[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 41 (Thursday, March 4, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S1039]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FOR THE PEOPLE ACT OF 2021

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now, on one final matter, yesterday 
evening, House Democrats repassed their plan to give Washington 
unprecedented power over the way our Nation conducts elections. Just 
like their partisan spending spree from last week, the only thing 
bipartisan about the vote was the opposition.
  The same party that wants to change Senate rules when they lose a 
vote, pack the Supreme Court when they lose a case, and throw out the 
electoral college every time they lose the White House now wants to 
forcibly rewrite 50 States' election laws from Washington. It is 
unprincipled. It is unwarranted. Large portions of it may well be 
unconstitutional. One of the key principles of American elections is 
that Federal officeholders cannot personally micromanage the way in 
which voters can hire and fire us.
  Different States and localities settle questions around early voting 
or absentee voting or voter registration in very different ways. 
Washington Democrats want every county in America to have to answer all 
of those questions the way they want. For example, no State would be 
able to have a simple voter ID requirement unless they neutered it with 
a massive loophole, but every State would be forced to allow ballot 
harvesting, where paid political operatives can show up, carrying a 
stack of ballots with other people's names on them.
  Imagine looking at this national landscape, where we have seen the 
losing side doubt the legitimacy of two consecutive Presidential 
elections, and thinking: This is the time for a sweeping, one-party 
rewrite of election law.
  Democrats are also coming after Americans' free speech. The Federal 
Election Commission was set up after Watergate to be a bipartisan panel 
by design. The FEC intentionally needs bipartisan consensus to throw a 
penalty flag. Washington Democrats want to scrap that as well.
  Their bill would convert the FEC into an odd-numbered, partisan body, 
and this partisan FEC would get even greater scope to nose around in 
even more of Americans' speech and Americans' activities. The bill also 
tramples on citizens' privacy with new mandates that would intensify 
``cancel culture'' and help mobs harass people for their private views. 
Even the leftwing ACLU condemns this part of H.R. 1.
  This is what the ACLU had to say:

       It could directly interfere with the ability of many to 
     engage in political speech about causes that they care about 
     and that impact their lives.

  That was from the ACLU.
  That is right. House Democrats have swung so far to the anti-free 
speech left that they have even lost the ACLU.
  Speaking of political swings, Democrats who want Washington to take 
over elections should remember that majorities in Congress actually 
come and go. It would be absurd for election regulations in every 
precinct in America to go boomeranging back and forth every time 
Congress changes hands. Millions of American voters elected 50 
Republican Senators and a whole lot of House Republicans to make sure 
that Democrats play by the rules, not rewrite the rules. For one party 
to seize unilateral control over elections nationwide would be a civic 
catastrophe.
  It is worth asking: Why are Washington Democrats so desperate to 
forcibly rewrite election law before the next time voters decide their 
fates?

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