The 10 Promises › Proposal 6 of 10 · Jump to sign

6. The Citizens First Benefits Act

Citizens never get less than non-citizens. Help is a bridge, not a lifestyle.

“I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.”Benjamin Franklin, “Arator”: On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor, November 29, 1766 · Read the source

Founding principle: Lift people out of poverty; no one judges his own cause.

What it does

Citizen parity: any federal benefit a non-citizen can receive must be available to a citizen who meets the same income, residency, and need tests.
Able-bodied adults ages 18 to 64 without a child under 6 must work, train, or look for work 20 hours a week to keep SNAP or TANF benefits.
No Conflict of Interest at the Ballot Box: adults ages 18 to 64 who received means-tested cash welfare in every month of the 6 months immediately before the voter-registration deadline for a federal election, and for whom it was more than half their income in those 6 months, may not vote in that election. Eligibility comes back automatically, with no re-registration, for any election whose registration deadline is at least 6 months after the cash welfare ends, or right away if the person shows that cash welfare was not their main income. Everyone affected gets written notice, a way to correct records, and an appeal, and may cast a provisional ballot while an appeal is pending.
Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits, disability benefits, unemployment insurance, refundable tax credits, and all other earned benefits never count.

Why it matters to you

The people who pay for the system come first, and the system rewards getting back on your feet.

Legislative instrument: Bill (H.R.), with a Senate companion bill (S.), plus a House Joint Resolution proposing a constitutional amendment for the voting pause.

Constitutional question

Current doctrine. States set voter qualifications (Article I, Section 2; Seventeenth Amendment; Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council, 2013). Restrictions on the vote among otherwise-qualified citizens get strict scrutiny (Kramer v. Union Free School District, 1969), and wealth or payment cannot be a voting qualification (Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 1966; Twenty-fourth Amendment). Under current doctrine a federal statute imposing the pause would very likely be struck down.

The argument for change. Madison wrote that “No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause” (Federalist No. 10). The Contract argues that a citizen whose living comes mainly from a cash transfer, not from work or an exchange of goods or services, has a direct conflict when voting on that transfer. Critics answer that contractors, public employees, and retirees also vote on spending that affects them. That debate is part of the proposal.

Mechanism required. A constitutional amendment authorizing Congress to set this qualification for federal elections, ratified by three-fourths of the States.

Sources: avalon.law.yale.edu

Read the Legislative Outline

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