Leader of the Senate majority Charles Schumer
Chuck Schumer’s Allies: Trump aligns itself ahead of potentially contusive primaries. On, Puerto Rico? Democrats make low-tax states an offer they should reject MORE (DN.Y.) strongly criticized this Wednesday the new bills offered by Republicans in dozens of states that would put limits on voting ability.
Schumer, testifying before the Senate Rules Committee on an election reform bill, accused Republicans of trying to “disauthorize” voters after losing the 2020 election.
“Shame on them … That’s infuriating. I’d like to ask my Republican colleagues: why are you so afraid of democracy,” Schumer said.
Schumer also spoke in the Senate floor about the proposed election bills, accusing Republicans of embracing them. President Trump
Donald Trump: The Hill’s Morning Report: Biden leans heavily on gun control. The Department of Justice faces risks and rewards with sedition charges for riots. Online harassment is ugly and routine for women in journalism MOREThe “big lie”: that the 2020 elections were “manipulated” and stolen from him.
“They don’t even stand up to protect the sacred right to vote. Shame, shame, shame for all of them,” he added.
The Brennan Justice Center found that by mid-February, Republicans in 43 states had proposed more than 250 bills that would make voting difficult, including proposing changes to email voting or voter identification requirements.
A Washington Post analysis found that the changes could represent the biggest shift in access to voting since Reconstruction, putting limits on voting capacity for tens of millions of Americans.
Schumer’s comments come when the Senate Rules Committee holds a hearing on the For For People Act, a global bill that would revise the country’s elections. The bill was passed in the House earlier this month without Republican support and has no Senate sponsors in Congress.
Leader of the Republican Senate Party Mitch McConnell
Addison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellDems plans to squeeze GOP on Biden Allied filibusters with a two-step strategy on Budowsky infrastructure: Trump-McConnell war on voters and democracy MORE (Ky.), Speaking at the same hearing, called the bill “a solution to a problem” and an “invitation to chaos” that “would create a nightmare” if the law were passed.
“States are not involved in any attempt to suppress voters. It is clearly an effort by a party to rewrite the rules of our political system,” McConnell said.
Supporters of the new state voting laws argue that they are necessary after the 2020 elections, but, as the Post points out, many of the bills are proposed in states that did not see electoral overgrowth. Election experts have also repeatedly rejected Trump’s allegations of widespread fraud and his legal team has lost dozens of challenges.
Schumer, testifying before the Senate committee, promised that the bill passed by the House would be “a priority” in the Democratic-controlled Senate, even though the bill does not have the votes to pass with the legislative filibuster of 60 votes.
“Some of these voter suppression laws in Georgia and other Republican states are making Jim Crow grow his ugly head again,” Schumer said. “Jim Crow still seems to be with us.”