For the first time in two years, House Democrats passed HR 1, their signature against corruption and the reform of voting rights. But even though their party now has the majority in the Senate, the bill has a difficult path.
As the figure suggests, HR 1 and the Senate component S 1 – also known as the For the People Act – are Democrats’ first legislative priority. The comprehensive Democracy Reform Bill has been at the top of the list since House Democrats first took back the majority in the 2018 terms and immediately decided to extend voting rights and withdraw money from politics.
There are many sites on the nearly 800 pages, but some of the key points are the creation of a national system for automatic voter registration, the introduction of transparency requirements for political advertising and the establishment of non-partisan commissions for redistribution around the partisan gerry to end.
The vote in 2019 and now shows that the bill is generally popular with the public, but it went nowhere in the Republican Senate in 2019. Even with the current meager Democratic control (a 50-50 Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris as the breakaway), it will be incredibly difficult to conquer the Senate Filibuster with the required 60 votes. The politics are even stricter this time; some moderate House Democrats who last voted for the bill have more aggressively called for change this time around.
The future of the bill in the Senate is also not being tested, as the then leader of the majority McConnell never allowed it to come to the floor in 2019.
“If Mitch McConnell is not willing to provide ten Republicans to support this important reform, I think Democrats will step back and reevaluate the situation,” Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD), the author of HR 1, told Vox in a recent interview. ‘There are all sorts of ways you can redesign the filibuster [the bill] would have a way forward. ”
One way that is being discussed is to partially amend the filibuster rules of the Senate so that legislation on the reform of democracy such as HR 1 can progress on a simple majority vote and therefore possibly pass a party vote. It would be different from completely inflating the filibuster, but it could still push back institutionalists from the Senate, even in the Democratic Party, like Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), a staunch supporter of the filibuster in his place to keep.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), chair of the Senate Rules Committee, which is drafting the bill and moving forward, said she wants to bring the bill to the floor and see what support it has before moving on to possible reform of the filibuster.
‘We’ll go to the floor; that’s when we see where we are, ‘Klobuchar said in an interview with Vox, saying her committee will look,’ is there a filibuster reform that can be done in general or specifically? ‘
Democrats argue that vote reform and democracy are popular – and not for a long time
Democrats hope the 2020 election will give them an argument for this bill. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Americans in many states have been given more options and flexibility to vote by mail or to vote early. The result was a record 158.4 million votes; According to the Pew Research Center, the 2020 presidential election was about 7 percentage points higher than in 2016.
“We had more people in the November election than ever before,” Foreign Secretary Jocelyn Benson told reporters on Tuesday.
HR 1, among others, would confirm many of the temporary extensions. And recent polls by progressive firm Data for Progress have shown that the bill is more popular in parties and is supported by a majority of Democratic, independent and Republican voters. The poll found that 67 percent of national likely voters support HR 1, including 56 percent of Republicans, 68 percent of independents and 77 percent of Democrats.
However, Republican lawmakers in several states are moving in the opposite direction. According to the Brennan Center, at least 33 states have already introduced, tabled or passed 165 restrictive bills to tighten voting requirements, including Georgia – the state that gave Democrats close control over the Senate. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments in an Arizona case that could further weakens the Voting Rights Act, which limits the protection of minority voters across the country.
Klobuchar told Vox that parties over the past year, when parties lost national elections, would judge where they went wrong. Republicans, she added, are restricting access to suffrage.
“Instead of doing it, these guys say, let’s make it less people vote, that’s how we do it,” Klobuchar said.
Newly proposed voting restrictions, coupled with the fact that 30 state legislatures are controlled by Republicans – compared to 18 controlled by Democrats – mean that Republicans have more power to draw up congressional cards in the 2021 redistribution process. parties (containing HR 1), Republicans can once again draw cards to give themselves the lead in the midterm 2022 and beyond.
“If we can get it right in the next few months, there will be enough time to put many of these things into action in time for the 2022 midterm elections, including the redistribution reform,” Sarbanes said.
What’s in the bill?
The Law for the People weighs nearly 800 pages. Broadly speaking, it can be divided into three buckets: the extension of voting rights, the implementation of campaign finance reform and the tightening of ethical laws for members of Congress.
Here are some key points in the bill, broken down by category:
Vote
- Create new national automated voter registration that voters must sign up for rather than register, to ensure more people are registered to vote. Requires Chief Electoral Officers to automatically be eligible for unregistered citizens.
