NC Republicans file constitutional amendment to keep immigrants banned from voting
North Carolina's state constitution already says that only citizens can vote.
But some of North Carolina's top Republican state lawmakers Thursday proposed amending the constitution to say the same thing — just with slightly different wording.
It would rewrite a single sentence in the state Constitution, changing the voting requirements from “Every person born in the United States and every person who has been naturalized, who is 18 years of age” to instead say “Only a citizen of the United States, who is 18 years of age.”
The idea to put such an amendment on the ballot this November has been discussed in recent months, but it wasn't clear if GOP leaders would take the idea seriously. Thursday, they did.
Supporters say the amendment is needed to re-affirm North Carolina’s commitment to only allowing citizens to vote, as some activists in other states have suggested allowing immigrants to vote in local elections. But since it doesn’t appear the amendment would make any real changes, critics have said it's nothing more than an effort to boost Republican voter turnout in this year's presidential election by misleading people into thinking they need to take action to stop immigrants from voting.
The proposed constitutional amendment, filed as House Bill 1074, is formally titled "An Act To Amend The Constitution Of North Carolina To Provide For Citizens-only Voting."
Voter fraud conspiracy theories pushed by former President Donald Trump in recent years, including false claims of immigrants voting in massive numbers, have energized conservative voters to donate more money and get more active in politics. And polling shows that as Trump's 2024 campaign against Democratic President Joe Biden heats up, concern over immigration is the top issue for conservative voters in North Carolina this year, eclipsing concerns about the economy, education, crime or other topics.
“In North Carolina, we value the integrity of our elections and have put safeguards in place to ensure our elections are secure,” House Speaker Tim Moore, who co-sponsored the amendment proposal, said in a written statement Thursday. “Recent efforts to allow non-citizens to vote would undermine the public’s confidence in our electoral system and leave the door open for chaos and election fraud to take hold.”
The proposed amendment could also reflect a broader political push in conservative circles, to restrict the legal definition of who should be considered a citizen in the first place — by removing the state constitution’s reference to citizens as including “every person born in the United States.”
A growing issue among Republican voters is opposition to the "birthright citizenship" provision in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that gives U.S. citizenship to everyone born in the U.S.
That amendment was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, to ensure formerly enslaved people couldn't be denied citizenship.
More recently, some conservatives have begun calling for the repeal of birthright citizenship — which they oppose for allowing the children of immigrants to automatically become U.S. citizens if born in the U.S.
Trump has said that if voters return him to the White House he will continue his push, which failed during his first presidency, to get rid of that constitutional guarantee.
A spokesperson for Moore, who is running for a seat in Congress this year, didn’t respond to a question on whether he opposes the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship rule.
The amendment proposal was co-sponsored by Moore, his heir-apparent as House speaker Rep. Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, and House Majority Leader Rep. John Bell, R-Wayne — arguably the three most powerful Republicans in the state House — as well as Rep. Karl Gillespie, R-Macon, another member of GOP leadership.
In order for a constitutional amendment to be put on the ballot for voters to weigh in on, it has to pass each legislative chamber with a veto-proof supermajority level of support. Republicans have enough votes for that in both chambers, even if every Democrat stands in opposition.
Given its powerful backers, the amendment is likely to pass the House. Its fate in the Senate is less clear. The exact same amendment was proposed in the Senate last year, and signed onto by many of that chamber’s Republican members, but top Senate GOP leadership didn’t allow it to move forward.
