In 2022, Arizona enacted voting laws that required, among other things, that prospective voters include their birthplace on voter registration forms and that they submit documentary proof of citizenship when using Arizona’s state voter registration form.  Several challengers filed suit under both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

In August 2024, CAC filed an amicus brief on the birthplace disclosure requirement in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Our brief made three principal points. First, the Fifteenth Amendment gives Congress sweeping power to enforce the Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination in voting. Second, Congress used its Fifteenth Amendment enforcement power to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and prohibit arbitrary denials of the right to vote. Its authors were specifically concerned with arbitrary practices that disenfranchised voters with “irrelevantly strict” requirements. Third, the birthplace disclosure requirement violates the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act because birthplace is immaterial to a voter’s qualifications.

In February 2025, the Ninth Circuit held that Arizona’s birthplace disclosure requirement violates the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act. Echoing our brief, the court concluded that a voter’s birthplace has “no probable impact on and ‘is not material in determining’” her eligibility to vote in Arizona, and therefore, the birthplace requirement violates the Materiality Provision.

The RNC then asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. Although it did not ask the Supreme Court to address the birthplace disclosure requirement, it did ask it to decide two other questions, including whether the NVRA prohibits Arizona from requiring voter-registration applicants to produce “satisfactory evidence” of U.S. citizenship when registering with a state registration form.

In October 2026, CAC filed an amicus brief in support of those challenging the Arizona law. Our brief makes two principal points.

First, the text and history of the Elections Clause of the Constitution make clear that Congress has the broad power to override state law in order to protect the right to vote in federal elections. Where Congress invokes its power to “make or alter” state law, federal law expressly preempts state time, place, and manner regulations, ensuring that states do not interfere with the people’s right to vote for their federal representatives. The Framers of the Constitution gave Congress the final say over elections because they were concerned about possible state abuses. As James Madison put it, the grant of power to Congress to override state regulation of the time, place, and manner of federal elections was necessary because “State Legislatures will sometimes fail or refuse to consult the common interest at the expense of their local conveniency or prejudices,” unjustly skewing the outcome of elections.

Second, the NVRA’s guarantees designed to increase voter registration in federal elections fall squarely within Congress’s express power to alter state regulation of the time, place, and manner of federal elections. During the debates over its passage, the NVRA’s supporters considered and rejected the argument that states should be able to demand that eligible voters provide documentary proof of citizenship in order to register to vote in federal elections. Congress instead demanded states use registration forms that required voters to attest to their eligibility under penalty of perjury, but did not permit more burdensome demands for proof such as those contained in the Arizona law. Congress determined that stricter requirements were at best unnecessary and at worst could lead to the exclusion of eligible voters.