LEIGH CHAPMAN: So H.R. 1 is also known as For the People Act and it’s a bold, ambitious bill that was just introduced by House Democrats last week, and it’s one of the first major bills of this new Congress. And the bill is really about putting the government back in the hands of the people – that does three things. So, one, it makes it easier, not harder for people to vote in our country. Two, it aims to end the big dominance of money in politics. And three, it has provisions ensuring that public officials work for the public interest. But at the Leadership Conference, you know, we’re primarily focused on the voting rights provision of the bill because our democracy works the best when everyone can participate.
I wanted to talk about some of the key provisions that are potentially really transformative in this bill. So one of them is automatic voter registration. Under H.R. 1, it would allow for there to be nationwide automatic voter registration. So that means when someone goes to their DMV (Department of Voter Vehicles) or any agency in their state to update their driver’s license, their information would be automatically sent to the secretary of state’s office so that they’re registered. And this would have an impact of having more than 50 million more additional people on the voter rolls. So this is a huge transformational change if this were to become law.
Another key reform to highlight is H.R. 1 would also restore the right to vote for people with felony convictions around the country. So there are some states where if you have a felony conviction, you lose your right to vote permanently and this impacts about 5 million people around the country. Under H.R. 1, if this went into effect, we would have not only the 50 million people more on the rolls through automatic voter registration, but there would also be 5 million people with previous felony convictions who could participate in our democracy.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Leigh, maybe you could describe the progress that’s being made in this newly Democratic party-controlled House of Representatives to bring up legislation that would restore the Voting Rights Act. And what are the prospects in the U.S. Senate for doing the same thing?
LEIGH CHAPMAN: Since the Supreme Court gutted Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, there has been an effort to introduce legislation to restore and modernize the Voting Rights Act because it’s important that we have Section 5 free clearance again so we can stop that loss from going into place before they do. Rep. Terri Sewell from Alabama has been the main sponsor of the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which is a piece of legislation that has been introduced in previous congresses and she’s planning on introducing it again in this congress.
But the key thing about your question about the Senate, “What’s the possibility of this passing in the Senate?” is voting rights should be a nonpartisan issue no matter what political party that you’re a member of. You should want everyone in our democracy to participate. And unfortunately, voting rights has become something that has been politicized over the last few years, but it shouldn’t. If people care about economic justice or immigration reform or education, every legislator should support restoring the Voting Rights Act and restore the key provisions of H.R. 1.
BETWEEN THE LINES: H.R. 1 Is likely to pass in the House of Representatives, but the Republicans still control the Senate and Donald Trump is still in the White House. I think from outside looking in, it appears that both the Senate and Trump would reject these set of reforms. Where does H.R. 1 go from here if it passes the House, but gets blocked by the White House and the Senate?
LEIGH CHAPMAN: Yeah, so it probably will pass the House relatively quickly. House Democrats have said that they were planning on voting on it within the next few weeks. It will go to the Senate. There will probably be a Senate companion bill that will be introduced, but I think this is a time where voters need to put pressure on their members of Congress that they have elected. It’s time for voters to call your member of Congress, no matter if they’re a Democrat or Republican and say that you want this bill to pass, you want them to support this bill. So this is the pivotal moment where we can’t just say, oh, it’s never going to pass the Senate. We need to actually put public pressure on our elected members of Congress to make this a priority and to hold them accountable.
