Fetterman flip-flops on voter suppression legislation after speaking out against it

US Sen. John Fetterman campaigned against voter ID while running for the Senate in 2022, but now claims support in a recent Fox News interview. 

As Republicans in the US House were preparing to vote on the Save America Act, which would disenfranchise up to 21 million Americans from voting in elections, US Sen. John reversed course from his opposition against voter ID laws while appearing on Fox News this past weekend. 

“It’s not a radical idea for regular Americans to show your ID to vote, and absolutely those things are not Jim Crow or anything,” Fetterman said. “Of course, that’s part of an awful, awful legacy of our nation.”

Fetterman’s latest comments left some scratching their heads since they do not line up with what he has said in the past about voter ID requirements. 

 ”In a letter to constituents on April 15th, 2025, Senator Fetterman publicly stated his commitment to protecting the right to vote, which he called the foundation of American democracy,” Amy Widestrom, Executive Director of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, said in an interview. 

“He rejected political stunts intended to sow distrust and that he unequivocally did not support proposals like the SAVE Act that made it harder for eligible voters to register and vote.”

According to Widestrom, voter ID legislation puts in place unnecessary restrictions that prevent people from voting. 

“​​ Government issued IDs take time and money to get. If you don’t have a car and you don’t ever drive and you don’t ever fly, you might not have a photo ID issued by PennDOT or a government agency,” Widestrom added. “It costs time and money to get that. These are also more restrictive. Things like student IDs, even if they have a photo on them, wouldn’t count.”

The Save America Act passed the US House on Wednesday. Now it awaits a Senate vote. The bill would require Americans to show proof of citizenship each time they register to vote and produce an ID each time they cast a ballot. 

It would also require states to purge voter rolls on a monthly basis and submit voter data to the US Department of Homeland Security. 

Fetterman’s recent comments had some believing that he initially supported the SAVE Act, but he told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that his comments were taken out of context, even though Elon Musk, CEO of X, and podcaster Joe Rogan came out in support of the senator.

He explained that his previous opposition to voter ID while he was running for US Senate in 2022 was “out of deference” to former Gov. Tom Wolf, who vetoed Republican-led voter ID legislation in 2021. 

For organizers like Tracy Baton, the director of Indivisible Pittsburgh and organizer of the weekly Fridays without Fetterman demonstrations, the senator’s latest turn isn’t surprising. 

“I  think what’s important here is that he was elected by the people of Pennsylvania with a vision and real words and commitments to what he was gonna be like, and now what we see is this continuous flip-flopping at the behest of someone we don’t know,” Baton said. 

She added,  ”we, the voters of Pennsylvania, continue to want consistent things from our senators. He’s just fundamentally inconsistent and flip-flopping so hard that we’re concerned he is gonna hurt himself.”

Fetterman’s office declined to offer comment at the time of this writing.