Democrats plan to make rapid progress on one of the first bills in 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 a deadly riot in the United States. Chapters.
States have long had disparate and contradictory rules for running elections. But the 2020 election, which included pandemic-related changes to facilitate voting and then a flood of lawsuits by former President Donald Trump and his allies, highlighted differences from state to state. other: postal votes that should have been paid on election day or that have only been stamped by then. ? Can I vote in absentia for all voters or just with an excuse? Registration the same day or just in advance?
Democrats, who claim constitutional authority to set the time, place and form of federal elections, want national rules that say they make voting more uniform, accessible and fair across the country. The bill would require early voting, same-day registration, and other reforms that Republicans rejected as a federal extension.
“We have just seen an attack on our own democracy,” Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said in reference to the January 6 Capitol storm. “I can’t think of a better time to start moving forward with democracy reform.”
Legislation first introduced two years ago, known as the People’s Act, would also give independent committees the task of drawing congressional districts, requiring political groups to disclose high-dollar donors, creating information requirements for to online political announcements and, at a later view, nod to Trump and force presidents to disclose their tax returns.
The Republican opposition was fierce during the last session. At the time, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Called it the “Democratic Politics Protection Act” and said in an opinion that Democrats were looking to “change the rules of politics. to benefit a party. ” ”
While 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’s time to take the extraordinary and difficult step of removing the Senate filibuster, a procedural tool often used by the minority party to block laws under rules that require 60 votes to advance legislation. .
Proponents say the bill is the most important voting legislation since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. House Democrats promised two years ago that the bill would be a priority and reintroduced it this month. as HR 1, emphasizing its importance to the party.
“People just want to be able to vote without it being an ordeal,” said Rep. John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who is the main sponsor of the House bill. “It’s crazy in the United States that you still have to walk an obstacle course to get to the polls.”
Current plans would make the full Parliament take over the bill as soon as the first week of February. The Senate Rules Committee would then consider a supplementary bill introduced in the Senate, and a tie vote there could allow him to leave the committee and come to the chamber as early as next month, Klobuchar said, which is expected to be the next chairman of the committee. .
A quick vote would be remarkable given that the Senate is likely to be also juggling the Trump indictment trial, confirmation of decisions by President Joe Biden’s cabinet, and another round of coronavirus relief.
Although states have long had different voting procedures, the November 2020 elections revealed how variability could be used to sow doubts about the outcome. Proponents of the bill, which includes national voting and civil rights organizations, cited dozens of pre-election demands challenging procedural rules, such as whether they should have the ballot box stamped on election day.
They also pointed to the post-election litigation that Trump and his allies filed to try to cast millions of legitimate votes. Many of these demands were directed at electoral changes intended to facilitate voting. This included a Pennsylvania law the state-led Republican-led legislature passed before the pandemic to make absentee voting 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 U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump’s ally, said before he left office that there was no evidence of widespread fraud that would nullify the outcome.
“The strategy of lying about election fraud, delegitimizing the election result and trying to suppress votes has been unmasked by the illegitimate attack on our democracy that it is, and I think it opens many more doors to real talks. on how to fix our voting system and root out this cancer, ”said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy institute.
Along with the electoral 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 stopped in the Republican-controlled Senate.
This bill would reinstate a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that had triggered federal control of electoral changes in certain states and counties. A 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling set aside the method used to identify jurisdictions subject to the provision, known as prior authorization, that was used to protect voting rights in places with a history of discrimination.
In general, state election officials have been distrustful of federal voting requirements. But those serving in Democratic-led states have been more open and want to make sure Congress provides money to help them upgrade the system, which is what the bill does.
“If you still believe in what we all learned in high school governing class, that democracy works best when so many eligible people are involved, it’s common sense reforms,” said Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat who oversaw the California election before being appointed seat previously 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 should be allowed to innovate and implement their own voting rules.
“It’s best to leave those decisions in the hands of the states and I think it’s the states that should determine what action they should take,” said Merrill, who noted that Alabama has increased voter registration and participation without implementing early voting. .
“Just saying 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 reform bill to convince Democrats to break some parts of it into smaller legislation. For now, Democrats say they want to vote on the word on the full package.
Edward B. Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University, said Democrats should consider narrow reforms that could gain bipartisan support, and warned that moving too fast on a broad bill runs the risk of postponing Republicans.
“It would seem to me at this time in American history, a precarious time, the right instinct should be a kind of bipartisanship to rebuild common ground instead of” Our side won, your side lost and we will in the races. “Foley said.
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Cassidy reported from Atlanta.