The Republican National Committee is bringing a fight over Arizona’s proof-of-citizenship voting requirement to the U.S. Supreme Court this fall, according to RNC Chairman Joe Gruters, who wrote about the case in an exclusive piece for Breitbart News.
At issue is Arizona’s Proposition 200, a ballot measure approved by state voters more than two decades ago that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. Arizona later added further tools for election officials to verify citizenship and keep voter rolls accurate.
According to Gruters, Democrats and activist groups sued to block those requirements, arguing that verifying citizenship at registration is burdensome or amounts to voter suppression. The RNC has stepped in to defend the law after those legal challenges, aiming to protect the state’s ability to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls and enforce the proof-of-citizenship requirement.
Gruters framed the case as a test of a basic principle.
“Citizenship is required to vote in federal elections. States should be allowed to check it.”
The Supreme Court will now decide whether states retain the authority to enforce citizenship as a qualification for voting, an authority Gruters argues “should not even be in question.”
A Bigger Legal Fight
Gruters said the Arizona case fits into a much larger legal campaign. He wrote that the RNC is currently involved in more than 170 election integrity lawsuits across the country, including efforts in North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Texas and Virginia covering voter ID laws, mail-in ballot rules, voter roll accuracy and noncitizen voting.
He described the opposing side as a coalition of left-wing groups that have challenged voter ID laws, resisted efforts to clean up voter rolls, and opposed measures meant to verify voter eligibility nationwide.
“The RNC has fought back every step of the way,” Gruters wrote, calling the Arizona case “the landmark battle in the next chapter of that fight.”
Gruters, who has served as RNC Chairman since August 2025, is also a Florida State Senator with a long history in Republican Party leadership, including past roles as chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, and chairman of the RNC’s Election Integrity committee.
