Democrats in the Senate began a push to overhaul U.S. election law.
Democrats cite insurrection; Republicans warn of overreach
WASHINGTON — Democrats renewed their efforts Wednesday to muscle through the largest overhaul of U.S. elections in a generation. Democrats and Republicans both see the legislation, which touches on nearly every aspect of the electoral process, as fundamental to their parties’ political futures.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., making a rare appearance at a hearing, said Wednesday it took “mighty movements and decades of fraught political conflict” to achieve the basic dignities of current election laws and “any American who thinks that the fight for a full and fair democracy is over, is sadly and sorely mistaken.”
Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-minn., opened the hearing on the legislation Wednesday by invoking the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“In the end, that insurrection was about an angry mob working to undermine our democracy,” Klobuchar said. “And it reminds all of us how very fragile our democracy truly is.”
Similar to the House bill that passed on a party-line vote, the Senate legislation would create automatic voter registration nationwide, allow former felons to vote and limit the ways states can remove registered voters from their rolls. It would also expand voting by mail, promote early voting and give states money to track absentee ballots.
Republicans say the new mandates would amount to a federal takeover of elections, which have traditionally been left to states.
Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., a longtime opponent of restrictive campaign finance laws, also made a rare hearing appearance, sitting across the dais from Schumer. He said the bill is full of “silly new mandates” that would create “an invitation to chaos” for states that would have to put them in place.
“This is clearly an effort by one party to rewrite the rules of our political system,” Mcconnell said.
The bill has run into roadblocks. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia has expressed skepticism about the legislation, threatening united Democratic support.