The Department of Energy targeted low-income households that qualify for federal weatherization assistance as part of former President Bidens executive order to promote voter turnout, RealClearPolitics is first to report.
At the direction of then-Secretary Jennifer Granholm, the Energy Department launched an initiative called “Get Energized to Vote” to boost turnout ahead of the 2022 midterms, despite the fact that the agency had no congressional mandate to do so and no experience running voter turnout campaigns.
As part of that effort, the agency directed approximately 35,000 households participating in the Weatherization Assistance Program to resources about where and how to register to vote. The longstanding program, which began during the Carter administration, provides weatherization services to the poor, specifically households at or below 200% of the poverty line.
The Biden administration saw it as a vehicle for voter registration recruitment.
“By targeting those individuals who interact with DOEs weatherization program, DOE aims to aid in increasing turnout and reducing the barriers that disabled persons faced at the polls,” reads a September 2021 department memo sent to Susan Rice, Bidens top domestic policy adviser. Helping welfare recipients sign up to vote was just one priority. Other specific targets listed by the memo include: “first time voters, college students, voters with disabilities, and voters with limited English proficiency.”
Shortly after Biden arrived in office, the former president signed an executive order directing all federal agencies to promote voter registration and participation “consistent with applicable law.” While agencies can aid in the process of signing up voters, federal law strictly prohibits partisan activities by officeholders and government employees. Republicans quickly cried foul, alleging unlawful federal assistance in state elections.
“Allowing federal employees from the Biden Administration to flood election administration sites threatens election integrity and reduces Americans confidence,” said Wisconsin Rep. Bryan Steil, the Republican chair of the House Administration Committee, alleging that the executive order was an attempt by Biden “to tilt the scales ahead of 2024.”
Nine Republican attorneys general filed suit that same year, accusing Biden of attempting “to convert the federal bureaucracy into a voter registration organization and to turn every interaction between a federal bureaucrat and a member of the public into a voter registration pitch.”
The Biden administration dismissed those charges as “baseless” at the time. A White House spokeswoman, Robyn Patterson, accused Republicans of lying about the 2020 election and using “those same debunked lies to advance laws across the nation that make it harder to vote and easier to undermine the will of the people.”
A full suite of programs was already online by then.
The Energy Department uploaded a “Voting Playbook” to its website, updated leave policies for federal employees to go vote on Election Day, and distributed “know your rights” fact sheets to targeted constituencies. The biggest push appears to have come ahead of the 2022 midterms when Democrats expanded their control of the Senate and managed to limit their losses in the House.
Granholm cut a direct-to-camera public service announcement in August of 2021 underscoring the importance of voting. According to the DOE memo sent to the Biden White House, the clip would be shared across social media channels, including those “with high youth engagement.”
“By using these platforms, DOE can potentially affect voter behavior by providing direct and free access to the production of voter registration materials on vote.gov,” the memo states. “Through video messaging, DOE will encourage voter participation in underserved and disadvantaged communities, which can include women, indigenous persons, and minorities.”
The video has been delisted from YouTube, but an archived version remains on Granholms official X account. It features the secretary making a broad, non-partisan overture to the “sacred” right to vote, invoking the memory “of those who fought, and some who died, to secure the right to vote for women, for indigenous Americans, for people of color.”
Granholm later violated the Hatch Act, a law that limits the political speech of federal employees, during an October interview with the magazine Marie Claire, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, when the secretary described Democratic majorities as “good news.” The federal watchdog did not pursue disciplinary action at the time.
Granholm decamped for K-Street after leaving office and has joined the lobbying firm DGA Group as a senior counselor. Attempts to reach the secretary for comment were unsuccessful.
President Trump rescinded Bidens executive order, which had directed federal agencies to promote voter registration. Asked what to expect from the Department of Energy ahead of the next midterms, a White House official told RCP the agency would be focused on “core functions,” namely addressing energy, environmental, and nuclear policy.
Philip Wegmann is White House correspondent for RealClearPolitics.
