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Sen. Rick Scott of Florida is one of the lead sponsors on a GOP election integrity bill.
Senate Republicans introduce their own election reform legislation
Feb 26 2021
Days before the House is set to take up the sweeping democracy reform package known as HR 1, a handful of GOP senators proposed new legislation to "restore confidence" in American elections.
The so-called Save Democracy Act, which would create nationwide voting restrictions, was introduced Thursday by Rick Scott of Florida, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming — three of the eight Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election results. Lummis' home-state colleague John Barrasso is also co-sponsoring the bill, although he did not object to the election certification.
The Republican bill stands about as much chance of passing in the Senate as the doomed HR 1 does. With the filibuster still intact, neither bill is likely to achieve the 60 votes needed to pass, despite new polling that show the public's growing appetite for reform following the contentious presidential election.
<p>Knowing passage through the 50-50 Senate is an uphill battle for either party's bill, sponsors of both are leaning into messaging. For Republicans, that's bolstering election security following an election they claim — despite all evidence to the contrary — was riddled with fraud.</p>
<p>For Democrats, HR 1 is the culmination of years of work building support for democracy reform and its enactmeent would be especially important following an election in which many states expanded voting access due to the pandemic. The wide-ranging reform package would ease access to the ballot box, curb the influence of money in politics, end partisan <a href="http://thefulcrum.us/gerrymandering" target="_self">gerrymandering</a> and strengthen government ethics.</p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>A recent survey, conducted by Global Strategy Group and ALG Research for <a href="http://thefulcrum.us/end-citizens-united" target="_self">End Citizens United</a> and Let America Vote, found overwhelming support for reforms included in HR 1 regardless of political affiliation. The poll, released Friday, found that 81 percent of voters support the changes HR 1 would make to the country's political system. Democrats were almost unanimously in favor with 96 percent supporting the bill, and nearly three-quarters of Republicans (74 percent) and independents (73 percent) also were supportive.</p>
<p>The poll also found that just over two-thirds of those surveyed were more likely to vote for a Senate candidate who backed HR 1. The poll surveyed 1,271 likely voters in a dozen 2022 battleground states Feb. 9-15. It had a margin of error of 2.7 percent.</p>
<p>Conversely, the Republican senators' Save Democracy Act would impose new voter registration requirements, restrict absentee voting access and mandate certain rules around ballot processing and counting.</p>
<p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>It would prohibit automatic voter registration — which is currently used by 17 states, plus D.C. Individuals would also need to prove U.S. citizenship and provide their full Social Security number in order to register to vote.</p>
<p>Under the bill, absentee ballots would only be sent to voters who request them. Currently, nine states use an automatic mail ballot system, with five of them conducting elections primarily via the Postal Service. The bill would also prevent so-called "ballot harvesting," require drop boxes to be monitored and require mail ballots be received by Election Day.</p>
<p>The proposed legislation would also mandate the ballot counting process, once it begins, to be completed without pauses or delays. Presidential campaigns would be required to observe the process, and a post-election audit of the ballot tabulation would need to be completed within 30 days.</p>
<p>"What we saw this past election was confusion and chaos caused by inconsistent standards and last-minute changes to established election laws by state officials and activist judges. It's now more clear than ever that there is a serious need for major reforms to our election systems," Scott said in announcing his bill.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Republicans are also pushing hundreds of bills to restrict voting access in nearly every state legislature. According to the Brennan Center, <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/voting-rights-legislation-2650170891" target="_self">more than 250 bills</a> have been introduced this year in 43 states.</p>
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Ken Cuccinelli, a former deputy secretary of Homeland Security, is spearheading the campaign on behalf of anti-abortion groups.
Ex-Trump official to lead $5 million effort to stop HR 1
Feb 24 2021
Two anti-abortion groups have launched a $5 million campaign to block the passage of the sweeping democracy reform bill known as HR 1, which will be brought to the House floor next week.
Former Trump administration official Ken Cuccinelli is at the helm of the Election Transparency Initiative, a program announced Tuesday by the Susan B. Anthony List and American Principles Project.
With every House Democrat already signed onto the legislation, HR 1 will likely pass through the House in early March. But getting enough "yes" votes in the 50-50 Senate will be much more challenging, if not impossible, especially with the filibuster still intact.
