Democrats plan to move quickly to one of the first bills of the new Congress, citing the need for federal electoral standards and other reforms to strengthen the foundations of American democracy after a tumultuous post-election period and deadly uprising in the Capitol.
States have long had divergent and conflicting rules for holding elections. But the 2020 election, with pandemic-related changes to ease voting and then a deluge of lawsuits by former President Donald Trump and his allies, underscored the differences from state to state: ballots to be sent on election day or which are canceled by then. ? Absence voting allowed for all voters or only with an excuse? Register on the same day or only in advance?
Democrats, claiming constitutional authority to determine the time, place and manner of federal elections, want national rules to make voting more uniform, accessible and fair across the country. The bill would mandate early voting, same-day registration, and other long-sought reforms that Republicans dismiss as federal overruns.
“We have just seen a literal attack on our own democracy,” said US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, referring to the storming of the Capitol on January 6. “I can’t think of a better time to get started on democracy reform.”
The legislation first enacted two years ago, known as the For the People Act, would also give independent committees the task of signing congressional districts, requiring political groups to disclose high dollar donors, drawing up reporting requirements for online political ads and, in a rear-view nod to Trump, requires presidents to disclose their tax returns.
Republican opposition was fierce during the last session. At the time, then-majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Called it the “Democrat Politician Protection Act” and said in an op-ed that the Democrats were trying to “change the rules of US politics for the benefit of one 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. If not, Democrats could decide it is time to take the extraordinary and difficult step to eliminate the Senate filibuster, a procedural tool often used by the minority party to block bills under rules requiring 60 votes to promote legislation.
Proponents say the bill is the most consistent piece of voting legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. House Democrats pledged two years ago to make the bill a priority, and they reintroduced it this month as HR 1, reflecting its importance to the party underlined.
“People just want to be able to vote without it being an ordeal,” said Rep. John Sarbanes, a Democrat from Maryland who is the title sponsor of the House Bill. “It’s crazy in America that you still have to take an obstacle course to get to the polls.”
According to current plans, the entire House would already take up the bill in the first week of February. The Senate committee would then consider an accompanying bill submitted in the Senate, and a tie vote there could make it possible to get out of committee and to the floor as early as next month, said Klobuchar, who is expected to be the next chair of the Senate. the commission will be. .
A quick vote would be remarkable, as the Senate is also likely to be juggling Trump’s impeachment process, confirming President Joe Biden’s cabinet choices, and another round of coronavirus relief.
While states have long had different voting procedures, the November 2020 election highlighted how the variability can be used to cast doubt on the outcome. Supporters of the bill, including national voting and civil rights organizations, cited dozens of pre-election lawsuits that challenge procedural rules, such as whether to count ballots postmarked on election day.
They also pointed to the post-election lawsuit that Trump and his allies had filed to try to throw away millions of legitimately issued ballots. Many of those lawsuits focused on electoral changes designed to make voting easier. That included a law in Pennsylvania that the Republican-led state legislature passed before the pandemic to make absentee ballots available to all registered voters upon request.
Government and election officials have repeatedly described the election as the safest in US history. Even former US Attorney General Bill Barr, an ally of Trump, said before leaving his post that there was no evidence of widespread fraud destroying the outcome.
“The strategy of lying about voter fraud, delegitimizing the election results, and trying to suppress votes has been debunked for the unlawful attack on our democracy that it is, and I think it opens a lot more doors for real conversations about how we use our voting system and eradicate this cancer, ”said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institution.
Along with the election reform bill, the House two years ago introduced a related bill, now known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, in honor of the late civil rights activist and congressman. House Democrats are expected to reintroduce it shortly after it similarly bogged down in the Republican-controlled Senate.
That bill would reinstate an important provision of the Voting Rights Act that had led to federal scrutiny of election changes in certain states and provinces. A 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling set aside the method used to identify jurisdictions covered by the provision, known as preclearance, which was used to protect voting rights in places with a history of discrimination.
In general, state election officials were wary of federal voting requirements. But those serving in Democratic-led states have been more open and want to ensure that Congress provides money to help them make system upgrades, which is what the bill does.
“If you still believe in what we all learned in high school government class that democracy works best when as many eligible people as possible participate, then these are common sense reforms,” said Senator Alex Padilla, a Democrat who supervised elections in California before being appointed to the seat formerly held by Vice President Kamala Harris.
But Republican officials such as Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill are against it. Merrill said the role of the federal government is limited and states should be able to innovate and implement their own voting rules.
“Those decisions are best left to the states, and I think it is the states that need to determine what action to take,” said Merrill, noting that Alabama has increased voter registration and participation without implementing early voting. .
“Just to say everything has to be uniform, that’s not the United States of America,” Merrill said.
In the Senate, an important question will be whether there is enough Republican support for elements of the voting reform bill to convince Democrats to split certain parts of it into smaller legislation. For now, Democrats say they want a vote on the full package.
Edward B. Foley, an expert on suffrage at The Ohio State University, said Democrats should consider scary reforms that could receive bipartisan support, and warned that acting too quickly on a broad bill runs the risk of delaying Republicans.
“It seems to me at this point in American history, a precarious moment, the right instinct should be some kind of duality to restore common ground as opposed to ‘Our side has won, your side has lost and we are on the way to the races. “” Foley said.
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Cassidy reported from Atlanta.