Politico: House passes voting rights package aimed at restoring protections
Republicans have largely dismissed the legislation as a messaging bill, and House Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins (R-Ga.) pointed out that the White House has threatened to veto the measure, though he added he was willing to work with Democrats on other improvements.
“We do not in this body vote on ideas. We do not vote on thoughts. We vote on words on paper. And the words on paper here do not fulfill what is being said about this bill,” Collins said on the floor prior to the vote.
Still, Republicans took pains to emphasize that their opposition was not to voting rights on the whole, calling the package an attempt at forcing control over state and local elections into the hands of the federal government.
The Voting Rights Advancement Act is key plank in House Democrats’ legislative agenda — one of a series of bills they campaigned on in their successful effort to take back the House in 2018.
And the package is one of a number of election-related bills the House has passed this year, following its sweeping package of election and campaign finance reforms approved this spring and a foreign election interference bill passed last month.
Democratic leaders have long planned to vote again on key pieces of that bill in a bid to put pressure on Republicans while reminding the public about a signature proposal.
But the legislation, like many of the marquee messaging bills the House has already passed this year tackling gun violence, climate change and election interference, will be ignored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has boasted about being the “grim reaper” for Democrats’ legislative priorities.
“We have 400 bills sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during a CNN town hall Thursday night. “And he keeps saying, ‘All they do is impeach’ — no, we have 400 bills, 275 of them are bipartisan bills.”