HR 1, known as the For the People Act, seeks to remove barriers to voting, reform the role of money in politics, and tighten federal ethics. One of the key principles of the bill to overhaul the country’s electoral system: allow postal voting without excuse, at least 15 days early voting, automatic voter registration, and restoring the right to vote for criminals who have served their imprisonment. .
The Democrats’ comprehensive bill was passed by Parliament for the second time earlier this month, almost along party lines, and was tabled in the Senate this week. But it faces strong opposition from the GOP over its potential implications for future elections, including the 2022 midterm elections, with some Republicans openly concerned that wider access to votes will hurt the party’s chances.
For Republicans, HR 1 represents a democratic “grab of power” that could turn elections in their favor in the coming years, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., put itAn Arizona state legislature called it “anti-republican.”
“HR 1 is an effort to use the small majority of Democrats to improve the playing field and take away the rights of about half of the country’s voters,” said Mark Weaver, a GOP adviser based in Ohio and United States. an election attorney.
Other Republicans condemn the bill as a naked federal violation of states’ rights, saying the legislation will take over the decentralized electoral system in favor of a nationalized, unified approach.
And some Republican lawmakers, officials and strategists go even further, indicating that the GOP’s opposition to such extensive electoral reform is based on fears they will lose elections as a result.
“If the Democrats pass HR 1, it will be absolutely devastating to the Republicans in this country,” said Jay Williams, a Republican strategist in Georgia, a state that sees one of the most aggressive campaigns to limit voting. “They’re just going to shoot so many Republicans in places where they would actually have opportunities to pick up.”
In Arizona, another battleground with an onslaught of election-related legislative battles, State Representative John Kavanagh, a Republican, told CNN, “Democrats value as many people as possible who vote, and they are willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about it. fraud, so we don’t mind putting in place security measures that prevent everyone from voting – but not everyone should vote. ”
After more than a decade of Republicans cutting back access to votes, the latest push comes after former President Donald Trump and his allies spread suspicion in the electoral system for months on the basis of feigned claims of a “stolen” election.
The move is because many Republican state lawmakers, some of whom have provoked Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread fraud, are now leaning on what they cast as a lack of confidence in the democratic process to justify their election-related offensive. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, Republican state legislatures in 43 states have so far introduced at least 250 bills to limit absenteeism and early voting and enact stricter voter identification laws.
The HR 1 debate reflects the broader reckoning within the GOP about winning elections in the post-Trump era, when the main motivator for both parties is no longer in issue. With both history and conventional wisdom pointing to an advantage for the out-of-power party in the meantime, some Republicans believe HR 1 could make a difference.
“I think I should stop [H.R. 1] is more relative to Republican success in the future than Donald Trump, “said Williams, as the former president remains the most influential Republican in the party.” The ramifications of passing such legislation would be very difficult for Republicans to gain majority status after that. ”
But Republican fears aren’t necessarily pervading states where – even with more people voting – they’ve found success in 2020, like North Carolina, Ohio, and Kentucky.
“I think it’s a mistake for Republicans to believe that they can’t win elections under a certain voting model. I think that’s wrong and absurd, but it’s the same mistake Democrats are making by pushing HR 1,” said Michael Adams, the Republican Secretary of State for Kentucky, before adding that the high voter turnout in the last election resulted in more registered Republicans than Democrats for the first time in the history of the state.
Democrats, for their part, point to the massive Republican push to curb voting rights as an impetus to push forward more urgently with HR 1, which could serve as a backstop to thwart the curtailment of the state-level vote.
President Joe Biden made it clear in a statement that the bill’s reforms were “ urgently needed, ” adding that he looks forward to “ signing it into law after it goes through the legislative process. ”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y., underscored the series of attacks by Republicans on the electoral system in his defense of the accompanying Senate bill.
“If a political party believes that ‘winning heads, tails you cheated’, if a political party believes that when you lose an election, the answer is not to win more votes, but to try to prevent the other party from voting , then we have serious and existential threats to our democracy, ”Schumer said Wednesday. “That’s why we need S.1 so badly.”
The proposal faces a tricky path to overcoming the 60-vote threshold in the equally divided Senate unless Democrats reform the filibuster.
Biden said in an interview with ABC News on Wednesday that he is not against looking at a return to the “ talking filibuster, ” which would require opposing senators to speak incessantly on the Senate floor until the bill is dropped or proponents have the votes. . .
Schumer made it clear at a press conference on Wednesday that Democrats will “take appropriate action” on the bill, since “failure is not an option.”
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