Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly condemned Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville and has said he would work with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in his push to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol. | John Shinkle/POLITICO Schumer: After Charlottesville, end Trump’s voter fraud commission

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday pressed President Donald Trump to shutter the commission investigating Trump’s unfounded theories of massive voter fraud in the 2016 election, linking voter disenfranchisement to the violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

If Trump does not dismantle the Election Integrity Commission — which has sparked controversy as state officials in both parties refuse to hand over voter information to the administration — Schumer urged Congress to “prohibit its operation through one of the must-pass legislative vehicles” that are set to get considered next month.


“I have been encouraged to see a good number of my Republican colleagues in the Congress speak so strongly against the hateful agenda of the white supremacist, neo-Nazi movement” after the Charlottesville rally left one woman dead and more than a dozen others injured, Schumer wrote in a Thursday blog post.

“But we need more than just words — we also need action,” the New York Democrat said. “And I believe that one important way that Congress can begin to heal this painful divide in our country when we return in September is by showing that we can come together to stop the systemic disenfranchisement of American voters.”

Schumer also called for “a series of public hearings on the status of voting rights in America,” including testimony from Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state tapped by Trump as vice chair of the voter fraud commission.

Trump created the commission in May, selecting Vice President Mike Pence to lead an inquiry into the president’s argument that millions of illegal votes may have been cast in the 2016 election. Democrats are concerned the effort risks restricting the voting rights of minorities and other constituencies that tend to oppose GOP candidates.

Schumer has repeatedly condemned Trump's response to the violence in Charlottesville and has said he would work with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) in his push to remove Confederate statues from the Capitol. But Schumer also warned that focusing on iconography of the slaveholding era risks playing into Trump’s hands, as the White House attempts to “divert attention away” from the president’s defense of some rally-goers in Virginia.