On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Rep. Lloyd Smucker cast a vote that tells you exactly whose priorities he's serving — and it isn't the voters of Lancaster County.

By a razor-thin 216-214 margin, House Republicans advanced a reconciliation bill that does two things Smucker is proud of and his constituents should worry about: it fast-tracks the SAVE Act's new voting restrictions, and it dumps another $73 billion into the war with Iran. The Lancaster Online report lays it out.

Smucker called it "a great bill." Let's look at what's actually in it.

Making it harder to vote

The $95 billion bill doesn't spell out new election law directly. Instead, it earmarks $10 million to the House Administration Committee to push forward the SAVE Act — which would require voters to show proof of citizenship to register and photo ID at the polls.

Republicans sell this as stopping noncitizen voting. But noncitizen voting is already illegal, and it's already vanishingly rare. What the SAVE Act actually does is put new paperwork barriers in front of eligible American citizens.

Don't take our word for it. The nonpartisan League of Women Voters — a group whose entire mission is getting more people to vote — called on Congress to reject the bill:

"Americans do not need MORE obstacles to vote. The SAVE Act would create one more barrier to the voting process, as many eligible voters do not have easy access to the necessary documents."

Think about who that hits: people who've married and changed their names, older folks who can't quickly find a birth certificate, rural voters far from a passport office, working people who can't take a day off to chase paperwork. These are Smucker's own constituents.

And here's the tell. Smucker claims the SAVE Act "will drive more voter participation." That's backwards. You don't boost participation by adding hurdles — you boost it by removing them. The people who actually study voter turnout for a living say this bill does the opposite. Smucker is either wrong or hoping you won't notice.

On the House floor, he framed anyone who disagreed as the problem: "Unfortunately, every Democrat on the House Budget Committee voted against these commonsense provisions... The American people sent us here to deliver... It's a great bill."

Making it harder for eligible citizens to vote is not "commonsense." It's the opposite of what a representative should do.

Billions more for the Iran war

The same bill Smucker voted for also poured $73 billion into armed services and intelligence to keep funding the U.S. war with Iran — a war that keeps escalating.

This is a pattern for Smucker. He supported Trump's decision to attack Iran alongside Israel back in February, and last month he voted against a measure that would have directed Trump to halt U.S. forces from attacking Iran. In other words, when given the chance to put a check on an open-ended war, Smucker chose to keep it going — and now to keep writing the checks.

The war is already expensive and still escalating, with the conflict widening as Iranian-backed forces threaten shipping. Smucker just voted to add tens of billions more, with no end in sight.

The bundle tells the story

Notice how these two things got jammed into one bill: voting restrictions and war funding, packaged together to be fast-tracked through the Senate on a simple majority. Trump pressured Republican leadership to move the voting bill, even holding up a bipartisan housing bill until Congress acted.

Smucker went along with all of it. He voted to make it harder for his neighbors to cast a ballot, and to spend billions more on a foreign war — then went to the House floor to brag about it.

Lancaster County deserves a congressman who makes it easier to vote and thinks hard before funding endless war. On Wednesday, Lloyd Smucker did the opposite of both.

Source

• Lancaster Online: Rep. Smucker again supports passage of SAVE America voter ID requirements (reporting by Jade Campos)