DES MOINES, IOWA (August 15, 2024) — Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has joined eight other states in suing the Biden-Harris administration for using taxpayer dollars to influence elections and achieve campaign goals.
In 2021, the Biden-Harris administration ordered federal agencies, with no election-related responsibilities, to develop voter-registration plans. The agencies have since created these plans in secret by sidestepping Congress and the normal procedures to create their own policies. One example is the US Attorney General bypassing the required rule-making process before registering imprisoned felons to vote. In many states, it is illegal for felons to vote. These failures to follow correct procedures inflate the likelihood that the federal government’s actions will conflict with state laws.
The Biden-Harris executive order also turns the federal bureaucracy into an ill-equipped and mismanaged voter-registration organization and effectively puts tax-payer dollars toward achieving partisan campaign goals. No law permits federal bureaucrats to step into the role of campaign activists.
“Tax-payer dollars should not be used to do a political campaign’s bidding,” said AG Bird. “Biden-Harris bureaucrats need to follow the law and go through the correct process to register voters, not influence elections by turning every interaction with the public into an election pitch.”
The States make the case that Biden-Harris executive order violates the Administrative Procedure Act and threatens state voter-registration laws.
Iowa joined the Montana and Kansas-led lawsuit. They were joined by Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and South Dakota.
Read the full lawsuit here.
