House Democrats have unanimously passed a sprawling voting rights, campaign finance, and ethics bill – which Republicans have unanimously opposed as a to-do list for “voter fraud and election theft.”
The ‘For the People Act’ (HR1) includes several relaxations on voting restrictions, allowing convicted felons to vote and automatically registering to vote all citizens who apply for services, change their addresses, or enroll in college – measures Republicans see as an invitation to voter fraud.
Attempts to insert language affirming that “allowing illegal immigrants the right to vote devalues the franchise and diminishes the voting power of United States citizens” were blocked by the Democratic majority, sending the GOP into sky-is-falling mode.
Also on rt.com California court rules it’s ‘unconstitutional & undemocratic’ to count citizens during censusBut the gargantuan legislation, which passed the House strictly along party lines, stands little chance of becoming law. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell derided it as the “Democrat Politician Protection Act” and declared it would never see the Senate floor “because I get to decide what we vote on,” while President Donald Trump threatened to veto it if it somehow passed the Senate.
The 700-page bill envisions matching donations for candidates who reject “high-dollar contributions” – a recent trend among Democrats trying to appear independent from the corporate political machine – by fining law-breaking corporations and instituting a confusing voucher program – which Republicans lost no time in painting as a giveaway of tax dollars to politicians.
It also bars members of Congress from serving on the boards of for-profit companies and places restrictions on the so-called “revolving door” between government and the private sector, all provisions that have for long been on the wish list of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
The bill also tightens disclosure rules for some political activities so strictly that the American Civil Liberties Union has urged its members to vote against it for impinging on the First Amendment. The inclusion of several measures clearly meant to needle the president, including a requirement that candidates turn over ten years of tax returns, seems almost designed to alienate possible GOP collaborators.
Republicans denounced the bill vigorously, with Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) declaring it would “exploit and expand voter fraud loopholes that Socialist Democrats slipped into past federal legislation.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) denounced it as an attack on Trump, as well as a restriction of free speech, though some of his followers begged to differ.
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