Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are set Tuesday to attend a Senate Rules Committee markup of S. 1, a Democrat-backed elections bill that would dramatically change the role of the federal government in elections.
The two party leaders are members of the Rules Committee but rarely appear to speak at hearings and markups. But they were both at the contentious hearing for the bill in March where they traded accusations of “Shame!”
Similar fireworks are expected Tuesday in what could be a marathon meeting.
Punchbowl News reported Tuesday that Republicans plan to offer more than 100 amendments to the bill during the markup. Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., said Monday that he’d filed more than 20 amendments to the bill on his own. A spokesperson for Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the senator has 46 amendments.
Officially called the “For the People Act,” Democrats assigned the S. 1 number to the legislation to emphasize that it is their priority. The corresponding bill in the House is H.R. 1.
The bill faces sharp opposition from Republicans, who accuse Democrats of a political effort to give themselves an advantage in elections. Hagerty refers to the bill as the “For the Politicians Act.”
McConnell, R-Ky., in March specifically cited a provision that would change the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) from a body with three Republicans and three Democrats to one with two members from each party and a third unaffiliated member appointed by the president.
“Talk about shame. If anybody ought to be feeling any shame around here, it’s turning the FEC into a partisan prosecutor, the majority controlled by the president’s party, to harass and intimidate the other side,” McConnell said.
Schumer, meanwhile, said the bill is really about improving voting access, accusing Republicans of being “afraid of Democracy.” And Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., framed the bill as a response to new GOP-backed voting laws in states.
“These are real threats to our democracy and the For The People Act takes them head on in a common sense way,” she said in March.
Notably, however, Democrats introduced the ‘For the People Act’ before, in 2019.
One potential battle to watch on Tuesday will be a substitute amendment from Klobuchar, which would replace the entire text of the bill with a bill that’s significantly changed. It’s aimed at reducing fears from Republican senators and state elections officials that the bill would be a nightmare to implement. It would delay the timeline for implementation of many of the bill’s provisions, including for automatic voter registration, same-day registration, and new voting systems.
It’s not clear how much appetite there is on the Republican side for compromise, however, as GOP senators point to a variety of other provisions as poison pills in and of themselves.
S. 1 and H.R. 1, which passed the House with only Democratic votes, would also ban states from requiring photo ID to vote; raise barriers for states to clear voter rolls; require states to offer drop boxes for 45 days before an election and much more.
It’s unlikely that the “For the People Act” will pass the Senate in its current form, given the unified GOP opposition. Democrats would have to get rid of the legislative filibuster to pass it without Republican votes and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said he wouldn’t do that under any circumstances.
It is possible that Democrats may try to break up S. 1 into multiple bills to get GOP votes for at least some of the provisions in it. But it’s not clear that they are committed to that approach or what its chances of success would be.