A Senate committee took up debate on the Democratsâ sweeping voting reform package on Tuesday. Best known as HR 1, the name of the bill is the âFor the People Act.â It should really be called the âFor the Democrats Act,â because if this bill were to become law, America would be governed by one-party rule for generations to come.
The House passed House Resolution 1 in early March. HR 1 represents the Biden administrationâs biggest power grab yet. This bill is unpopular across the board with the GOP.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican, denounced the bill, which some call the âCorrupt Politicians Act,â in no uncertain terms on Tuesday.
âThis legislation is designed to ensure that Democrats never lose another election,â Cruz said. âDemocrats have made the decision that millions of illegal aliens voting are likely to vote for Democrats.â
The Texas senator told his colleagues the bill is âprofoundly dangerous.â
âThe reason it suppresses millions of votes is by allowing millions of people to vote illegally, and that is the intended effect and that would be the actual effect of this bill. It dilutes the legal votes of American citizens.â
Senator Schumer spoke of âthe stench of oppression when Democrats drafted Jim Crow the last time.â
âWell, the stench of oppression is here again. Sen. Schumer said âthe eyes of history are on you.â The eyes of history are on you as well, and let me point out something. It was just a few years ago that the Republicans had control of the White House, the Senate and the House. We didnât do this,â Cruz said.
âWe didnât try to change the election rules so that Democrats could never be elected. We didnât engage in the corruption to say, âWeâre gonna rig the game.â So, if the voters decide to throw the bums out, the voters donât get the right to do that, because weâre going to put our thumb on the scale so that only our party wins. To my knowledge, not a single Republican suggested doing that.
âThis bill doesnât protect voting rights. It steals voting rights from the American people.â
Republican strategist Karl Rove joined Fox Newsâ Bill Hemmer on Tuesday to give a summary of just how bad this bill would be for the party. He said the legislation does âfederalize elections and has a bunch of bad provisions in it.â
The first point is that taxpayers would be paying for congressional campaigns. The federal government will match contributions by a multiple of six. Rove said, for example, âyou give up to $200, the federal government matches that contributionâ (with taxpayer dollars) for up to $1,200.
âNo voter ID laws. Every voter ID law in the country is wiped out.â
The bill also makes it difficult to keep accurate voter registration lists. âStates canât check people at the polls against the registration lists. People can show up and change their name and their address at the polls and thatâs not set aside as a provisional ballot to be further checked. Itâs thrown into the big batch,â Rove explained.
âYou canât check with other states. You canât remove people from the voter list â even if theyâve not voted and youâve sent them a postcard and the postcard has come back saying that person no longer lives at the address â you have to leave them on the rolls.â
âEveryone gets a ballot mailed to them. And no ID, no notary, no witnesses,â he noted. âThey mail them out and anybody can fill them out and send them back in.â
âIt bans outside observers at the polls. The only people who can challenge a voter or somebody who shows up at the polls is an election official, not an observer representing either the Democratic or Republican parties.
âEverybody who donates to a 501(c)(4) gets disclosed.â He said, âThe NAACP fought this provision all the way up to the Supreme Court in the 1950s and the ACLU is even saying this is a problem.â
âYou can vote anywhere. You donât even have to show up at your precinct. You can show up anywhere in your community or your state and vote,â Rove added.
There are more provisions in the 886-page bill and â similar to those listed above â they all favor Democrats. They all seek to expand voting to illegals and to take power over elections away from the states to hand over to the federal government.
For the same reasons Democratic lawmakers love this bill, their Republican colleagues hate it.
The House passed a version of the bill in 2019. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring it to the floor.
Even now, with a slim Democratic majority, this measure faces strong headwinds in the Senate. As long as 41 or more Senators vote against it, the bill will not pass.
It would be a different story if Democrats were able to abolish or otherwise circumvent the filibuster. No Republicans would vote to eliminate the filibuster and there are two Democrats, Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who have repeatedly voiced their opposition to such a move.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
