Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday mocked a vote reform and campaign finance bill from House Democrats as the “Democrat Politician Protection Act,” and said he won’t be bringing it up for a vote.
“Running roughshod over states’ and communities’ control of elections, regulating and chilling the American people’s exercise of the First Amendment, forcing taxpayers to indirectly donate to the politicians they don’t like, and a dozen other bad ideas to boot,” McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday on the floor, describing the bill. “Behold, the signature legislation of the new House Democrat majority.”
House Democrats will pass their “For the People Act,” on Friday.
The legislation, the first introduced by the House this year, would ease voter registration and voter ID requirements and bolster campaign disclosure regulations that the party has long tried to increase. It would also end state control over redistricting and hand it to newly created federal commissions in a move aimed at ending gerrymandering.
[Opinion: Stop saying HR1 is ‘For the People’ when it’s only ‘For the Politicians’]
Democrats call the legislation an anti-corruption measure, but McConnell said it would hand the federal government and the Democratic Party excessive control over the election process and require taxpayers to foot the bill for political speech.
“It’s an attempt to rewrite the underlying rules of that political process itself and skew those rules to benefit just one side,” McConnell said. “By every indication, the Democrat Politician Protection Act is a massive partisan ‘solution’ in search of a problem.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., contested McConnell’s view of the legislation. Schumer said the legislation would enable more people to vote and would end political control enjoyed by big donors, which shuts out ordinary voters.
“What a sad commentary on the Republican party that they don’t want to see people vote and make it easier to vote,” Schumer said.”That they don’t want big money out of politics. A sad commentary on the Republican party to be afraid of H.R. 1.”
