LTE – JoAnn Utphall – 1-19-2022
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Last week I was listening to a video of Representative Kat Cammack (Florida). She was concerned about two bills that passed the House and will head to the Senate. One is H.R. 1 “For the People Act” and H.R. 4 “Voting Rights Advancement Act.” Between the two, it gets rid of voter ID requirements (during registration or to vote), allows non-citizens to vote, allows ballot harvesting (third party groups to collect ballots with no ballot security), and provides “6 to 1 campaign funds.” The government would give each candidate a sum of money that is six times the sum of all of his/her small donations (less than $200). For example in the last election, NY Representative AOC raised $18,898,102 in donations that were less than $200. If our taxpayer funded government has to match 6 to 1 to candidates, AOC would have gotten over $113 million from the US government to fund her campaign. Now include all the representatives and senators times two – there are always two candidates running for each seat. The total amount would be in the trillions.
In another provision, the US Attorney General would have control over the elections. Our current AG Garland labeled parents who voice their concerns and frustrations at school boards as domestic terrorists and should be investigated by the FBI. Is this someone that you would want authority over elections?
To kick-start debate of these bills in the Senate, they merged the bills into an existing NASA bill (NASA’s authority to lease facilities) which has already cleared the House and Senate.
But because the Republicans hold the majority in the Senate, this bill has no chance of passing by 60% (filibuster rule needs 60% of the votes). The next step, Democrats will try to get rid of the filibuster so that a bill could be passed with just a simple majority of 51%.
Call, text and write our Senators.
JoAnn Utphall
Boyceville