Todd Rokita: “I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, listening to the prior comments, I can't help but wonder if…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, listening to the prior comments, I can't help but wonder if certain Members of this body can't help but not do more than one thing at a time. But certainly, your secretaries of state and your local election officials can multitask, and they do an excellent job of executing the States' elections. I want to focus on the portion of the bill that eliminates the Election Assistance Commission, Mr. Speaker. As has been said, I have a unique perspective on this. In 2005, as Indiana's secretary of state, and serving as the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, I coauthored the successful resolution that was talked about earlier to dissolve the EAC after the 2006 election. As the oldest organization of bipartisan elected officials in the Nation, we at NASS renewed the call to dissolve the commission in 2010. And, no, Mr. Speaker, I can assure you, from the debates that we had in that organization, it was not a form letter. It was not a form renewal. Furthermore, the vote for the renewal was 24-2, with 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats calling for its dissolution. This is not a partisan issue. We recognized, on a bipartisan basis, that the Election Assistance Commission cannot be justified on the grounds of fairness, justice, opportunity, or necessity. EAC bureaucrats do not make elections fair.…”