EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an extended version of today’s editorial, containing additional information about what was in the For the People Act as well as additional quotes. For the shortened version, please see the e-edition for June 24, 2021.
The For the People Act (HR 1 and S 1, respectively) was filibustered in the Senate Tuesday night, meaning it did not garner enough votes to even bring the resolution up for debate.
Sen. Joe Manchin did vote in favor of introducing S 1 for debate, so we must give him credit there. He’s been a vocal critic of the For the People Act, an omnibus bill covering a variety of topics related to elections and voting, but at least he did his due diligence as a lawmaker by supporting the opportunity for discussion.
According to the resolution’s summary, it addressed “voter access, election integrity and security, campaign finance and ethics for the three branches of government.” Specifically, it would have expanded voter registration and voting access; limited voter roll purges; required states to establish independent redistricting commissions to carry out congressional redistricting; set forth provisions related to election security, including cybersecurity improvements; addressed campaign finance (or the presence of “dark money,” as it is often called), “including by expanding the prohibition on campaign spending by foreign nationals, requiring additional disclosure of campaign-related fundraising and spending, requiring additional disclaimers regarding certain political advertising and establishing an alternative campaign funding system for certain federal offices”; addressed ethics in all three branches of government, including “establishing additional conflict-of-interest and ethics provisions for federal employees and the White House” and required the president, vice president and candidates for those offices to disclose 10 years of tax returns.
We can understand members of Congress having concerns about specific aspects of such wide-ranging legislation. But we’re frustrated by the outright refusal to even discuss something supported by the majority of Americans.
The vote for debate fell strictly along party lines — a 50-50 split, well short of the 60-vote threshold required by the filibuster. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito voted no. In a statement, she said, “Simply put: This was never about getting more people to vote, but rather a way for Democrats in Congress to power grab and fix problems that do not exist.”
We’re not sure which Capito needs to read first — a history book or a newspaper.
Voter suppression predates Jim Crow, though the post-Civil War South immortalized many tactics in history books. It was so prevalent, in fact, that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had a designated section requiring nine states and dozens of municipalities with a history of racial discrimination to get “preclearance” before making changes to their election laws, including voting policies and redistricting methods, specifically to prevent the kinds of laws we’re seeing now and that the For the People Act aimed to prevent.
Unfortunately, in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted that section of the Voting Rights Act, deciding 5-4 in Shelby County v. Holder that the policy was outdated and no longer needed, citing increased voting participation by people of color.
Now, the proliferation of voter suppression bills has dominated headlines for months, with many GOP-controlled states implementing restrictive policies that make it harder for people — particularly people of color, who historically vote blue — to cast a ballot. Such measures have included limiting early voting periods, implementing voter ID requirements, closing or moving polling places and eliminating ballot drop-off boxes in states that allow mail-in voting among other things.
Republican officeholders have even said aloud that making voting more accessible will hurt the GOP’s chances of gaining and retaining seats. Trump said it last year; so did Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham. Most recently, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton credited himself for Trump’s win in Texas because Paxton prevented Harris County — where more liberal Houston is located — from sending out unsolicited mail-in ballot applications.
As Paxton said on Steve Bannon’s podcast, “We would’ve been one of those battleground states that they were counting votes in Harris County for three days and Donald Trump would’ve lost the election.”
When the Supreme Court made its 2013 ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts invited Congress to try again: “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.”
Democrats in Congress tried and so did some House Republicans. The For the People Act spoke to a slew of regressive state laws; to the need for nationwide voting access and election security; to the cancer of dark money controlling politics; to the national stain of partisan gerrymandering; and to the ethical concerns raised by the actions of our 45th president.
To Sen. Capito and her 49 Republican colleagues in the Senate who would not even allow HR 1/S 1 to come up for debate: Which part, exactly, of the For the People Act terrifies you so much? The voting access? The muzzle on dark money? The end to gerrymandering? The new code of ethics? Or all of it?
