Pirate's Cove

Democrats gave this bill a whirl last year, when it passed on strictly party lines, and then was never brought up in the Senate, because it is a Category 5 partisan bill. The Institute for Free Speech obliterated it when it was first introduced in early 2019, because it is great for certain politicians, bad for groups, citizens, and free speech. This was one of the things I was warning about if people decided to vote for Biden because Trump has mean tweets

House passes voting rights and elections reform bill

The House passed a sweeping election reform and voting rights bill along party lines on Wednesday in a 220-210 vote.

The For The People Act, better known as H.R. 1 — has been a top priority for Democrats, who argue restoring voters’ faith in the electoral process is more important than ever after former President Trump repeatedly asserted unfounded claims the election was stolen. The Biden administration has strongly advocated for its passage.

“In the wake of an unprecedented assault on our democracy, a never before seen effort to ignore, undermine, and undo the will of the people, and a newly aggressive attack on voting rights taking place right now all across the country, this landmark legislation is urgently needed to protect the right to vote and the integrity of our elections, and to repair and strengthen American democracy,” the White House said in a statement of administrative policy.

The measure would require states to offer mail-in ballots, a minimum of 15 days of early voting and calls for online and same-day voter registration. The legislation also calls for the creation of independent commissions to draw congressional districts in an effort to put an end to partisan gerrymandering. It would also provide additional resources to stave off foreign threats on elections, enable automatic voter registration, and would make Election Day a national holiday for federal workers.

Supporters of the bill said it’s a necessary step to restore faith in the electoral system and tackle dark money in politics, arguing it expands voting rights, increases transparency in elections and creates new ethics rules to tamp down on corruption.

Under the legislation, the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which dissolved certain limits on corporate and union political spending, would be overturned and coordination between super PACs and candidates would be prohibited.

That’s rather the way most articles from the Credentialed Media go, lauding the bill in flowing terms. But, there’s a reason why it was passed twice strictly on party lines

Republicans have blasted the measure as a power grab by Democrats, arguing that the provision allowing for voters to designate a person to return their ballot equates to ballot harvesting and opens the door for election fraud. They have also slammed language allowing felons to vote.

“Second: H.R. 1 would legalize voting for convicted felons all over the country even if they were convicted of election fraud. Does that make sense to you? Not only is this dangerous, it’s unconstitutional,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a floor speech on Tuesday.

“Third: H.R. 1 would weaken the security of our elections and make it harder to protect against voter fraud. Here’s how: It would automatically register voters from DMV and other government databases. Voting is a right, not a mandate,” McCarthy said. “In most cases, this legislation would actually prevent officials from removing ineligible voters from the rolls and would make it much more difficult to verify the accuracy of voter information. So future voters might be underage or dead or illegal immigrants or registered two or three times. Democrats just don’t care.”

It’s actually much worse than that, as John Fund points out

HR 1 would cement all of the worst changes in election law made in blue states in 2020 and nationalize them. Federal control of elections would be the norm. States would be relegated to colonial outposts that carry out Washington DC’s mandates. ‘Democracies die when one party seizes control of the elections process, eliminates the safeguards that have protected the integrity of the ballot, places restrictions on free speech, and seizes the earnings of individual citizens to promote candidates they may abhor,’ says Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican. ‘Democracies die by suicide, and we are now face to face with such an instrument.’

Does HR 1 justify such apocalyptic rhetoric? Sadly, yes. Hans von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission, says that while the Constitution does allow Congress to override the power of states to decide ‘the time, manner and place’ of federal elections nothing on the massive scale of HR 1 has ever been attempted.

He consulted other former members and assembled a short summary of the worst provisions of HR 1:

• Degrade the accuracy of registration lists by requiring states to automatically register all individuals on state and federal databases. This would include many ineligible voters, including aliens
• It would require states to allow 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to register. Combined with a ban on voter ID, this would allow underage individuals to vote
• Prevent election officials from checking the eligibility and qualifications of voters and removing ineligible voters
• Ban state-voter ID laws by forcing states to allow individuals to vote without an ID and merely signing a statement in which they claim they are who they say they are
• Create vague and broad language that could be used to criminally charge someone who questions the eligibility of a voter
• Force disclosure of names of Americans who donate to nonprofit organizations — thus subjecting them to political harassment
• Declare statehood for Washington DC to be ‘constitutional’ despite evidence it is not
• And finally, HR 1 would effectively ban nonprofits from contacting a member of Congress or their staff about pending legislation — a direct assault on the right of Americans to petition their government

That’s a shortened list of a shortened list. This is all about entrenching Democrats in office, and, notice that there are at least two First Amendment violations. Dare note that someone is ineligible to vote in a situation? You could be held criminally liable. Years ago I made the NC GOP and NC election board aware that I had received in the mail a letter that gave a women residency for voting rights at my address. This person was a Charlotte, NC resident, completely different part of the state. This was an attempt to be able to vote twice. I would be held criminally liable for doing that now. Then you take away the Right of people to petition their government.

This is, really, one of the most partisan bills ever passed in the House. What happened to Joe Biden calling for unity and bipartisanship? Nothing the Democrats are doing is anything but hugely partisan. Can it pass the Senate? The only way is to nuke the filibuster, something Joe Manchin said he would never vote to do. And, if they manage to suspend the filibuster for this vote, they might not get the 50 votes they need to allow Kamala to make it 51. And, if they somehow make it pass, the lawsuits will be amazing, and it is something the Supreme Court would need to take up forth with, since this deals directly with Bill Of Rights matters. If there’s no severability, it would be killed in whole.

Seriously, are Democrats asking for a civil war? Because this is the type of legislation that leads that way.

Quick More: I’d forgotten about one other issue among so many, and this is a big one that would, well, should, kill it in any lawsuits if passed, as pointed out by Betsy McCaughey

The authors of the Constitution worried that Congress would try to seize control of presidential selection using dirty tricks like those in HR 1. That’s why they acted to “to take the business as far as possible out of their hands,” according to Charles Pinckney, a framer from South Carolina.

Congress, said Pinckney, “had no right to meddle” in it. The framers provided in Article II, Sec. 1 that only state legislatures would have the power to determine how the president is chosen. No national rules.

And since every other national election is for president, this would be unconstitutional. And, it would take a constitutional amendment to make D.C. a state.