The top priority for Biden and congressional Democrats is H.R. 1, which would require all 50 states to implement fraud-prone election procedures. This bill would stymie proper authentication of ballots, thereby permitting millions of unverified mail-in ballots to decide elections.
Misnamed the “For the People Act,” this misbegotten legislation passed the House without a single Republican voting for it, while senior Democrat Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) voted against it. He explained that his constituents were opposed, and “I always vote in the interest of my constituents.”
Even the New York Times conceded H.R. 1 “is poorly matched to the moment” because it “attempts to accomplish more than is currently feasible.” Despite lacking the necessary 60 votes to proceed, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is forcing the 50-50 Senate to vote on the Senate version, S. 1, perhaps to try again later.
“In my view, S. 1 is the biggest power grab in the history of the country,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) observes. “It mandates ballot harvesting, no voter ID. It does away with the states being able to redistrict when you have population shifts.”
H.R. 1 would override laws in every state that protect election integrity. Strict limits on voting by mail and early voting, which were enforced in many states before being suspended during Covid, are necessary to prevent ballots from being cast by political operatives in the names of inactive voters.
H.R. 1 would expand on the unprecedented rule-breaking that occurred in the last presidential election, by broadening unverified voting, lifting sensible limits on voter registration, and limiting the ability of states to clean up their voter rolls. The bill even violates the Constitution by attempting to place a new qualification for candidates for president: disclosure of their tax returns.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), complained that H.R.1/S.1 would create “public financing for campaigns that would send hundreds of millions of your taxpayer dollars to politicians to run negative ads against their opponents. I don’t think many American people are clamoring for the Democrats in Washington to pass that law.”
H.R. 1 would nullify good state election laws passed this year in Republican legislatures, including Georgia and Florida. Earlier this month Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that no Republican would vote for the Democrats’ election bill.
Not even all Senate Democrats genuinely support this atrocious legislation. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) wants changes, and there are reports of other Democrats unhappy with extreme provisions in the legislation.
But in breaking news on Tuesday, Sen. Manchin then fell in line with other Democrats to support advancing this legislation. Republicans need to remain as united against this horrific bill as they were in the House, because states rather than Congress should be enacting election laws.
Many Republicans feel grateful to Sen. Manchin for ostensibly standing up against Leftists in his own party, but the future of his own state is on the line. West Virginia’s coal-based economy would be wiped out if the Democrat socialists succeed in their goal of banning carbon-based energy.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) let the cat out of the bag when she admitted that passing H.R. 1 would make it easier to pass new gun controls. After getting Obamacare through Congress with the notorious remark that “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,” Pelosi now says we have to pass H.R. 1 so that Democrats can pass other unpopular legislation without fear of being defeated.
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has rightly described H.R. 1 as a “piece of legislation that needs to die, and die quickly.” No compromises that might be offered by Sen. Manchin or other initially fence-sitting Democrats should be allowed to resuscitate it.
Congress should not be federalizing election law, such that Democrats displace state election laws in order to tilt the process in favor of themselves. Instead, current federal law requiring that Election Day be on one day, the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, should be enforced without allowing extended periods of early and mail-in voting lacking verification of authenticity.
A Monmouth University poll taken earlier this month discovered that 91% of Republicans, 87% of independents, and 62% of Democrats support requiring photo ID in order to vote. The same poll shows that one-third of Americans still believe that the outcome of the last presidential election was due to voter fraud, a percentage that has remained roughly constant in every national poll this year.
If Biden somehow won the last presidential election fair and square, then Democrats would not need to change the election rules for next time. But ongoing forensic audits in Arizona and Georgia, and demands for a similar audit in Pennsylvania, could uncover fraud which states should prohibit without interference by Dems in Congress.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.