HR 1 ‘For the People Act ’’ Passed In the House: Read It For Yourself
The House of Representatives passed HR 1 “For the People Act” is a 791 page monster of a bill. But through the power of PDF it is searchable, so read it for yourself.
The House has once again passed a bill aimed at voter reform and campaign finance overhaul. The Wednesday night vote was 220-210.
Democrats reintroduced the bill in January, after passing it in 2019, banking on the party’s narrow majority in the Senate to get it passed through both chambers this cycle.
The bill seeks to “to expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, strengthen ethics rules for public servants, and implement other anti-corruption measures for the purpose of fortifying our democracy, and for other purposes.”
The bill’s language calls for a complete overhaul of the current system, which varies widely by state and which critics say promote unfair barriers to voting. Included in the act is mandatory automatic voter registration, restoring voting rights to people with completed felony sentences, and a reversal of state voter ID laws that would allow citizens to make a sworn statement affirming their identity if they are unable to produce an ID.
The 2021 “For the People Act” is a reboot of a 2019 bill of the same name. At the time, the House passed the bill along party lines, but it never had a chance to move forward in the Senate, which was controlled then by Republicans.
In addition to revamping voting laws, the bill also takes aim at “dark money” in politics by requiring organizations to disclose large donors and creates a matching system for small donations.
Read it for yourself here or in the reader below:
HR 1 "For the People Act"
My local congress critter of the Trumatarian variety has pitched this in the social media sphere as an unconstitutional bordering on immoral power grab by federal authorities to federalize elections. As if federalism is no longer a thing.
https://twitter.com/CongPalazzo/status/1367192975441354758?s=20Report
I have said all along, and continue to say, even ignoring the question of the filibuster, there aren’t 50 votes in the Senate for this bill as written. Too many blue Senators are from states that will have to make too many changes in their election systems to conform.Report
What really is shocking to me is how starkly even GOP attorneys are talking about this new wave of voter restriction laws. They’re not even trying to pretend that it’s about fraud anymore. Asked why they have an interest in these new restrictions the GOP attorney just shrugged:
““Because it puts us at a competitive disadvantage relative to Democrats. Politics is a zero-sum game. It’s the difference between winning an election . . . and losing.”
Mind blowing.Report
Keeping the mask on is a lot of work, and having to carefully construct laws and arguments around those laws to appear non-racist requires constant monitoring and mental horsepower. It’s easier to just admit it.
We call it “mask off.” Every authoritarian will do it sooner or later.Report
Covid denial made them anti-mask.Report
At least they admit they have no ideas or policies to offer, just naked power.Report
There was a lot of talk during the covid relief bill about negotiating with senators and what was being given up. Now we are getting down to it. This bill is a bigger pull for the Ds. We will find out if there was some dealing on covid relief to get a vote on this. This will be a struggle for some sens but that where negotiating will come in. Ds have to do something to fight gerrymandering and Ra voter restrictions.Report
Yeah, agreed, if I were Biden this is the bill I’d go to the matt over.Report
and the one to tank the filibuster for if you are SchumerReport
If you are Manchin and Sinema you mean. Sinema they -might- be able to pressure or threaten but Manchin would just laugh in their face (if they were stupid enough to try and threaten him which, thankfully, they’re not). He could switch to the GOP and have that seat guaranteed for life and we’d be saying “Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell” through gritted teeth for the next two years minimum.
But if you can’t persuade Manchin on this then it won’t proceed. I’m past expecting any Republican Senators to have even a spark of integrity on the matter.Report
That assumes that Schumer has 50 votes for the bill. Lots of people say, “Oh, it’s just Manchin and Sinema.” There’s a ton of Democratic Senators from Virginia to New England that have to get on board with telling their state legislatures that they don’t get to do redistricting any more. Senators from states that favor vote by mail and will have to substantially beef up their in-person voting arrangements. And vice versa.
Perhaps because of my time on state legislative staff, I believe there are a number of states with Democratic Senators that are simply not going to roll over and go along.Report
True dat, but I was just knocking down the most obvious low hanging fruits. Sinema and Manchin being the lone holdouts is somewhat near best case scenario.Report
And if people are still up now, they can here the Senate version being read aloud in its entirety on the Senate floor.Report
If they think that that will prevent complaints of “but we haven’t had time to read it!”, they’ve got another thing coming.Report
I believe you’re mistaking the coronavirus relief bill for this bill; the two are different legislative animals.Report
ah thanks for the correctionReport
While the GOP bill with the unsustainable tax cuts was voted on before a clean copy was printed.Report
I expect this has no chance which is really unfortunate. I have my quibbles with some of the measures but the case for standardizing federal elections and eliminating state control over districting is strong on its own merits. In a more functional democracy there would be a bargain on the table.
The larger issue is one where I think the GOP has gotten way too high on its own supply. If they weren’t all bought in on this narrative of ballots being stuffed in the hood they’d realize turn out, including among some surprising demographics, was a great mitigator for them. Trading the gerrymander for standardization of security for example might be a long term win. But of course their brains are way too fried on OANN or whatever they watch now.
This is also where Michael’s point above comes in. The GOP is the king of gerrymandering in a more systemic way but plenty of individual Democrats are sufficiently self-interested in their districts being safe to oppose competitive elections, plus of course there are a handful of states they have gerrymandered themselves. The loser as usual is the American people.Report
As if we needed more reasons to do this nationally, consider this quote from a Republican state Senator in Arizona:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/11/politics/arizona-republicans-voter-suppression-bills/index.html
I can’t even begin to contain much less describe my rage at how undemocratic and discriminatory that stance is. But its all sorts of abusive to voters. For whom he allegedly works.Report