House Democrats Introduce Anti-Corruption Bill HR1 as First Act: NPR

This is not your usual bill, the "People's Act" introduced Friday by Democrats in the House. Also known as HR 1, this is a condensed 571 pages of existing problems and proposed solutions in four critical areas: voting rights, political budget, constituency redistribution and ethics.

The commitment to enact the bill was common theme among the candidates to the House of Democrats last year

"We heard the American people very loud and clear", Rep. told reporters Friday. "They feel excluded and excluded from their own democracy."

If the bill becomes law, it is unlikely that it will pass this year. Republicans control the Senate, President Trump is at the White House and the GOP vehemently opposes the basic approach adopted by the HR 1.

"It's obviously a matter of course. A fairly radical expansion of the regulation of political speech, "said David Keating, president of the Conservative Institute for Freedom of Expression. "If this bill were to become law," he said, anti-Trump groups "would find it very difficult to speak as effectively as in the past two years."

Some provisions of the bill push the boundaries, including reaching into state law. To resolve the redistricting controversy, the bill would simply take away power from state legislatures to draw congressional districts and allow independent commissions to do so. In this way, local police forces would probably not be able to intervene in the districts to help their party and paralyze the opposition.

But some other proposals are not surprising. The bill includes an update of the law Disclosure, a transparency measure adopted regularly by Democrats since 2010. However, Republicans are no more inclined to join it than at the same time. ;time.

Here is an overview of the main provisions of the bill. :

Electoral and Electoral Laws

• The registration of electors would be facilitated. Citizens can register online or register automatically, via driver's license data or other government sources. For federal elections, states should provide for same-day registration and at least 15 days of advance voting. Election Day would be a federal holiday
• The bill would curb efforts to remove voters from voters' lists or prevent them from voting. Convicted criminals could recover their right to vote after serving their sentence.
• Federal elections would require paper ballots to prevent computer falsification. Chief Electoral Officials Can not Participate in Federal Campaigns
• The Bill would set out its intention to reinstate the basic provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which were in fact anti-discriminatory and had effectively been repealed. by the Supreme Court six years ago. It would also indicate that the fact of not voting does not constitute a sufficient ground to remove the voter status of a person.

Campaign funding

• The provisions of the law Disclose would expand prohibition of the law. foreign political money and disclosure of major donors behind politically active social protection organizations 501 (c) (4).
• Digital companies, such as Facebook and Google, should create public databases of advertising purchases. requests of $ 500 or more and create new measures to block ad purchases by foreign nationals.
• The President's Inaugural Committees would be required to disclose expenses, in addition to the current disclosure obligation of donors. This is a response to reports of unexplained expenditures by President Trump's inaugural committee
• A new matching fund program would support candidates in the House who agree to collect only modest contributions. (Similar provisions for Senate candidates should come from the Senate.) The system of public funding of candidates for the presidential election, virtually irrelevant since 2012, would be updated.
• The bill would cancel the sidecar superPACs that support individual candidates. Ethics
  • Presidents and Vice-Presidents should publish their tax returns, which is common in previous administrations but not in previous ones.
  • Elected Presidents need ethics plans for their transition teams and must file financial information within 30 days of taking office. The bill would indicate to presidents and vice-presidents that they should act as if they were covered by the Conflict of Interest Act, which actually exempts them. Again, this was not a problem in previous administrations, as former presidents did not have the volume of entanglement for business that Trump has.
  • Members of the House would not have the right to sit on boards of directors. Representative Chris Collins, RN, is under indictment for using privileged information that he has obtained as a member of the board of directors.
  • It would be forbidden for members of the House to use taxpayer money to pay penalties for discrimination in employment. Former representative Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, used $ 84,000 in federal funds to settle a sexual harassment complaint brought by a former staff member, said he would refund that amount, but changed after leaving office. Congress passed a two-party bill in December requiring members to pay out of hand certain regulations and judgments in sexual misconduct cases.
  • The Supreme Court should have a code of ethics, which it has never had.
  • National and foreign lobbying laws would be extended