House Democrats to vote on top legislative priority H.R. 1 this week

The Hill reports that Democrats are ready to vote on their top legislative priority this week, H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2019, a hallmark of their 2018 midterm campaigns and the legislation that was formally introduced on the first day of the new Congress. This week: House Democrats poised to pass sweeping election reform bill:

House Democrats are poised to pass a sweeping electoral reform bill — a top policy priority that has emerged as a target for Senate Republicans.

The House is scheduled to vote on the legislation, known as “H.R. 1,” on Wednesday.

The legislation — spearheaded by John Sarbanes (D-M.D.) with the support of Democratic 236 cosponsors — aims to expand voting rights through provisions including the creation of automatic voter registration, increased election security by pushing back on foreign threats and making Election Day a national holiday for federal workers.

Democrats unveiled the legislation on their first day back in control of the House, underscoring its importance to their agenda. Proponents of the bill argue it’s necessary to crack down on corruption in upcoming elections.

“Our democracy faces threats from both the inside and outside,” Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) said in a statement. “Nowhere is that more apparent than in digital political communication and advertising. From dark money groups circumventing disclosure requirements, to foreign governments interfering in elections, it is time to update laws to protect our democracy.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) added at the press conference announcing the bill that “restoring the people’s’ faith in government is really our agenda.”

The measure also aims to tackle campaign finance reform by ending Citizens United, increasing transparency in campaign donations, prohibiting coordination between super PACs and candidates. Portions of the bill appear to be directed specifically at the administration, including a provision requiring the president and vice president to disclose a decade’s worth of their tax returns.

One of the more controversial provisions would create a 6-to-1 match federal campaign match on small donations has been met with strong pushback from Republicans, who argue taxpayer dollars should not be used for campaign purposes.

The GOP is expected to push back on the measure via a motion to recommit which would amend the measure at the eleventh hour on the floor.

Republicans successfully used a motion to recommit last week to add an amendment to the first gun control legislation passed by Congress in a generation which caused some consternation among the Democratic caucus (obstruction and divisiveness is all Republicans know). Joan McCarter at Daily Kos explains, Democratic leaders Hoyer and Clyburn need to get their House in order to end Republican poison pills:

In 2007, the Democratic House majority saw Republicans weaponize a procedural tactic to thwart their legislative efforts with poison pills. … What the Republicans did in 2007, and what they managed to achieve Wednesday, is to use the procedural “motion to recommit” to poison legislation. The motion to recommit (MTR) is the minority’s last chance to amend or kill a bill by sending it back to committee before final passage. Republicans use it to make a bill politically unpalatable to the majority and to peel off swing-district Democrats.

On Wednesday, they got 26 Democrats to vote with them to add a provision to their background checks bill that would require notification to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement when undocumented immigrants try to buy guns. The motion passed and was added to the final bill, to the glee of Republicans: “Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) delivered high fives on the floor, Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) offered fist bumps, and rank-and-file GOP members cheered.”

What happened? By most accounts, Hoyer and Clyburn, who are supposed to be keeping members disciplined and in line, thought it was more important for members to “vote their districts,” as Mariel Saez, a spokeswoman for Hoyer, explained it. One senior Democratic aide said that there was a “lack of coordination between Hoyer, who is responsible for all floor action, and Clyburn, who is charged with lining up votes.” Meaning that, between the two of them, they gave 26 Democrats a pass to vote with Republicans without checking in with one another.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rectified the situation by cracking the whip before the vote on the second piece of gun control legislation. Pelosi to fellow Democrats: Suck it up on tough votes—’This is not a day at the beach’:

The results of a Thursday morning Democratic conference in the House were apparent in the votes this morning to expand gun purchase background checks from three to 20 days. Only two Democrats voted for a Republican poison pill offered as a motion to recommit (MTR) the bill, after 26 Democrats defected on a similar effort Wednesday.

That Wednesday vote exposed a growing problem in the Democratic leadership, in which Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Majority Whip James Clyburn are at odds. Pelosi has been trying to enforce some discipline in her conference, keeping them all on board to fight Republican shenanigans. Unfortunately, Hoyer and Clyburn haven’t been enforcing. Quite the opposite—they’ve encouraged the “moderates” in the conference to “vote their districts,” even if it means giving fuel to Republicans.

