrity legislation, and you can actually go back and look with empirical data, how did Georgia’s laws actually play out? Did the fearmongering of the Democrats actually materialize? Well, what you saw was that people had incredible confidence in their elections. They had a good voter experience, and that’s true across all key demographic groups. There was a massive survey on this, what they found was that there was overwhelming support for the operations of the election in Georgia, and in particular, that was true across all key demographic groups. Statistically speaking, zero percent of black voters had a poor experience voting in the state of Georgia after the election integrity legislation was passed, so fear monitoring the left will be real. But you can actually go back and look at empirical data to recognize how misleading their arguments are.
Washington Reporter:
Is there anything in this bill that addresses how we’ve seen Democrats in cities like D.C. and New York and San Francisco wanting to let non-citizens vote in their local elections? And what is your sense of where that comes from? If you move to another country, I don’t think you would expect to vote for their mayor, and yet a non-zero amount of your colleagues in Congress on the other side of the aisle wants to give this right to non-citizens.
Rep. Bryan Steil:
Not in this bill, but I also have legislation that bans that, in particular in our nation’s capital. That legislation of mine bans that in our nation’s capital, and the House has passed that before. U.S. elections should be for U.S. citizens only, and this idea that we are going to allow non-citizens to vote is ridiculous. Somebody working at the Russian embassy with a Russian passport, could walk out of the embassy, walk down to a voting station, not even have to show their photo identification, which would be a Russian passport, and be able to vote in D.C. for City Council, for mayor, and for other positions. To me, that’s absolutely ridiculous, but it shows you the direction national Democrats would like to take this country.
Washington Reporter:
I know this is painful for you, but what is your prediction for the Super Bowl?
Rep. Bryan Steil:
Man, it’s tough when you watch the Packers get beat like they did by the Bears. I’m still going to be cheering for the Seahawks. I just struggle. I can’t cheer for the Patriots. I think the Seahawks have really shown themselves to be a pretty strong team this year, and I think they will ultimately find themselves victorious over New England.
