Senate Democrats press ahead with election reform bill described as 'power grab' by GOP
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Senate Democrats are plowing forward with their sweeping election reform bill they argue is necessary to safeguard voting rights that are "under attack," but Republicans have pledged to fight the legislation they've dubbed a Democratic "power grab" to federalize local elections.
The clashing views will come to a head Tuesday morning when the Senate Rules Committee Tuesday will hold a hearing to advance the election overhaul legislation that's numbered S.1 to signify it's the Democratic majority's top priority in the Senate.
If the last hearing on the S.1 was any indication, tensions will be high as Democrats try to pass the bill out of committee and send it to a showdown vote on the Senate floor. During the March 24 hearing on the bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., launched heated broadsides against each other.
"Shame, shame, shame," Schumer said while referring to GOP efforts to tighten voting rules on the state level after Democrats won the 2020 election.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., praises his Democratic Caucus at a news conference just after the Senate narrowly approved a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Saturday, March 6, 2021. Schumer has voted the Senate will take up S.1, the Democrats' sweeping election reform legislation. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
"Instead of doing what you should be doing when you lose an election in a democracy, attempting to win over those voters in the next election, Republicans instead are trying to disenfranchise those voters," Schumer said. "Shame on them."
McConnell, however, said Democrats were trying to "forcibly rewrite" election laws in all 50 states and turn the Federal Election Commission into a partisan body to enforce campaign laws.
"Talk about shame. If anybody ought to be feeling any shame around here, it's turning the FEC into a partisan prosecutor, the majority controlled by the president's party, to harass and intimidate the other side," McConnell said during the March 24 hearing. "That's what you ought to be ashamed about."
The backdrop for the legislation is the fate of the Senate's legislative filibuster, which requires 60 votes to advance most legislation. With the Senate split 50-50, Democrats would have to win over 10 Republicans to pass the bill, which seems impossible given the fierce GOP opposition.
So progressives argue that voting rights legislation should be the landmark bill to abolish the filibuster and pass the legislation with a simple majority. Schumer has vowed to bring S.1 up for a vote and signaled this legislation may change the rules.
"The process that I outlined for S.1 is a process that, I think, could very well cause the Senate to evolve," Schumer told The New York Times' Ezra Klein in April in reference to the filibuster.
The House already passed its version of H.R. 1 in March in a party-line vote. The legislation sets up a new public financing system for congressional and presidential elections to incentivize small-dollar donations. The legislation would establish a 6-to-1 match for each grassroots contribution to a candidate up to $200.
The elections bill would also enact automatic voter registration, restore voting rights to felons after they have completed their sentences, mandate same-day voter registration and require states to send absentee ballots at least 45 days before an election. The legislation weakens state-mandated voter ID requirements by allowing those without photo identification to still vote by signing sworn affidavits.
In this Oct. 12, 2020, file photo, people wait in line for early voting at the Bell Auditorium in Augusta, Ga. (Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle via AP, File) (Michael Holahan/The Augusta Chronicle via AP, File)
It also prohibits voter roll purges and partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, imposes new campaign finance rules and requires presidential nominees to release 10 years of tax returns.
Republicans said the new federal rules would force all state and local election officials to change their voting procedures to fit Democrats' demands and create more distrust in doing so.
"This bill would require all of these changes to be made very quickly — so quickly that should this legislation be enacted, chaos will reign in the next election and voters will have even less faith in the integrity of their elections than they currently do," said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo.
Democrats are motivated by GOP-led voting changes in places like Georgia and Florida in the wake of the 2020 election when Democrats won the House, Senate and White House. Democrats view the new rules as suppression efforts to make it harder to vote, while Republicans say the updated laws are needed to ensure election integrity.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the chair of the Rules Committee, authored a revised version of the bill she'll put forth Tuesday as a substitute amendment that is expected to give states more flexibility and a longer timeframe for enacting the requirements of the federal voting rights bill. This includes more leeway for state and local governments to implement the early voting, absentee voting and updated voting systems provisions.
Klobuchar, D-Minn., said in March the legislation is needed to combat threats to democracy.
"At a time when the right to vote is under attack and special interests and dark money are drowning out the voices of the American people, we need to take action," she said.
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A federal takeover would gut voter ID requirements in about 35 states even though 80% of voters back requiring an ID to vote – including large majorities of minority voters, effectively rebuking dishonest wails of “racism” and “voter suppression.”
Yesterday, the talking point was the 2020 election was the safest, most honest election in history and its criminal to suggest there were any problems.
today, democracy is in danger unless Democrats take over election management and rewrite all the laws.
And they think we are all so stupid.
10 Months and counting...
You said it. I didn't. LOL
Yah, he repeated a Democratic talking point.
"Described as a power grab"?
When if its been "described" as such -- it must be true!
/sarc
P.S: Looks like yet another reply of the "Many people are saying"... card.
(Some people will fall for it-- others will not.)
P.P.S: In trying to determine the true facts (as opposed to the "alternative facts".) ..many comments here have been described as false!
OMG-- I too can play the "has been described as" card.
(Imagine that!
)
As if the gop's voter suppression is not a power grab!
What voter suppression?
I see you drink the Kool-Aid
What specific voter suppression are you referring to?
Can you list any law that is suppressing your vote?
Or did you just fall into the party line and bleat out what other Democrats have told you to say?
Proving voter bona fides is voter suppression to some fruit-loops on the left. That could be it .....
Slim as it may be, it’s their only chance to hold power in November and they know it.
Prepare for the libtard full court press on this one.
DEMOCRATS DID NOT WIN THE 2020 ELECTION.
The press allows pushing that lie but it just ain't so. Elections for Federal offices are only a tiny portion of elections across the country. And Democrats, at best, had mixed success in elections for Federal offices.
Democrats are experiencing more difficulty winning elections down ballot. Democrats are becoming less competitive in local and state elections. Democrats are trying to Federalize local and state elections because they aren't easily winning those elections. The biased national media cannot help with local and state elections. And Democrats holding Federal offices are not successfully meddling in those local and state elections as they have in the past. So, the last, best hope for Democrats is to rig elections by Federalizing local and state elections.
Critics contending that Justice Sotomayor, the Court’s most extreme progressive, is either confused or constitutionally wrong, are relying on this exchange with AG Flowers.
Sotomayor: So, if it’s within the police power to protect the health and safety of workers, you seem to be saying the states can do it, but you’re saying the federal government can’t even though it’s facing the same crisis in interstate commerce that states are facing within their own borders. I’m not sure I understand the distinction why the states would have the power but the federal government wouldn’t.
Flowers: The federal government has no police power if we’re asking about that.
Sotomayor: Oh, it does have power with respect to protecting the health and safety of workers. We have — we have accept the constitutionality of OSHA.
Flowers: Yes. I took you to be asking if they had a police power to protect public health. They they absolutely have the power
Sotomayor: No, they have a police power to protect workers.
The Tenth Amendment illustrates the Framers’ conception, which reserved to the states those powers the Constitution does not explicitly delegate to the federal government. Nothing in the enumeration of Congress’s law-making powers in Section 8 of Article I endows the federal government with authority to regulate public health and safety. Sotomayor is referring to her constitution, the activist one which is looking to give the federal government such police powers. Imagine if we didn't have the three latest justices on the court?