1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

I am writing to urge you to publicly oppose President Trump's recent proposal to have Republican state officials "take over" and "nationalize" elections in 15 states. This suggestion, made during a podcast interview with Dan Bongino on Monday, represents a direct threat to our constitutional system and the fundamental principle that states govern their own elections. Trump framed this proposal as necessary to prevent undocumented immigrants from voting, yet claims that noncitizens vote in numbers that can affect elections are demonstrably false. This rhetoric appears designed to justify undermining legitimate election processes rather than addressing any actual problem. His comments came less than a week after FBI agents served a criminal search warrant to obtain nearly 700 boxes of ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, a jurisdiction Trump has repeatedly targeted with unfounded fraud allegations. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia correctly identified the threat, stating that Trump's proposal makes clear "this threat to our election security, the basic premise of our democracy, is forward looking, to 2026, to 2028." The Constitution explicitly grants states the responsibility to govern their elections. While Congress can pass laws to safeguard voting rights and prevent discrimination, the federal government does not and should not manage election systems. I am also concerned about pending legislation like the Make Elections Great Again Act, introduced by Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, which would outlaw ranked-choice voting, universal vote-by-mail, and create a national elections auditing system. These measures, combined with Trump's rhetoric about taking over state elections, represent a coordinated effort to centralize control over voting. I urge you to publicly reject any proposal to federalize or "nationalize" state elections and to oppose legislation that would restrict voting access under the guise of election security. Our democracy depends on free and fair elections administered by states, not partisan federal intervention.