<p>The wide-ranging reform package would ease access to the ballot box, curb the influence of money in politics, end partisan gerrymandering and strengthen government ethics. Democrats first introduced the legislation in 2019, but were stymied by GOP opposition. In this Congress, HR 1 looks doomed to a similar fate.</p><p>The conservative groups, led by Cuccinelli, will seek to capitalize on the evenly split Senate by rallying opposition to HR 1, particularly in three states — Arizona, Montana and West Virginia — where moderate senators are most likely to break from the Democratic majority on big issues. Kyrsten Sinema, Joe Manchin and Jon Tester have all vocally opposed nixing the filibuster, making their support all the more crucial in achieving the 60 votes needed to pass legislation.</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>While managing the defense in Washington, Susan B. Anthony List and American Principles Project will simultaneously go on offense at the state level to bolster grassroots support for "meaningful reforms," said Cuccinelli, who served as deputy secretary of Homeland Security in the Trump administration.</p><p>"The pro-life movement must engage in election transparency and integrity reform or their ability to elect pro-life, pro-family lawmakers — and pass laws that save lives — will be greatly diminished, if not extinguished," he said.</p><p>In the <a href="https://www.sba-list.org/newsroom/press-releases/susan-b-anthony-list-american-principles-project-launch-multi-million-election-transparency-initiative" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">campaign announcement</a>, Cuccinelli and the two organizations did not outline what election reforms they do support, but they strongly oppose the federalization of election laws through HR 1 and claimed that legislation would ensure "pro-abortion Democrats" had permanent control over the federal government.</p><p>"The integrity of our electoral system was severely compromised in 2020 when pro-abortion Democrats — utilizing the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse — weakened state laws that ensure free and fair elections," said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List.</p><p>Nearly every state offered no-excuse absentee voting in the 2020 election due to the coronavirus pandemic, leading to historically high voter turnout. But now, GOP lawmakers across the country are looking to <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/house-vote-on-hr-1" target="_self">roll back mail voting access</a>, falsely claiming such moves are necessary to combat fraud. Experts have repeatedly found no evidence of such fraud or misconduct with any method of voting in last year's election.</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p>
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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Krysten Sinema is one of two Democrats standing in the way of long-overdue Senate reforms, writes Golden.
Big democracy reforms can't happen unless the Senate fixes its huge anti-democratic flaw
Feb 23 2021
Golden is the author of "Unlock Congress" (Why Not Books, 2015) and a senior fellow at the Adlai Stevenson Center on Democracy. He is a member of The Fulcrum's editorial advisory board.
<p>
It's almost dead. And when we finally kill it off for good, it will be an epic day for our country.
</p><p>
I'm not talking about the Republican Party. Its survival will be up to its voters, or former voters.
</p><p>
And I'm not talking about the political death of the defendant whom the Senate just acquitted. Now that the trial is over, there's even more reason to ignore him.
</p><p>
I'm referring to the biggest blockage in our government, the one defect that has been holding us back from fixing the rest of the system's problems. For our system is rigged — just not in the ways you've become accustomed to hearing about from the world's loudest perch.
</p><p>
So, you may ask: What is it? When are you gonna name the thing?
</p><p>
First let me describe it — and the other big fixes it's holding up. If I were to take nearly the entire diagnosis in my book and distill it into 75 words, it would boil down to this:
</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>
American voters are ill-served and unfairly represented in Congress because of an electoral system that does two things. It allows officeholders to rig legislative races through the partisan drawing of maps ("<a data-linked-post="2636688309" href="https://thefulcrum.us/gerrymandering" target="_blank">gerrymandering</a>") and by prohibiting candidates from running in general elections as independents after they've lost a primary. And it encourages officeholders to raise billions to keep their seats, resulting in behavior and decision-making that is <a href="https://www.thegoldenmean.us/the-money-flood/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">probably corrupt</a> and <a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">unrepresentative of the majority</a> of Americans' preferences.
</p><p>
Now, before we get to the big "kill," two great developments have come to pass in the years since I started writing about this stuff.
</p><p>
First, reformers across the country have <a href="https://represent.us/our-wins/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">earned big wins</a> to improve our system. A real movement has been quietly growing — from anti-corruption measures to money disclosure requirements to independent districting commissions and other fixes. One of the leading advocates of this charge, RepresentUs, is actually <a href="https://represent.us/videos/?source=header-nav" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">making reform cool</a>.
