U.S. House Passes HR 1

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On the evening of March 3, the U.S. House passed HR 1 by 220-210. It contains many provisions that would help voting rights. It no longer allows states to disenfranchise ex-felons, for federal elections. It requires all states to have nonpartisan redistricting commissions, for drawing U.S. House districts. It requires that all states, in federal elections, use paper ballots instead of electronic vote-counting machines that don’t produce a paper trail. Unfortunately, not only does it not do anything for ballot access, it indirectly hurts ballot access for minor party and independent presidential candidates by making it five times more difficult for them to qualify for primary season matching funds.

The bill is not expected to pass the U.S. Senate, given the existence of the filibuster which would require support from 60 U.S. Senators. But it is possible that the ideas in the bill will be broken up into separate bills, some of which might pass.

Comments

U.S. House Passes HR 1 — 36 Comments

  1. RE —

    It no longer allows states to disenfranchise ex-felons, for federal elections.
    —
    Obvious UNCON – 14-2 Amdt allows States to disenfranchise ex-felons.

    Filibuster – UNCON – one congress can NOT limit any future congress – except by Const Amdt that gets adopted.
    IE 51 > 49 and 59 > 41 in current Senate.

  2. RE — nonpartisan redistricting commissions-

    NOOO such thing

    BLATANT SCHEME TO COPY CA COMMUNIST G COMM — CRACK RURAL FASCIST AREAS WITH URBAN COMMIE DEMS — TO GET PERMANENT COMMIE CONTROL OF USA H REPS.
    —-
    PR AND APPV
    TOTSOP

  3. I do not agree that the 14th amendment “allows” states to disenfranchise ex-felons. The 14th amendment punishes states that deprive certain voters of their vote, but excuses state ex-felon voting rules. But it doesn’t follow logically that just because the ex-felon type of disenfranchisement is immune from the rule that punishes certain states, therefore it is constitutional for the state to disenfranchise ex-felons.

  4. This is a stunt for the 2022 Senatorial elections. It is unlikely to pass the Senate. This omnibus “reform” is designed to record the “No” votes of Republican Senators, to be used against them in the 2022 campaigns.

  5. And, what is this nonsense of so-called “nonpartisan” redistricting commissions? How is a truly nonpartisan commission to be chosen? The only thing that comes close is a randomly selected grand jury. Could grand juries be used for redistricting?

    IMO, the distribution of seats among counties or smaller units within a state ought to be objectively defined by law so than no subjective body is employed to use abstract art for the task.

  6. Uh, read the rest of it, Richard. It also mandates things like ballot harvesting, universal mail-in voting, and same day registration. This thing is BAD NEWS! Why else do you think it is called the “For the Politicians Act.” Thank God for the filibuster.

  7. “ballot “harvesting”, universal mail-in voting, and same day registration.”

    All of those are good things. The only bad part is making it harder to qualify for federal aid for candidates. Unfortunately it won’t pass due to the filibuster, and the spineless Democrats don’t have enough party discipline to get rid of the filibuster. If the Republicans were in the position of having their legislation blocked by Democrats in the House – that is, a Republican House and President and a closely split Senate – they would get rid of the filibuster in a heartbeat.

  8. They are codifying fraud. Democrats want the fraud model they employed in 2020 to be used in future elections to maintain control of government and prevent another outsider like Trump from ever becoming president again.

  9. Anyone, these omnibus bills always have “gotcha” provisions. Someone in the Senate should split the bill up.

  11. The only fraud is the Republican lie about fraud. That’s why their cases all lost except for a minor procedural win about distance for observers in one state even when they were not dismissed for procedual reasons. It’s also why the e-voting companies have sued multiple individuals and organizations including Lindell, Giuliani, Powell and others for libel. They’ll be subject to discovery and to having the alleged evidence that wasn’t introduced in the earlier cases come in as part of a truth defense against libel. If they were afraid of that they would not bring the lawsuits. There’s much more voter suppression than vote fraud. HR 1 would fix some of this problem, but it won’t pass, because Democrats are spineless jellyfish and won’t get rid of the filibuster, thus nothing of any consequence will pass through Congress, and they will lose control of congress in 2022 and probably the presidency in 2024 (even though they will win the national popular vote yet again).