- Requires each state to place online options for registration, rectification, cancellation or designation of party affiliation for voters.
- Requires at least 15 consecutive days of early voting for federal elections; early voting sites will be open at least 10 hours a day. The bill also prohibits states from restricting a person’s ability to vote by mail, and requires states to pay postage on return envelopes for consent.
- Establish independent redistributive commissions in states as a way to draw new congressional districts and end the biased strife in federal elections.
- Prohibit the purge of the voter list and prohibit the use of non-forwardable mail used to remove voters from rolls.
- Restore voting rights to people convicted of crimes that have completed their sentences; however, the bill does not restore the rights of criminals who are currently serving sentences in a correctional facility.
Campaign funding
- Establish public funding of campaigns, driven by small donations. This has long been Sarbanes’ vision: the federal government would offer a voluntary 6-1 match for candidates for president and Congress, meaning that for every dollar a candidate collects from small donations, the federal government matches six times more. The maximum small donation that can be linked would have a maximum of $ 200. This program is not paid for by taxpayers; instead, the money would come from adding a 2.75 percent fee to criminal and civil fines, fees, penalties or settlements with banks and corporations that commit corporate malpractice (think Wells Fargo).
- Supports a constitutional amendment to end Citizens United.
- Pass the PUBLIC ACT, driven by Representative David Cicilline and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, both Rhode Island Democrats. It would requires super-PACs and “dark money” organizations to disclose their donors.
- Pass the Fair Advertising Act, composed by Sens. Klobuchar and Mark Warner (VA), who require Facebook and Twitter to disclose the source of money for political ads on their platforms and share how much money is being spent.
- Disclose political spending by government contractors and delay the inflow of foreign money after the election by targeting shell companies.
- Restructure the Federal Electoral Commission to have five commissioners instead of six, thus breaking the political network at the organization.
- Prohibit any coordination between candidates and super-PACs.
Ethics
- Requires the president and vice president to disclose ten years of his or her tax returns. Candidates for president and vice president should do the same.
- Prevent members of Congress from using taxpayers’ money to settle sexual harassment or discrimination cases.
- Give the Office of Government Ethics the power to oversee and enforce and introduce stricter registration requirements for lobbying. This includes more oversight of foreign agents by the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
- Create a new code of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure that all branches of government are affected by the new law.
Democrats have a very narrow window to pass the bill
HR 1 could be a last-ditch effort for Democrats to be competitive in homes, if they can get it through Congress and to Biden’s desk.
“The president remains committed to protecting the fundamental right to vote and making it easy for all eligible Americans to vote,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday in response to a question from Vox. “That is why we need to implement reforms such as HR 1 and restore the Voting Rights Act. This is a priority for the president, something he will work with members of Congress to move forward. ”
Senate Democrats are not yet ready to blow up the Senate filibuster, but they are also finding ways to tackle it to pass important legislation.
This week, Democrats are using budget reconciliation to pass President Joe Biden’s current Senate Covid-19 stimulus bill by just 51 votes. Chances are they will do the same for Biden’s upcoming infrastructure plan, depending on how big the package is and how many Republicans will support it.
But Democrats can only reconcile the budget twice, and it can only be used for things that directly affect the federal budget. Voting rights and anti-corruption measures do not fall into this category, and the authors of HR 1 are under no impression that it could come through budget reconciliation. This leaves them with a narrower set of options for HR 1, and even fewer options for other priorities, such as implementing universal background checks or immigration reform.
Although Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) have repeatedly said they will not get rid of the Senate filibuster, some of their Democrats are hopeful that they can change their minds if the party’s agenda comes with repeated opposition from the Republicans.
“You bring it to the floor a few times and let them hinder it and see what effect bad faith has on some members’ opinion about the filibuster,” Sen Whitehouse recently told reporters. ‘It’s one thing to say,’ I do not want to get rid of the filibuster ‘; It’s another thing after meeting repeated obstacles of bad faith to say, ‘All right, it’s going out of hand.’
This is perhaps too optimistic. When asked by reporters again this week if there was a point where he would change his mind about the filibuster, Manchin shouted, “Never!” According to the Hill’s Jordain Carney.
“Jesus Christ! What do you never understand? Manchin added.
Shortly after the filibuster is blown up, the Senate Democrats will continue to find loopholes to pass their agenda.