</p><p>
Second, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">For The People Act</a> has been introduced again in Congress. It's called HR 1 in the House and S 1 in the Senate. The bill proposes two solutions straight out of my book, and would also confront voting rights. It's provisions include:
</p><ul class="ee-ul">
<li>Requiring states to convene independent commissions to draw congressional maps. </li>
<li>Requiring disclosure of "<a data-linked-post="2636225613" href="https://thefulcrum.us/dark-money" target="_blank">dark money</a>" contributions, setting up a small-donor matching system to empower candidates without wealthy networks, and strengthening the Federal Election Commission's oversight of so-called <a data-linked-post="2636709792" href="https://thefulcrum.us/super-pac" target="_blank">super PACs</a>. </li>
<li>Enacting <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/3/8/1840627/-Voting-Rights-Roundup-Democrats-pass-historic-bill-to-ban-gerrymandering-and-secure-voting-rights" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">new reforms</a> to remove barriers to voting and mandating paper ballots so that elections can be audited <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/defend-our-elections/election-security/post-election-audits" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">to ensure accuracy</a>.</li></ul><p>
Now, I can make Boy Scout arguments all day for improving our democracy, but the fact is there are clear political consequences from HR 1 passing — and the GOP knows it. Perhaps none would be bigger than reducing Republicans' current power to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/31/us/politics/gerrymander-census-democrats-republicans.html?" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">gerrymander districts in order to win back the House</a> — which would happen even if the national vote was split down the middle.
</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>
Yet for the first time in 12 years, Democrats now have political control on Capitol Hill and in the White House. All things being equal, this is their moment.
</p><p>
But all things are not equal. And now it's time to melodramatically unveil that monstrous blockage that must be killed -- the dam preventing our government from doing the big things most of us want. It's a pair of dumb Senate rules born <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/the-history-of-the-filibuster/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">accidentally</a> 215 years ago, requiring 60 votes to pass most legislation — instead of the simple majority specifically outlined in our Constitution.
</p><p>
These rules are called "filibuster" and "cloture." And they both need to die.
</p><p>
Simply put, the Democrats now hold 50 seats in the Senate, not enough to pass S 1 and upgrade our representative democracy so long as the GOP stands unified against it. Without 60 votes, that bill will never be more than a piece of paper.
</p><p>
When I first made my case to kill the filibuster, it was not popularly shared. Senators waxed lovingly of the "bipartisanship" the rules produced and extolled the rights of the minority. I wasn't buying it. Constitutional scholar Emmet Bondurant and I perforated the senators' smokescreen <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/congress/presidential-outcome-may-portend-the-senate-filibusters-finish" target="_self">on this site</a> a year ago .
</p><p>
In 2017, GOP Leader Mitch McConnell reversed years of his own statements and got the Senate to <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/522847700/senate-pulls-nuclear-trigger-to-ease-gorsuch-confirmation" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">eliminate the filibuster</a> for Supreme Court nominations, allowing President Trump to add three polarizing conservative justices. It was entirely predictable. McConnell plays hardball, and it's how he installed a new ideological majority on the bench that will live for decades.
</p><p>
Now will the Democrats do the same? Will they "go nuclear" and kill the filibuster on the one remaining thing it can thwart — the passage of laws?
</p><p>
We don't know. But we do know it's possible. Over the last year, some of the party's biggest stars have come aboard and publicly spoken out in favor of nuking it: <a href="https://www.thegoldenmean.us/president-obama-eliminate-the-filibuster-to-unlock-congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/congress/presidential-outcome-may-portend-the-senate-filibusters-finish" target="_self">Elizabeth Warren</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/07/stacey-abrams-democracy-test-future/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Stacey Abrams</a>, <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/congress/presidential-outcome-may-portend-the-senate-filibusters-finish" target="_self">Pete Buttigieg</a> and a fast-growing list of national opinion leaders.
</p><p>
They all make the same argument: We cannot buckle to GOP obstruction forever. Enough.
</p><p>
Standing in the way of the filibuster's final death are two Democratic senators from more conservative states, West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema. They have <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/01/25/joe-manchin-filibuster-462364" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">vowed not to vote for</a> its elimination for the next two years. Yet pressure has a way of moving politicians.
</p><p>
Perhaps Obama said it best in last year's eulogy for John Lewis, who fought for voting rights his entire life and helped to shape HR 1. As Obama talked about the imperative of outlawing gerrymandering and restoring voting protections that have been gutted, <a href="https://www.thegoldenmean.us/president-obama-eliminate-the-filibuster-to-unlock-congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">he declared</a>:
</p><p>
"If all this takes eliminating the filibuster, another Jim Crow relic, in order to secure the God-given rights of every American, then that's what we should do."
</p><p>
Amen.
</p><p>
Are you listening, senators? Do you want to get big things done? You have the power to make it happen. All you have to do is use it.
</p>
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congress.gov via Getty Images
GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said DonaldTrump was responsible for what happened Jan. 6, but voted to acquit the former president.
One vote both squandered and sullied the ultimate congressional check on a president
Feb 19 2021
Marcuss is a retired partner at the law firm Bryan Cave and on the steering committee of Lawyers Defending American Democracy.
<p>
Donald Trump tried to steal the election and prevent the peaceful transfer of power. And 43 Republican senators said that's OK when they voted to acquit him in the impeachment trial. It was time to "stop the steal," as the former president's allies so often shout. But it was the Senate that refused.
