Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement on the passage of the SHIELD Act, strong and commonsense legislation to secure our elections from foreign interference. The SHIELD Act passed 227-181, with zero Republicans voting to protect our democracy:

“America’s elections and democracy are under relentless, ongoing foreign attack, yet House Republicans have once again refused to vote to strengthen our nation’s defenses.

“House Republicans have chosen to brazenly ignore the clear conclusion of America’s top law enforcement and intelligence officials, who have warned that we face a ‘365-day-a-year threat’ from the Russians, whose attacks last year on our elections were simply ‘a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020.’ Their vote also disregards the findings of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which concluded on a bipartisan basis that election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russia during the last elections. Sadly, Republicans are more concerned with protecting the President, who has invited these foreign attacks, than with protecting our elections.

“American elections should be decided by Americans, just as our Founders intended. The House salutes the patriotic, persistent leadership of House Committee on Administration Chair Zoe Lofgren, Democracy Task Force Chairman John Sarbanes and all our Members for their leadership on this urgently-needed legislation to protect our democracy, including with a new duty-to-report illicit offers of campaign assistance from foreign governments and agents and additional measures to end laundering of foreign money in U.S. elections and strengthen transparency of online political advertisements to fight exploitation by hostile foreign actors.

“We urge the Republican Senate to show the patriotic leadership that their counterparts in the House have abandoned, and take up this legislation to defend our elections, national security and democracy. We also urge them to honor their oath by finally taking up H.R. 1, the For The People Act, and the SAFE Act, which strengthen our defenses against foreign assault. We have no time to waste to safeguard our democracy from the attacks that we know are coming.”