Pelosi’s frustration reportedly boiled over Thursday morning, and she had some harsh truths for her conference. “This is not a day at the beach,” she reportedly told the members complaining about having to take hard votes on Democratic priorities. “This is the Congress of the United States.” She even floated the possibility of withholding help from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, “although her threat may be more bluster than reality, according to Democratic lawmakers and aides.”

“We are either a team or weren’t not,” she told members, “and we have to make that decision.” After the meeting she told reporters that Democrat have to simply vote against these procedural motions and deny the Republicans “leverage.” “I’m a big believer in respecting the whole House and the rights of the minority to have their say,” Pelosi said. “I think we should just vote against all motions to recommit. It’s a procedural vote, it’s a ‘gotcha’ on the part of the opposition.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reminded her colleagues in the meeting that the vote on Wednesday was hard for her, too, because the poison pill they allowed to pass gives more power to Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That meant having to tell her supporters and activists afterward that she “had to choose between immigrants and gun violence. Not because of Republicans, but because of Democrats.” She continued, “I think it is an extension of Trump’s tactics into the House and we cannot legitimatize it and we cannot allow for it and we cannot support it.”

Some moderates are pushing the idea of procedural fixes or just getting rid of the MTR altogether. That’s a solution, but it’s a solution for cowards. Pelosi is absolutely right: They’ve got to suck it up and stop aiding and abetting Republicans. They also need to review their very recent history. No procedural vote ever taken by a Democrat has shielded them from being attacked by Republicans in an election. None of these procedural votes with Republicans are going to help them a damned bit.

Even if Democrats are able to successfully get H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2019, through the House, it’s considered dead on arrival in the Republican controlled Senate, just like the first gun control legislation passed in a generation last week. “The Enemy of The People,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the architect of the policy of total obstruction under President Obama is again thwarting the popular will of the American people with his total obstruction.

House Democrats also introduced a bill last week to restore the Voting Rights Act and reverse the damage caused by the U.S. Supreme Court conservative justices in Shelby County v. Holder. Democrats Introduce Plan To Bring Power Back To The Voting Rights Act:

House Democrats unveiled legislation Tuesday that would restore one of the most powerful provisions of the Voting Rights Act.

The measure, called the Voting Rights Advancement Act, puts forth a new formula that would require certain jurisdictions to clear voting changes with the federal government. Since 1965, preclearance has been a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act because it prevented discriminatory changes from going into effect before an election took place. But in 2013, in a case called Shelby County v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the requirement, saying the formula congress used to determine which jurisdictions should have to clear their changes was outdated. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, invited Congress to pass a new formula.

Under the new formula, 11 states would be expected to be put back under preclearance, said Jackie McGuiness, a spokeswoman for Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), the lead sponsor of the legislation in the House. Those states are: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.

The new formula looks at voting rights violations over a 25-year period to determine which jurisdictions should have to seek preclearance. Any state that has at least 15 violations over that period would be required to seek preclearance. If the state as a whole ― as opposed to localities ―  is found to have committed a voting rights violation, it only needs 10 violations to be put under preclearance. Within a state, a jurisdiction like a town, city or county, would be put under preclearance if it is found to have committed three or more voting rights violations over the previous 25 years.

The statute would define a voting rights violation as a settlement or final finding by a federal court that a practice runs afoul of the 14th or 15th amendment to the constitution, the Voting Rights Act or any other measure designed to prevent voting discrimination based on race.

“It’s been pretty easy to see what state legislatures have been doing across this country without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act,” Sewell said at a press conference Tuesday where she was flanked by top Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “They have been suppressing the right to vote in the name of fraud, voter fraud. In the name of not having enough resources, they’re closing down polling locations. In the name of ostensibly making it easier to vote, they are indeed making it harder to vote.”

Like other voting reforms Democrats are pushing in the House, the legislation is unlikely to pass the GOP-controlled Senate. Still, Democrats have said they are pushing these measures as a statement for what the party stands for and with the hope they could advance in the future.

Democrats notably didn’t include the new Voting Rights Act formula in a package of voting reforms being considered in a separate bill. They kept it separate so they could build a clear record of voter suppression to justify the measure and withstand legal scrutiny. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) is chairing a subcommittee charged with developing that record.

“The Enemy of The People,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is Exhibit A.

Democrats are doing the work of the American people. Republicans stand athwart history to obstruct the will of the American people in favor of powerful special interests.