  12. One exception, they probably will pass some version of the coronavirus rescue package/stimulus and some budget bills through reconciliation. We’ll see how much Manchin, Sinema etc carve those up. But that’s about it as far as any kind of legislation from this congress.

  14. “If the Republicans were in the position of having their legislation blocked by Democrats in the House – that is, a Republican House and President and a closely split Senate – they would get rid of the filibuster in a heartbeat.”

    Then why didn’t republicans get rid of the filibuster when the controlled all three branches in 2005-2006?

    Then why didn’t republicans get rid of the filibuster when the controlled all three branches in 2017-2018?

  16. The national Green Party has issued this position statement focusing on the financial problems with the bill — while recognizing the need for more and stronger actual voting protections:

    https://www.gp.org/hr1

  17. Lee Kendall

    Because the democrats were not using the filibuster to stymie the republican agenda like the republicans are doing to the democrats now.

  19. So one bill during the 2017-8 term, versus virtually the entire Democratic agenda now? That seems about right. Thanks for showing just how spineless the Democrats are compared to the Republicans.

  20. The solution or answer to all of these questions will be contained in a soon to be released “Voter Freedom Act of 2021” authored by the National Election Reform Committee (NERC). This act is a great alternative to HR 1 or has excellent amendments for HR 1. NERC is a think tank for Independent Voting based in New York City (Independentvoting.org). See the NERC website to request details: https://nerc.blue.

  21. “So one bill during the 2017-8 term, versus virtually the entire Democratic agenda now?”

    Oh, you missed 2003-04 and 2005-2006 sections too?

    What a shocker.

  22. A lot has changed in politics since then. I find the most recent data to be most useful.

  24. That contradicts the other link you posted. The filibuster must have not worked? I guess the Republicans either didn’t have much legislative agenda, or the democrats didn’t filibuster much of it.

  25. Oh that’s right, I remember. The shutdown ended after about a month. I think the democrats caved, correct?

  26. They partially caved and then Trump got the rest of the funding for the wall which he demanded, which had led to the shutdown, by declaring a national emergency and appropriating money not authorized by congress thru fiat like a dictator.

  29. Who are you? You seem like more of a pig than people who probably did a news search about hr1 and are discussing the subject, unlike your cyberbullying attempt to invade people’s privacy and murk up the conversation with your weird obsession with someone from another site, who may or may not actually be commenting here at all. Besides which making up characters to debate each other sounds like something you would do. For all we know you may be the cyberpig who is making up these characters to debate each other just so you can then start the latest in your endless repetitive rounds of your stupid circle jerk guessing game about your mutual obsession with Andy and Robert. It’s also ironic that you would demand people’s identity when hiding your own.

  32. Of course —

    NOOOOO EQUAL BALLOT ACCESS REQUIREMENT IN THE RED DONKEY COMMUNIST BILL—

    MIGHT HAVE COMPETITION VS RED COMMUNIST DONKEY GERRYMANDER INCUMBENTS.

  34. Some of us have been working to get ballot access a part of this or other reform bill. Finding an eager politician is difficult.

  35. Very, very few ballots lost in the mail and highly unlikely to change election outcomes. More people get lost on the way to the voting place. Democrats lack the cohesion to expand the courts. Manchin, Sinema and probably others are against it. 218 of 435 can’t pass much of anything, including this legislation, without 60 in the Senate. That also includes expanding courts and most other things democrats would like to do. They’ll be lucky to pass appointees, budgets and the economic rescue package. Aside from that you’ll see a bunch of stuff like this one, make it through the house but not the senate and die.

  36. mere 1.9 $$$ TRILLION CV-19 bill passed Senate – ALL Dem radicals support – back to Dem radicals in H Reps

    Vote the party line or else.

    How much added to USA debt ???

    — means zero to Donkey commies —

    wanting USA bankruptcy as an excuse for TOTAL Fed govt CONTROL of everybody and thing in USA.

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