It would be fitting if DEMOCRATS undertook a radical procedural step to pass a radical piece of legislation.
That’s what the left is pressuring Senate DEMOCRATS to do by eliminating, or significantly curtailing, the filibuster to pass HR1, the sweeping voting proposal that is one of the most execrable bills to pass the House in a very long time.
HR1 would federalize the conduct of elections and codify what were supposed to be emergency voting procedures during the pandemic, in frankly partisan legislation sheathed in the rhetoric of “voting rights.”
According to advocates of the bill, anything to tighten up or maintain good practices regarding ballot security is “voter suppression” worthy of the Jim Crow South.
By this way of thinking, Republican efforts at the state level to, say, reduce the days available for early voting — a bill in Iowa would reduce early voting from its start 29 days before an election to 20 days before an election — would disenfranchise millions, never mind that deep-blue New York state only allows early voting 10 days before an election.
Voter-identification laws, a bogeyman of supporters of HR1, were recommended by a 2005 bipartisan commission jointly led by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, neither of whom will ever be mistaken for Bull Connor.
Not too long ago, it was a feature of big bipartisan voting bills to require states to periodically clean up their voter rolls, another common-sense measure that is now considered tantamount to wielding bully clubs and police dogs.
There may be many problems besetting American democracy, but people turning out to vote isn’t one of them.
Turnout exploded in the 2018 midterms, before the pandemic, and turnout exploded in 2020, during the pandemic, with both DEMOCRATS who availed themselves of early voting and Republicans who voted same-day showing up in historic numbers.
DEMOCRATS want to trample on the prerogatives of states to conduct elections, mandating their electoral priorities throughout the land.
https://nypost.com/2021/03/08/dems-are-burning-all-bridges-in-drive-to-change-how-we-vote/
