[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 82 (Wednesday, May 12, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2464-S2465]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           FOR THE PEOPLE ACT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, a one-party takeover of our political 
system--that is what Senate Democrats brought to the Rules Committee 
just yesterday, their side's top priority for multiple years now.

[[Page S2465]]

  The supposed rationales for the bill continue to change. A few years 
ago, when majorities of Democrats were mistakenly convinced that 
foreigners had hacked voting machines and tampered with tallies in 
2016, this was marketed as an election security bill. But it keeps 
morphing to suit new headlines. Lately, it has been called a racial 
justice bill. Some Senators say it is really a response to some recent 
State-level legislation, even though their bill predates those bills by 
multiple years.
  A partisan power grab in search of a justification--that is what we 
have here. Voter turnout last November was the highest in decades. 
African-American turnout was twice as high in Mississippi as it was in 
Massachusetts. Democrats' hysterical attacks against the new election 
law in the State of Georgia have been dismantled even by typically 
left-leaning fact checkers.
  There is no crisis. Our Democratic friends just want the power to 
rewire our democracy on a partisan basis. S. 1 would take the Federal 
Election Commission--the bipartisan panel that regulates elections and 
private citizens' speech--and make it a partisan body run by the 
Democrats.
  It would let Washington Democrats act like a nationwide board of 
elections on steroids, neutering popular things like voter ID and 
forcing legalized ballot harvesting onto all 50 States. This bill would 
let bureaucrats snoop around more in free speech; attack citizens' 
privacy so dramatically that even the liberal ACLU is unhappy; and even 
send public funds--get this: public funds--directly to politicians.
  Republicans put forward amendments to fix those things. If Democrats 
had wanted real, bipartisan solutions, Republicans were there, right at 
the table, and ready, but Democrats voted us down. They wouldn't even 
let us redirect any of that public money to the opioid crisis. They 
wanted that cash for their own campaigns.
  This partisan power grab failed to advance out of committee for the 
same reason it must never ever become law as currently written. It will 
shatter public confidence in our democracy if the Democratic Party 
decides it can rig the rules

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