[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 64 (Wednesday, April 14, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1913-S1914]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           For the People Act

  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, it has been just over 2 months since 
we transferred majority rule to President Biden and the Democrats, and 
they have made it very clear that not even their most radical policy 
proposals are up for debate. They just want to push things through. In 
fact, based on what we have seen, I am willing to go on the record as 
saying that they see any possibility of defeat as an impermissible 
challenge to their hold on power, and they have got quite a long 
enemies' list.
  You will recall that, back in 2016, after Donald Trump won the 
election, liberal activists blamed the electoral college for their many 
campaign failures.
  In 2020, even as the count came down in their favor, the attacks 
continued. Faced with the possibility of constitutionalist, 
conservative judicial nominees, the Supreme Court also became a source 
of righteous panic. In the wake of the 2020 election, activists were 
quick to demand that their new majority break the structure of the 
Court and transform it into a rubberstamp for radical policies that 
don't stand a chance of surviving this Chamber under regular order.
  Just this year, when faced with a much slimmer majority than, I am 
sure, they expected, many of my Democratic colleagues reversed their 
positions on the filibuster. Suddenly, the procedural backstop so many 
of them had once vowed to protect--this was an important check against 
the tyranny of the majority--was, all of a sudden, nothing more than a 
racist relic of Jim Crow America. So we are left to assume, I suppose, 
that tyranny started to look pretty good in the face of such a slim 
majority.
  Yet the filibuster isn't the only Senate institution that came under 
fire. Debate over a Federal minimum wage increase grew so unhinged that 
many Democrats suggested firing the Parliamentarian and replacing her 
with someone who was willing to deploy his or her own rubberstamp. Just 
this week, news broke that Senate Democrats are now toying with the 
idea of firing the Director of the Congressional Budget Office. For 
what? For the unpardonable sin of doing his job.
  If you don't like the score, fire the scorekeeper. If you don't like 
the standard, wipe it off the books. If you don't like the institution, 
just burn it to the ground.
  It is a familiar curriculum now reflected in the Democrats' latest 
effort to demolish and rebuild the country in their own radical image. 
They call it the For the People Act, but the basic premise of S. 1 is 
that, in order to secure our elections, we have no choice

[[Page S1914]]

but to take electoral power away from the people and put it in the 
hands of politicians and bureaucrats. It is a top-down approach that, 
if implemented, would centralize control over elections in direct 
contravention to the Constitution, destroy barriers to voter fraud, and 
enable radical activists to harass and intimidate their political 
opponents. It is the sort of power grab you would expect a cartoon 
villain to conduct, but here we are, debating this in the U.S. Senate.
  When you dive into the specifics, it really gets worse. Here are some 
things that it would do.
  The bill would, indeed, ban voter ID requirements and force States to 
allow ballot harvesting schemes.
  The Federal Election Commission, which for the moment is a balanced, 
bipartisan Agency, would morph into a partisan, prosecutorial body, 
ready to be weaponized against the political minority.
  Instead of living or dying by the support of loyal donors, under this 
new scheme, political campaigns would receive public money payouts, 
which they could then use to promote whatever message they pleased no 
matter how objectionable it might be to the taxpayers, who would be 
funding those campaigns.
  Speaking of those donors, if you have ever wondered who was behind a 
particular campaign, this bill has you covered. It includes new 
restrictions on political speech in the form of a donor disclosure 
mandate. Say goodbye to anonymous political activity in the tradition 
of the Federalist Papers and the civil rights movement. This is cancel 
culture on steroids, and if the Democrats have their way, this is what 
is coming to a precinct near you.
  Of course, the centralization of power on this scale will require a 
laundry list of regulations, and on that front, S. 1 does not 
disappoint. The requirements shoveled onto local and State officials 
are so burdensome and impractical that I refuse to believe anyone 
involved in the drafting has ever staffed a polling place. Certainly, 
they have never served as volunteers on a county election commission. 
That is something I had the honor of doing a couple of decades ago.
  If they get their way, the same automatic registration procedures 
that failed voters in California and in Illinois are coming to a county 
elections office in your neighborhood.

  Felons will regain their right to vote in Federal elections, but no 
one seems willing to explain how they expect State officials to prevent 
them from voting in down-ballot races.
  Elections officials will have the pleasure of purchasing new paper-
backed voting machines just as soon as those machines come into 
existence. That is right. This bill mandates the use of technology that 
hasn't hit the marketplace.
  Speaking of theoretical technology, for some reason, the drafters of 
this bill also thought it would be a good idea to force States to 
invent new technology to support automated voter registration by phone.
  Elections are not easy events to stand up. County officials and 
volunteers work year-round to ensure that polling places are staffed 
and safe, that machines are functional, and that volunteers are well 
trained to recognize illegal electioneering and fraud. Over the years, 
State and local authorities have found their own solutions to these 
challenges. When those solutions fail, we have the ability to implement 
Federal backstops against voter suppression and election mishandling.
  Everyone has his own role to play. These roles are outlined in the 
Constitution for a reason--because the Founders knew that any detached 
Federal bureaucracy would lack the competence to solve the unique 
logistical challenges my Democratic colleagues are trying to use as 
proof that Congress must step in to burn down yet another institution 
of our democracy. That is the constitutional imperative of the States 
to set the time, place, and manner of elections.
  If we continue to go down this road, this partisan fever dream will 
become codified chaos that will trickle all the way down to the 
precinct level and irreparably erode confidence in the electoral 
process.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.