Congress strips voting rights from D.C. permanent residents
S. 2636 — A bill to prohibit individuals who are not citizens of the United States from voting in elections in the District of Columbia and to repeal the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022. · Filed by Katie Britt (R-AL) · 23 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 31, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill prohibits non-citizens from voting in District of Columbia elections and referendums, and repeals the 2022 D.C. law that had permitted permanent residents (non-citizens) to vote in local elections. The effect is to restore D.C. voting eligibility to U.S. citizens only, reversing a 2022 D.C. Council decision that had expanded the franchise to include long-term non-citizen residents.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is to restrict voting eligibility in D.C. elections to U.S. citizens, undoing a 2022 expansion of the franchise to non-citizen permanent residents. It is a straightforward, openly stated voting-rights narrowing.
What the text implies
- The bill is a federal override of D.C. home-rule authority: Congress is using its plenary power over D.C. to reverse a D.C. Council-enacted local voting law, reasserting federal control over D.C. electoral rules despite D.C.'s limited self-governance status.
- The repeal restores prior D.C. law 'as if' the 2022 Act had not been enacted, which may create ambiguity about the exact statutory baseline if prior law was itself amended or repealed between 2022 and the effective date of this bill.
- Non-citizen permanent residents who have lived in D.C. for years, pay property and income taxes, and are subject to local law lose voting voice in local elections, potentially affecting their ability to influence housing, education, and public-safety policy that directly affects them.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill removes voting rights from a class of residents (permanent residents and other non-citizens) who had been granted them by D.C. law. While the bill does not affect U.S. citizens' voting rights, it narrows the franchise for non-citizen D.C. residents, reducing their democratic voice in local governance despite their residence, tax contribution, and stake in local policy.
Named in the bill
District of Columbia, D.C. Law 24–242 (Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022), U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Where it stands
23 cosponsors: 23 Republicans.
- Jul 31, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jul 31, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,653 characters) on Jun 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Congress strips voting rights from D.C. permanent residents” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s2636 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.