‘This is not a drill’: Hillary Clinton has an important message for all women

Hillary Clinton has issued an urgent warning to married women, amid news that Congress is considering a bill that would make it harder for them to vote if they changed their surname. 

Yep, since Washington seems unable to produce a happy headline, we learned this week that the House passed a bill to require voters to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, as part of a Republican-led effort to minimize voter fraud. If enacted, the bill would require states, who are responsible for administering elections, to obtain documents that prove U.S. citizenship from people registering to vote in federal elections.

🚨House Republicans just passed a bill that would disenfranchise 70 million married American women.

Under the SAVE Act, women who took their spouse’s last name and don’t have an updated passport or birth certificate would be turned away at the polls.

— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) April 10, 2025

Four House Democrats — namely Jared Golden, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Ed Case and Henry Cuellar – joined all Republicans present to vote in favor of the bill. Supporters say the bill is necessary to keep immigrants without legal status from voting, even though it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. For Republicans, the bill forms part of two central policies of the Donald Trump administration, including its hardline stance on immigration and Trump’s repeated (and debunked) claims of voter fraud after his 2020 presidential election loss.

Speaking to this sentiment, Texas Republican Chip Roy said the bill — dubbed the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility, or SAVE, Act — said the new measure responds to a message sent by voters in electing Trump. “Republicans are responding to the American people who are tired of the previous administration that was allowing illegals to come into our country, kill our citizens, vote in our elections, and undermine our country,” Roy said when discussing the bill in Congress. 

House Republicans’ so-called “SAVE Act” blocks nearly 70 million women from registering to vote—just because they changed their name after marriage.

They want to disappear your rights, but we’re not going away.

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) April 10, 2025

Democrats, however, have argued against the new voting measure. They’ve claimed it is unnecessary given the exceedingly rare cases of noncitizens voting in federal elections, and argued that the bill will make voting harder for eligible citizens like married women, who may have changed their last name but have not updated the documents needed to validate citizenship. Offering this counterpoint to Republicans, Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern said “our problem with the SAVE Act is that it is an attempt to make it more difficult for women in this country, women who are U.S. citizens, to be able to vote.”

McGovern wasn’t the only Democratic politician to raise the alarm. Clinton said in a post on X that the bill “is not a drill,” and urged married women who have not updated their documents to “call your rep[resentative].” The former presidential candidate also shared a graphic explaining the scale of those who’ll be impacted by the bill, with as many as 69 million American women lacking access to valid birth certificates as a result of changing their name upon marriage.

Are you a woman who changed your name when you got married?

Congress is considering a bill that could make it much harder for you to vote.

Call your rep—this is not a drill. https://t.co/P7CcCnFTk1 pic.twitter.com/jnfDUJCwh0

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 9, 2025

It all stems from one of the executive orders Trump signed upon assuming office earlier this year, requiring people to prove their citizenship when they register to vote. That bill has been challenged by Democrats and voting rights groups in court. Since Trump has a knack for reversing policies (ahem, tariffs, ahem), perhaps he’ll also walk back on this new bill. At this point, I’m guessing it all depends on the way the wind blows.