</p><p>
Trump's militias attacked the Capitol, tried to stop Congress from counting the electoral votes that confirmed his defeat, called for hanging the vice president and threatened to assassinate the speaker of the House. And 43 Republican senators said that's OK.
</p><p>
The melee created by Trump's militias led to the deaths of at least five people, including a Capitol Police officer, and more than 100 of his colleagues were injured. Now the Capitol is an armed camp, surrounded by barbed wire and thousands from the National Guard. And 43 Republican senators said that's OK.
</p><p>
Americans might be forgiven for thinking the impeachment process is what protects the country from leaders like Trump, bent on destroying American democracy and the rule of law. Saturday's acquittal vote has proved this view to be dangerously wrong.
</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>
The Constitution provides that a president who commits "high crimes and misdemeanors" may be removed and disqualified from holding elective office. A president who incites a mob to seek to prevent Congress from certifying the results of an election he lost has unquestionably committed a high crime and misdemeanor.
</p><p>
Senators take an oath to "do impartial justice" before sitting in an impeachment trial. It was clear from the outset, however, that most GOP senators decided to ignore evidence of Trump's guilt even before the trial began. It's fiction that there was ever a chance for a real trial and the impartial administration of justice.
</p><p>
The undisputed evidence presented to the Senate demonstrated beyond a doubt that Trump started his effort to invalidate the 2020 election long before the first votes were cast, spreading the fiction that the only way he could lose was if the vote was rigged. After he actually lost, he kept spreading the lie that he'd been denied a second term by election thieves. Sixty or so courts across the land, including the Supreme Court, roundly disagreed.
</p><p>
In rally after rally, Trump nonetheless encouraged followers to believe his lies and urged them to come to Washington on Jan 6. Trump promised the day would be "wild."
</p><p><div class="x12"><div class="htlad-Desktop_Content_Banner"></div></div></p><p>
And then, just before the start of the Electoral College tabulation ceremony, Trump repeated his Big Lie once more. He told a raucous rally that Joe Biden's victory "could not stand" and that Vice President Mike Pence had a duty to overturn the election. The mob then marched on the Capitol, ransacked the building, hunted for Pence and Speaker Nancy Pelosi and stopped the certification process for several hours. Trump, meanwhile, remained ensconced in the White House, did nothing to protect the Capitol, declared that his vice president had failed in his duty and embraced the mob.
</p><p>
"We love you; you're very special," he said as their insurrection continued, urging them once it was over to "Remember this day forever."
</p><p>
None of this was disputed. Even GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said afterward that Trump was responsible for what happened and intended by his actions "to torch our institutions on the way out."
</p><p>
Yet, minutes earlier, McConnell and 42 other Republicans effectively did no more than shrug and say, "So what?"
</p><p>
McConnell shamelessly cloaked his vote with a laughable argument, that a former president was not constitutionally subject to an impeachment trial. But it was McConnell himself who prevented the trial from starting while Trump was still in office.
</p><p>
Nothing explains the acquittal, and McConnell's cynical contortions, except a craven surrender to political self-interest. A violent threat to our country be damned, said those who found Trump guiltless; for them, impartial justice meant nothing more than indifference to justice.
</p><p>
Impeachment is intended to protect the country from presidents who threaten the country's most sacred institutions, including the peaceful transfer of power. The process is meaningful, however, only if senators obey their oath to do "impartial justice." The Senate minority leader, and the other 42 Republicans who voted "not guilty," refused to do so despite knowing the charges were true.
</p><p>
The impeachment process can never be stripped entirely of political considerations. A politician not affected by politics, after all, is a dead politician. Senators are not like jurors in a regular court. They are not disqualified from voting because they know a lot about the case before the trial begins, or even if they have opinions about the merits of the case before seeing the evidence.
</p><p>
Like most things in life, however, conflicting pressures and obligations have to be balanced. There is an obvious conflict between the duty of impartiality, on the one hand, and the impossibility of expunging acquired biases and insulating politicians from political realities, on the other. Reconciling the two is not easy. What is inexcusable, however, is not even to try.
</p><p>
Those who voted not guilty did not try. They entered the Senate chamber determined to acquit and refused to be deterred. Some even openly collaborated with Trump's lawyers as the trial proceeded.
</p><p>
Those 43 senators have impeached the impeachment process. They have stolen from the Constitution a bulwark against tyranny and impeached themselves in the process.
</p><p>
But the other seven Republicans, and the 50 Democrats, knew the difference between commitment and capitulation on Saturday. They acquitted themselves by discharging their duty to act on the difference. Voters should remember this day forever.</p><div>
</div>
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