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Democrats plan to act quickly on one of the new Congress’ first bills, citing need for federal electoral standards and other reforms to solidify the foundations of American democracy after tumultuous post-election period and riot murderous on the Capitol.
States have long had disparate and contradictory rules for organizing elections. But the 2020 election, which featured pandemic-related changes to make it easier to vote, and then a flood of lawsuits from former President Donald Trump and his allies, underscored state-to-state differences. : ballots by post due on polling day or simply postmarked by then? Postal voting is allowed for all or only for voters with an excuse? Same day or advance registration only?
Democrats, asserting the constitutional authority to set the time, place and mode of federal elections, want national rules they believe would make voting more consistent, accessible and fair across the country. The bill would make early voting, same-day registration and other long-sought reforms mandatory that Republicans reject as federal overrun.
“We have just literally seen an attack on our own democracy,” said US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, referring to the Jan. 6 takeover of the Capitol. “I can’t think of a more opportune time to start implementing democratic reform.”
Legislation first introduced two years ago, known as the For the People Act, would also give independent committees the task of drawing congressional districts, force political groups to disclose expensive donors, create demands report for online political ads and secondly. nods at Trump, forces presidents to disclose their tax returns.
The Republican opposition was fierce in the last session. At the time, then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Called it a “law to protect Democratic politicians” and said in an op-ed that Democrats were seeking to “Change the rules of American politics for the benefit of a party.” “
As Democrats control Congress for the first time in a decade, the fate of the measure depends on whether enough Republicans can be persuaded to reconsider a bill they have repeatedly rejected. Otherwise, Democrats might decide it’s time to take an extraordinary and difficult step to eliminate Senate filibustering, a procedural tool often used by the minority party to block bills under rules that require 60 voice to advance legislation.
Supporters say the bill is the most consistent voting law since the 1965 voting rights law. House Democrats vowed two years ago to make the bill a priority, and they reintroduced him this month as HR 1, underscoring his importance to the party.
“People just want to be able to vote without it being hardship,” said Rep. John Sarbanes, a Democrat from Maryland who is the bill’s main sponsor in the House. “It’s crazy in America to still have to run an obstacle course to get to the polls.”
Under current plans, the entire House would pass the bill by the first week of February. The Senate Rules Committee would then consider a companion bill presented to the Senate, and an equal vote could allow it to leave the committee and go to the prosecution as early as next month, said Klobuchar, who is expected to become next. chairman of the committee. .
A quick vote would be remarkable given the Senate is also likely to juggle Trump’s impeachment trial, confirmation of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet picks and another round of coronavirus relief.
While states have long had different voting procedures, the November 2020 elections highlighted how variability can be used to cast doubt on the outcome. Supporters of the bill, who include national voting and civil rights organizations, cited dozens of pre-election lawsuits that questioned procedural rules, such as whether ballot papers marked with the mail on polling day should count.
They also highlighted the post-election litigation that Trump and his allies had brought to try to get millions of legitimately cast ballots rejected. Many of these lawsuits involved electoral changes intended to facilitate voting. This included a Pennsylvania law that the state’s Republican-led legislature passed before the pandemic to make mail-in ballots available to all registered voters upon request.
Government and election officials have repeatedly described the election as the safest in U.S. history. Even former US Attorney General Bill Barr, a Trump ally, said before leaving office that there was no evidence of widespread fraud that could reverse the result.
“The strategy of lying about electoral fraud, delegitimizing the election result and trying to suppress votes has been exposed for the illegitimate attack on our democracy that it is, and I think it opens up a lot more doors to real conversations about how to fix our voting system and eradicate this cancer, ”said Wendy Weiser, democracy program manager at the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institute.
Along with the Electoral Reform Bill, the House introduced a related bill two years ago, now known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in honor of the late civil rights activist and member of the Congress. House Democrats are expected to reintroduce it soon after it was blocked in the Republican-controlled Senate.
This bill would reinstate a key provision of the voting rights law that triggered a federal review of electoral changes in some states and counties. A 2013 United States Supreme Court ruling ruled out the method used to identify jurisdictions subject to this provision, known as preclearance, which was used to protect voting rights in places with a history of discrimination. .
In general, state election officials are wary of federal voting requirements. But those who serve in states run by Democrats have been more open and want to make sure Congress provides them with money to help them upgrade the system, which the bill does.
“If you still believe in what we all learned in the high school government class, that democracy works best when so many eligible people participate, these are common sense reforms,” said Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat who oversaw elections in California before being appointed to the seat formerly held by Vice President Kamala Harris.
But Republican officials like Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill remain opposed. Merrill said the role of the federal government is limited and states must be allowed to innovate and implement their own voting rules.
“It’s best to leave those decisions to the states, and I think it’s the states that should determine what course of action they should take,” Merrill said, noting that Alabama has increased voter registration and participation without set up an early vote.
“To just say everything has to be uniform, it’s not the United States of America,” Merrill said.
In the Senate, a key question will be whether there is enough Republican support for elements of the voting reform bill to persuade Democrats to smash parts of it into smaller legislation. For now, Democrats say they want a floor vote on the entire package.
Edward B. Foley, an electoral law expert at Ohio State University, said Democrats should consider narrow reforms that could win bipartisan support, warning that moving too quickly to a broad bill risked repelling the Republicans.
“It seems to me that at this point in American history, a precarious moment, the right instinct should be some kind of bipartisanship to rebuild common ground as opposed to” Our team won, your team lost and we let’s go shopping ”. Said Foley.
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Cassidy reported from Atlanta.
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