Understanding H.R. 1, the ‘For the People Act’ aimed a federalizing voting rights

One of the biggest political battles this year is going to be over voting and elections. Democrats are pushing House Resolution 1 (H.R. 1), a big piece of legislation also known as the "For the People Act." The resolution would make it standard for states to have about two weeks of early voting, automatic voter registration and no-excuse mail-in voting, It would also crack down on gerrymandering, a practice in which state legislatures create congressional districts that are distorted and disfigured in an attempt to give their party an advantage. The House has already passed this proposal, and the Senate is beginning to take it up through the committee process. Yahoo News Chief National Correspondent Jon Ward explains what’s ahead and why finding a bipartisan solution may be an uphill battle.

Video transcript

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- Earlier this year, the House of Representatives passed the For the People Act to protect our democracy. The Senate will take it up later this month. And I'm going to fight like heck with every tool at my disposal for its passage.

- Democrats are pushing House Resolution 1, a big piece of legislation also called the For the People Act, or HR-1 for short. The resolution would make it standard for states to have about two weeks of early voting, automatic voter registration, and no-excuse mail-in voting. HR-1 would also crack down on gerrymandering, which is when state legislatures create congressional districts that are distorted and disfigured in an attempt to give their party an advantage.

The House has already passed this proposal. And the Senate is now beginning to take it up through the committee process.

- The bill before this committee has a very simple premise, make it easier, not harder to vote.

- Democratic Party, on its own, wants to rewrite the ground rules of American politics for their benefit.

- And here's the thing. There's a lot of evidence that getting more people to vote doesn't actually favor one party over the other.

- Even the 2020 election, which Republicans feel like they didn't win, that's an election where it turned out there were 10 million more Republican voters than Republicans thought there were. Letting more people vote brings out more Republicans and Democrats.

- The fact that it federalizes election laws is one of the main objections for a lot of conservatives. And with current filibuster rules, it can't pass in the Senate without 10 votes from Republicans. It doesn't look likely, however, that there are 50 Senate Democrats who will support abolishing the filibuster.

Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Senator Kirsten Sinema of Arizona, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California have all said they're opposed. So we are in a tough position here. We need both parties to engage in good faith work on strengthening democracy. But good faith Republicans have been conditioned by their party to be inherently skeptical of making it easier to vote.

And then there is an increasing amount of complete cynicism and dishonesty from Republicans following the Trump model.

- This bill, the corrupt politicians act, would register millions of illegal aliens. It would register millions of criminals to vote because Democrats believe-- and I think quite reasonably-- that millions of illegal aliens and millions of criminals are likely to vote Democratic.

- Republicans are in a bad place because I think they find themselves arguing, in essence, that there ought to be fewer voters, which is, in my view, wrong and also the wrong place to be as a political matter.

- We can make our elections secure and accessible. The question is whether our politicians can work together to do so. And right now, most but not all of the burden is on the GOP.

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