House Passes Sweeping Election Reform and Corruption Law – By Susan Milligan (US News) / March 8 2019
The law was a liberal wish-list including campaign finance reform and making Election Day a holiday.
House Democrats pushed through H.R. 1, a sweeping elections reform and anti-corruption package, Friday, using their new majority power to pass a liberal wish-list of how elections should be run and financed and casting themselves as the true engineers of the popular mission to “drain the swamp” in politics.
The measure, passed 234-193 and without a single GOP aye vote, is almost certain not to become law, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, says he will not bring it up for a vote. But Democrats, in their first major bill in the majority, used the bill to send a message to voters that they are committed to reducing the influence of money in politics, increasing access for voters and holding all three branches of government to higher standards of ethics and transparency.
“We all know this is not a Democrat-Republican issue. It is an American one,” thundered Rep. John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, after recounting how he was beaten while fighting for civil rights and voting rights in the 1960s. “This vote is an opportunity to be on the right side of history,” Lewis said on the House floor. “The time has arrived to tear down the barrier to the ballot box. Today, we are able to do our part in this long fight for the very soul of our nation.”
Republicans described the bill, called the For the People Act, as a “power grab” that takes authority away from states and puts it in the hands of the federal government. They further oppose such provisions as that providing matching funds for congressional candidates. It’s “a taxpayer bailout of political campaigns, attack-ad makers and campaign consultants,” McConnell said in an unusual Senate speech attacking a measure not even before the Senate.
The bill would impose automatic voter registration, make Election Day a national holiday, restore voting rights to felons who have served their sentence and allow Election Day and online voter registration. It would also impose new ethics and disclosure rules, including a requirement that presidents, vice presidents and presidential nominees disclose ten years of personal and business tax returns.
Regarding the legislative branch, the measure would prohibit the use of taxpayer funds to settle employment discrimination cases and would prohibit members from serving on corporate boards while in office. The measure also includes a code of ethics for the Supreme Court.
Finally, the measure includes new disclosure rules for campaign activity, including a requirement that Super PACs disclose the names of donors who give more than $10,000. It also requires states to adopt independent redistricting commissions to draw lines for congressional seats.
Republicans called the bill a sham, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, wondering why what he called the “Democrat Socialist party” would make such a dramatic statement by offering the elections reform package as its first bill. While the measure purports to remove the influence of special interest money in politics, it actually does the opposite, said Rep., Rodney David, Republican of Illinois, since the public matching funds for congressional candidates would be funded by a surcharge on fines paid by corporations and corporate executives convicted of federal wrongdoing.
But Democrats said the measure was a critical step in returning power to the people from moneyed interests. “This bill is not for its own sake,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California. Referring to McConnell’s description of the measure as a “power grab,” Lofgren added, “he’s right. It takes power away from the special interests, the elites and the one percent and gives it back to the American people.”
McConnell has committed to bringing the Democratic-authored “Green New Deal” up for a Senate vote, a move the GOP believes will paint Democrats as out-of-touch, “socialist” and extremist on the environment. That measure is not expected to pass, but a vote will force Democrats to take a public stand on it.
But McConnell said this week he will not bring up H.R. 1 – meaning his own caucus will not be forced to take a stand on it. “Because I get to decide what we vote on,” McConnell told reporters this week when asked why the climate change document, and not the elections reform bill, would be put up for a vote.
