The progressive left rolls on. Having passed a $1.9 trillion Covid-relief Stimulus Package, the Senate will now move on to HR1, “For the People Act”, already passed by the House. It would nationalize many election procedures such as voter registration, voter identification, and mail-in voting.
What is wrong with uniform national election procedures? A lot! Consider:
- HR1 is clearly unconstitutional. Election procedures are mentioned nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. The 10th Amendment states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The 14th Amendment says that “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States;”
Election procedures are necessary and the constitution specifies that the states are in charge and have the responsibility to do this in such a way that does not “abridge the privileges” of any citizen. - A very important goal with election law is to maintain trust in our election procedures. The U.S. has a well-established “complex, multilayered, decentralized process of running elections that are safe, accessible, reliable and fair.” It is important to preserve this successful system that we now have.
- State legislatures have become highly polarized in recent years. 31 state legislatures now have both houses Republican (including Nebraska with a non-partisan unicameral which leans Republican), 18 states with both houses under Democratic control, and only one state, Minnesota, has a divided legislature. HR1 is, in effect, an attempt by a (blue) Democratic Congress to dictate election procedures to 31 red states.
- In spite of an attempt by the mainstream media to label recent changes in Georgia’s voting procedures as racist, this is untrue as any honest examination of the specific wording will show.
- This entire proposed assault on the U.S. Constitution can be avoided if the Senate keeps its Filibuster rule requiring 60 votes to pass most legislation. In this case, a minimum of 10 Republican votes would be required to pass any specific bill which would ensure bipartisan compromise in the whole process. Do the Democrats really want to have a showdown over proposed federal election procedures which will almost surely be struck down by the courts if passed into law?
Conclusion. The strength of our democracy is in the competition between the two political parties. When one party overreaches, as the progressive left is now doing on the Democratic side, it will most likely get struck down in the next election. By proposing an unconstitutional federal takeover of election procedures, the Democratic Party is playing with fire and is likely to get burned.
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It Does Not Add Up 
A very succinct and accurate description of the dangers of HR1. Kudos, Jack! One thing we have learned about Speaker Pelosi and the liberals in Congress over the last several years is that the Constitution is only a minor impediment to their attempts to make constitutional law by House edict.
This is why the Senate Filibuster rule is so important!