On one thing, both parties agree: H.R. 1, passed in the House without a single Republican vote (now S.B. 1 as it moves to the Senate), would fundamentally rewrite long-standing election laws throughout the 50 states into a one-size-fits-all federal standard. A change worthy of a vicious fight — and that’s what happened on Wednesday.
“In the wake of the November elections, one of the safest in history, Republican-led state legislatures have seized on the former president’s big lie that the election was stolen,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The bill aims to:
- extend early voting
- reduce voter ID requirements
- allow same-day registration
- reduce gerrymandering
- change the makeup of the six-member Federal Election Commission to five members — two from each party and one appointed by the president, upending the panel’s 50/50 balance.
Republicans believe S-1, so named because it’s priority one, is a Democratic wish list that would ensure Democratic control of the White House and Congress for generations to come.
“How does it do this? The ‘Corrupt Politicians Act’ mandates automatic voter registration whenever anyone has an interaction with the government, whether they have an interaction getting a welfare check or an unemployment check. … The bill is intended to and will register to vote millions of illegal aliens. That is exactly what the Democrats want to do with this bill, is register millions of illegal aliens. And the text of the bill acknowledges that,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said: “We had 160 million people vote in the middle of a pandemic. Why? Because a number of states extended vote by mail. They made it easier to register. They made it easier to early vote. Why would we close the door on that now? This is a moment you only get maybe every 50 years for civil rights for elections. That is why Sen. Schumer made this S-1 and why we are so devoted to passing this bill.”
Former President Jimmy Carter’s Commission on Election Reform in 2005 found that widespread vote by mail was a bad idea, saying, “It raises concerns about privacy, as citizens voting at home may come under pressure to vote for certain candidates, and it increases the risk of fraud.”
From lessons learned from former President Donald Trump’s defeat last November, Republican-controlled state legislatures are crafting bills to reduce election fraud, including limitations on mail-in voting. Democrats see it as a cynical ploy.
“Two hundred and fifty bills in 43 states aimed at tightening voting rules under the guise, the guise, of election integrity. 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,” said Schumer.
Republicans accuse Schumer of hysterical theatrics. Of those more than 250 state bills introduced, only two have passed: one in Arkansas to strengthen voter ID requirements, the other in Utah where legislators are “creating a way that dead people get off the voter rolls. There are 700 bills, by the way, filed by Democrats and state legislatures, a number I’ve never read in any article yet, to make it, theoretically, easier to vote. Things like Illinois, where, at least in the big counties in Illinois, you have to have a polling place at the jail,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri.
S.B. 1 faces a long and uncertain path. There is some suggestion that Schumer may blow up the filibuster to get it passed. If he does, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stands ready, threatening to unleash every procedural obstacle he can, including adding 1,000-page amendments to the bill and requiring the Senate clerk to read every one of them in their entirety out loud, one after the other after the other — virtually ensuring that it never gets to a vote.
