Weeks after President Donald Trump suggested on a conservative podcast that the Republican Party should “nationalize” voting in the United States, California lawmakers are floating proposals to limit federal presence in elections.

“Kristi Noem has said, ‘We’re going to make sure that the right people vote for the right leaders,’ and that’s a concern,” said state Sen. Thomas Umberg, D-Santa Ana, speaking with reporters in his office Thursday. “That’s why we’ve introduced legislation to protect our polling places here in California.”

Elections are largely administered by county offices across the U.S., and, according to the Constitution, states have purview over their own election laws. Two new proposals, co-authored by Umberg and state Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, D-Riverside, would prevent officers from enforcing federal immigration law within 200 feet of a polling place, and would bar the federal government from inspecting voting equipment without a federal court order.

“At the end of the day, we know what Trump is going to do, because he’s told us what he’s going to do. He’s going to dismantle our elections piece by piece,” said Cervantes Thursday. 

Last month, FBI agents searched a government building in Fulton County, Georgia, seeking records pertinent to the 2020 election, which Trump maintains was conducted unfairly. They did so with a federal court order. 

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Sacramento Bee’s request for comment. 

During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, Trump implored Congress to pass his SAVE America Act, which would require people to provide proof of citizenship when they register to vote, show photo ID when they cast their ballot, and give the federal government more access to state voter rolls.

Efforts part of push to legislate

ICE The two bills join more than a dozen bills that have been proposed by Democrats to limit federal immigration law enforcement in the state. 

One bill that was signed last year made it illegal for federal agents and local law enforcement to wear masks on the job. That law, dubbed the “No Secret Police Act,” was struck down by a federal judge in Los Angeles earlier this month because it had a carve-out for state law enforcement. Its author, state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, introduced a bill the same day that would rectify the problem by adding state peace officers to the law. That proposal is making its way through the Legislature.

 Umberg and Cervantes are hoping to avoid the same fate as Wiener by generalizing the proposals to all levels of law enforcement upfront.

“It doesn’t discriminate between state, local and federal. It says basically no one can enforce immigration law within the certain radius of a polling place,” said Umberg. The bill, SB 884, would also add more flexibility for county elections officials to keep polls open longer if voting is interfered with.

 An echo of 1988 

Umberg told reporters the proposal to create a “buffer zone” around polling places was connected to his origin story in politics. 

While he was an assistant U.S. Attorney at a polling place in Santa Ana, Umberg said someone dressed as a police officer stood outside holding a sign that said ‘Non-Citizens May Not Vote.’ 

“Turns out they weren’t real police officers — they were rent-a-cops, and it turns out that they did dissuade folks from voting, and that the person who was responsible for the placement of those poll guards actually won the election,” he said, adding that his anger about the incident led to his running against the person, Assemblyman Curt Pringle.

Read more here: The Sacramento Bee