Sixth District Congressman Ben Cline isn’t on board, not surprisingly, with the Democrats’ For the People Act.
“As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, I was shocked that the Democrats would support the unconstitutional boondoggle that is HR 1,” said Cline, a Republican. “The bill flies in the face of law and order and it is nothing more than an attempt by Democrats to hijack our Republic at taxpayer expense. HR 1 would limit free speech, use tax dollars to fund extreme candidates, and violate the Constitution by superseding a state’s ability to determine voter eligibility.”
Not exactly. The For the People Act, HR 1, aims at making voting registration easier, make it harder for states to take voters off the rolls, a process we’ve seen abused, provide for public financing of House candidates to counter the influence of corporate dollars, and require presidents and vice presidents to release their tax returns, among other things.
Among those other things:
- For federal elections, states would have to provide same-day registration and at least 15 days of early voting.
- Election Day would be made a federal holiday.
- Federal elections would require paper ballots to prevent computer tampering. State chief election officials couldn’t get involved in federal campaigns.
- Anti-discrimination provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that were shut down by the Supreme Court six years ago would be revived.
- The prohibition on foreign political money and mandate the disclosure of the big donors behind politically active 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations would be expanded.
- Facebook and Google would have to set up public databases cataloging political ad purchase requests of $500 or more and create new measures to block ad buys by foreign nationals.
- The laws regulating foreign and domestic lobbying would be expanded.
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