Garnering bipartisan support in the Senate for the For the People Act — the prerequisite for Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin's favorable vote — will be a nearly impossible task. And not just because the parties are predisposed to oppose one another's initiatives.
Since its inception, the sweeping election reform legislation commonly known as HR 1 has been clouded in partisanship, and seen by many GOP critics as a Democratic pipe dream. Here are three major conservative arguments against the bill.
HR 1 would federalize elections
While proponents of the bill say it would set minimum standards for voting and election administration, many conservatives are strongly against this so-called "federalization" of elections. They argue the rules for American elections should remain decentralized so state and local officials can follow the best practices for their jurisdictions.
In a March report on HR 1, R Street Institute experts Anthony Marcum and Jonathan Bydlak wrote that decentralized elections also offer a security advantage. "It is challenging to organize an attack that penetrates thousands of jurisdictions, which mostly operate on different systems or procedures," they wrote.
HR 1 would curtail the rights to free speech and association
The campaign finance portion of the bill includes provisions that would impose stronger and broader disclosure requirements on political advocacy nonprofits. Opponents say this would have a "chilling effect" on free speech because it would impinge on the privacy of major donors to political causes.
"The legislation will subject private citizens to intimidation and harassment for their private and political beliefs," a coalition of more than 130 conservatives wrote in a February letter to Congress.
Conservatives aren't the only ones with First Amendment concerns. The left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union also repeatedly criticized certain campaign finance provisions included in HR 1. The organization has sent letters to Congress in 2019 and this year ahead of key votes on the legislation.
In its most recent letter, the ACLU wrote: "We continue to have significant constitutional concerns with the bill, particularly the ways it would restrict nonprofit organizations' advocacy about issues of national importance, such as immigration, racist police violence, voting rights, and reproductive freedom when that advocacy merely mentions candidates for federal office."
HR 1 would weaken election security and integrity
Conservatives have raised the alarm over certain provisions in the legislation that they say would loosen voting rules and create incentives for fraud. For instance, HR 1 would permit voters to "designate any person" to return a completed and sealed absentee ballot to an official drop off location. Critics warn this could lead to so-called "ballot harvesting" in which partisan operatives could go door to door and solicit votes.
Another concern is that expansions like same-day voter registration would be difficult to implement and maintain in rural areas with unreliable internet access. "A person could show up at a poll, sign a registration form and cast a vote without any checks to ensure the person was actually eligible to vote," Henry Olsen, a conservative columnist for The Washington Post, wrote in March.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.