With Arizona’s other Congressional Democrats, House CD Three Representative Yassamin Ansari has not been shy about criticizing MAGA/Project 2025 Republican Extremism or pushing for policies that, unlike the Musk/Trump/Vance/Kennedy Jr. Central Committee, will actually help lower and middle-class Americans.
After passage of the voter suppression measure under the Orwellian-named SAVE Act, Representative Ansari spoke on the House well, outlining why this MAGA/Project 2025 legislation is designed to handicap voting groups like military service members, married women, and Native Americans from casting their legal ballots.
In her remarks, she said:
“I rise in firm opposition to the Republican passage of the so-called SAVE Act, an act of legislative voter suppression that will make it much harder for most people to vote, the cornerstone of our Democracy. This bill, which just passed the Republican House, is designed to combat a nonexistent problem. Non-citizens are already not allowed to vote under federal law. Instances of fraudulent non-citizens voting are exceedingly rare. You are literally more likely to get struck by lightning than encounter non-citizen voting to address. This is a made-up problem. Republicans have passed a draconian bill that would make it extremely difficult and costly for service members, married women, and disadvantaged Americans to register to vote. In most cases, it requires a person to present their birth certificate, matching a current ID. There are no exceptions for the 70 million American women who changed their married name. This bill also mandates in-person visits to register to vote, disenfranchising potentially tens of thousands of deployed service members as well as Native Americans in rural areas like Northern Arizona. This is a shocking act of voter suppression.”
The Representative also partnered with Massachussets Senator Ed Markey in sponsoring the Heating and Cooling Relief Act, a measure that would provide financial assistance for qualifying Americans to help pay for their heating and air conditioning bills in the LIHEAP (Low Income Energy Assistance Program.)
In her remarks, Representative Ansari said:
“Elon Musk and Donald Trump finally have a plan for something. To raise the cost of your utility bills…In Arizona, we are on the front lines of the climate crisis. We’ve already broken records this year and seen a number of days over a hundred degrees. This bill will help make sure that you can afford your air conditioning and that people will not have to choose between keeping the AC on or putting food on the table…But just last week DOGE and RFK Jr. fired the federal LIHEAP team, and they’re still 400 million dollars on the table from last fiscal year that can help working people. This program is literally saving lives from Massachusetts to Arizona, but for whatever reason, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing everything that they can to cut it… While Trump, Musk, and their billionaire buddies want to jack up your energy costs by cutting programs like LIHEAP, we have a real solution… That’s what we should be fighting for. To protect our constituents, lower their bills, lower their costs, and lift people up out of poverty. That’s what we’re fighting for, and that’s exactly what we’ll continue to do.”
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