Senate Republicans and Democrats sparred over voting laws and administration during a lengthy hearing on Democrats’ sweeping voting rights legislation, with each side digging in and few compromises achieved on substantive issues.
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz accused Democrats of backing “Jim Crow 2.0,” saying that the party is simply trying to shore up its own voters and weaken the influence of law-abiding citizens. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer pushed back on Republican concerns about election security, asserting that “you’re more likely in America to be struck by lightning than commit voter fraud.”
Republican ranking member Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri noted that “lengthy or spirited markups” are not common in the Senate Rules Committee.
“It actually appears the cycle is very close to the appearance of the cicada,” he joked, referencing the Brood X cicada explosion beginning to emerge in the nation’s capital area. “About every 17 years, we have a significant markup.”
Democrats were prepared to make some compromises while pushing forward the “For the People Act,” dubbed S.1 with companion legislation H.R. 1 already passed in the House, during a Senate Rules Committee hearing on Tuesday.
A manager’s amendment from Rules Committee Chairwoman Sen. Amy Klobuchar addressed concerns from local elections administrators on implementing the bill, mostly by extending timelines for compliance. But that was nowhere near satisfactory for Democrats.
“Giving states more time to implement bad policy doesn’t make policy less bad,” Blunt said. “State campaigns would still be eligible to receive federal funds ballot harvesting would be forced on the states.”
The amendment failed in a tied 9-9 vote.
Republicans and Democrats then offered a series of other measures in a marathon voting session. Offered amendments that cut to the crux of hot-button core issues addressed in the bill failed.
Cruz had an amendment to make election administrators show that those being registered automatically to vote are U.S. citizens and not illegal immigrants. Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer proposed making members of the 117th Congress ineligible for a public finance system that would be created under the bill. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took on the measure that would require 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups to disclose their donors if they engaged in political speech.
“The Founding Fathers would be appalled, appalled, to think that we’re trying to prevent political discourse at the heart of the First Amendment,” McConnell said.
Democrats also used the hearing as an opportunity to counter state-level, Republican-led election integrity legislation. Sen. Jon Ossoff aimed to ensure that members of the public can offer water to those waiting in line to vote, countering a law recently passed in Georgia that makes it a crime for private individuals to do so. That also failed.
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One frustration for Democrats is that the chances of them passing the voting rights legislation in the 50-50 divided Congress are slim to none. Senate filibuster cloture rules effectively require 60 votes to pass a bill, and no Republicans support this legislation.
Democrats are having trouble getting uniform support from all the members of their own party for the massive bill. Centrist West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin is the only Democrat not to co-sponsor the legislation, instead suggesting that Democrats work to find a compromise with Republicans under regular order.
