The Democratic Party’s power-grab voting bill is so toxic that not even the biggest GOP critics of former President Donald Trump will support it. Naturally, some liberals are very upset about this, but Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are only being consistent in their opposition to conspiracy theories about elections.
Neither Cheney of Wyoming nor Kinzinger of Illinois voted in support of H.R. 4, otherwise known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias and MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan were naturally incensed by this.
The only thing that holds Republicans together is their opposition to voting rights. Chaney and Kinzinger can support a 1/6 investigation, but not voting rights. That is a bridge too far for anyone in the GOP. https://t.co/s2J7yfuPSI
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) August 25, 2021
On voting rights, the most important issue of our time, Cheney, Kinzinger, Romney… are not your friends
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 25, 2021
Rightfully calling out Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election hasn’t changed the fact that Cheney is a conservative. Kinzinger, who has been willing to bend on issues such as gun control and may not need to worry about facing voters in 2022 because his seat is likely to be eliminated, was also unwilling to cross the line and vote for H.R. 4.
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine have not weighed in on the legislation yet. The only Republican in Congress to support it so far has been Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has a track record of bucking the party on important issues and may be out of the Senate after the 2022 midterms.
Based on the frantic lies about “voter suppression” in Texas and Georgia, H.R. 4 would give the Department of Justice the ability to throw out any state’s voter ID law. What’s worse is that this is considered the backup option, as the more egregious For the People Act was blocked in the Senate with no GOP support.
Thankfully, there almost certainly will not be nine other GOP senators to join Murkowski in backing this poorly disguised power grab. That’s how many Republicans would need to join all 50 members who caucus with Democrats in order to break a filibuster and pass the bill. It turns out that Republicans such as Cheney and Kinzinger can oppose the conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and his allies without thinking that all state election laws should be subject to the whims of unelected bureaucrats working for a department that now functions as a political tool under openly partisan Democratic Attorney General Merrick Garland.
While some Republicans still believe the absurd idea that Trump actually won the 2020 election, the vast majority of politicians in the Democratic Party believe their own election lie. Democrats have made “voter suppression” their go-to excuse for election losses since the failed 2018 campaign of Stacey Abrams in Georgia. H.R. 4 is simply the latest outgrowth of that conspiratorial mindset.
