House set to move on elections overhaul as focus is on Senate
WASHINGTON – With House Democrats poised to pass their 791-page campaign finance, elections and ethics overhaul as soon as next week, outside groups that support the measure are turning to the Senate.
Left-leaning organizations such as Indivisible, Public Citizen, Democracy 21 and Common Cause, among others, have ramped up lobbying, grassroots and advertising campaigns aimed at the Senate, which poses a potentially fatal threat to the package.
Even though Democrats narrowly control both chambers, the bill would need at least 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. It’s a reality that has some advocates for the bill, which is dubbed HR 1 in the House and S 1 in the Senate, pushing to roll back the filibuster, at least in some fashion.
“We have a broken political system, a corrupting campaign finance system and a democracy that has been greatly damaged,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of the political money overhaul group Democracy 21. “This legislation makes historic democracy reforms, and the choice is going to come down to: Are we going to repair our democracy or are we going to let an antiquated filibuster rule stand in the way of fixing our political system and our democracy?”
Wertheimer added that how Senate Democrats might figure out a way to pass the bill was above his “pay grade.”
On the other side, conservative organizations American Principles Project and the Susan B. Anthony List said Wednesday they were partnering in a new, at least $5 million Election Transparency Initiative led by Ken Cuccinelli, a former Trump administration official, to defeat HR 1 and to mount what the groups called a vigorous defense of the filibuster.
The liberal group Indivisible says it’s budgeting upwards of $4 million on pressing for democracy overhaul measures, including support for HR 1 as well as statehood for the District of Columbia.
“We can’t fix our democracy until we get rid of the filibuster,” said the group’s Meagan HatcherMays.
Democrats in the House passed a nearly identical overhaul package in the last Congress, but the measure died in the Senate, then under the control of GOP Leader Mitch Mcconnell.
Mcconnell is the minority leader now, and he has made opposition to the sweeping a package a priority yet again, saying Thursday that Democrats
“want to use the temporary power the voters have granted them to try to ensure they’ll never have to relinquish it.”
“They want to mandate no-excuse mail-in balloting as a permanent norm, postpandemic,” Mcconnell said. “And – I promise I am not making this up – their bill proposes to directly fund political campaigns with federal tax dollars. They want to raise money through new financial penalties which the government would then use to fund campaigns and consultants.”
The House Administration Committee plans its first hearing on the bill for Thursday afternoon, and it will include former Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who founded the voting rights organization Fair Fight Action.
Provisions in the House bill “would address the core assaults on voter access and create a uniform foundation for democracy in America that does not rely on geography,” Abrams said in written testimony to the panel.
The bill would create nationwide automatic voter registration and require paper ballots in all jurisdictions. It would set up a 6-to-1 optional public financing system to pay for congressional campaigns and tighten disclosure rules for political groups and super PACS that spend money to influence elections. It also would restructure the three-democrat, three-republican Federal Election Commission to a fivecommissioner agency aimed at reducing party-line deadlocks.
It would also require early voting and expand voting by mail, two changes made hastily in some states to cope with the pandemic in 2020 that Trump and many of his GOP allies falsely charged led to fraud. Some House Republicans have responded with their own bill that would sharply curtail such practices in federal elections.
The Democrats’ bill would put new limitations on some behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts, require more disclosure of online political ads and create nonpartisan redistricting efforts, among numerous other provisions. It also would establish an ethical code of conduct for Supreme Court justices and require presidential and vice presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns.
Though Republicans support some pieces of the package, the GOP and conservative organizations are taking aim particularly at the optional taxpayer financing of congressional campaigns, efforts to expand mail voting and other political money and lobbying measures.