The House on Thursday passed a sweeping Democrat bill on voting regulations, campaign finance, and ethics rules that conservatives have derided as a “voter fraud and election theft” wish list.
The House passed H.R. 1, known as the For the People Act, which was approved on staunch party lines by 234-193 vote.
“H.R. 1 restores the people’s faith that government works for the public interest, the people’s interests, not the special interests,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during a press conference before the vote on Friday.
H.R. would expand early voting, enact redistricting changes, make Election Day a federal holiday, automatically register voters, and force stricter disclosure laws for many political activities. One provision would force presidential candidates and vice-presidential candidates to release their tax returns over the last ten years, which Democrats have tried to force President Donald Trump to do since he first decided to run for president.
The Democrat-passed bill faces stiff opposition from Senate Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said this week that it would not receive any floor time “because I get to decide what we vote on.” President Trump also threatened to veto the legislation in the event that it would pass through Congress’ upper chamber.
Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL), a staunch House conservative, slammed the bill as a cynical Democrat move to dilute Americans’ voting power.
Brooks said in a statement on Friday:
As a backdrop, let me emphasize that the long term goal of Socialist Democrats is to dilute and undermine the voting power of American citizens. How do we know that? By past Socialist Democrat actions and conduct. For example, in many parts of America where Socialist Democrats enjoy dominant political control, they have made it lawful for illegal aliens and lawful noncitizens to vote, thereby diluting the vote of American citizens and undermining the ability of Americans to run their own governments! San Francisco is the largest such city, where illegal aliens and all other noncitizens can not only lawfully register to vote, they in fact vote in local elections.Further, H.R. 1 does its best to exploit and expand voter fraud loopholes that Socialist Democrats slipped into past federal legislation that, for example, empowered as many as 95,000 noncitizens to register to vote, and 58,000 noncitizens to actually vote, in recent Texas elections.
Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), vice chairman of the House Republican conference, also chastised the bill in a statement on Friday. Walker said:
While House Republicans remain committed to producing results, our colleagues across the aisle seem only interested in retaining power and resisting productivity. In an attempt to legislate electoral advantages for their candidates, House Democrats are attempting to force North Carolina taxpayers to pay for campaign ads for California politicians. Instead of counting ballots from the Capitol, the new House majority should be counting the number of people who will be hurt by their policies that will cost $600,000 per household and make private health insurance illegal.
House Oversight Committee ranking member Jim Jordan tweeted on Thursday, “H.R. 1:-Redistributes taxpayer dollars to protect and re-elect the Swamp -Restricts Americans’ free speech -Exacts political retribution against the President of the United States.
“Democrats are determined to stifle the free exchange of ideas,” Jordan added.