By Nick Koutsobinas
The Senate will vote on a bill that would dramatically change how elections are run next month.
According to a memo sent out by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the bill known as the “For the People Act,” or H.R. 1 or S. 1, will be voted on in June.
Democrats view the sweeping reform bill as anti-corruption legislation that will combat “restrictive” voting bills from their Republican colleagues. The act would federalize parts of the election system, eliminating qualifications such as photo identification and allowing same-day registration on any day that voting is permitted.
“In my state in Oklahoma, we have great voting engagement. We want to make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. S1 takes away a state’s ability to hold people accountable for cheating,” Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said, according to The Epoch Times.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., described the bill as a massive federal “takeover of elections.”
Democrats, however, largely support the legislation.
“The freedom to vote is fundamental to all of our freedoms. It is how Americans control their government and hold their elected officials accountable,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar during a Senate Rules hearing.
“The For the People Act is about setting basic national standards to make sure all Americans can vote safely in the way that works best for them, regardless of what state or zip code they live in. The For the People Act is about reducing the power of big money in our elections by ending secret spending by billionaires and special interests. And the For the People Act is about making anti-corruption reforms to ensure all politicians work for the people, not for themselves,” Klobuchar added.
At a caucus lunch on Capitol Hill, Schumer told reporters, “it was made clear how important S1 is to the country, to our Democratic majority, and to individual senators, and those discussions are going and I have a lot of faith in them.”
The Senate is currently divided 50-50 between Republicans and Democrats. Passing the bill would require at least 60 votes.
Schumer plans to bring other pieces of legislation up for a vote in June, including the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would hold the Department of Labor to study pay disparities between men and women while making their results public. He also said he might force another vote on the riot that occurred on Jan. 6 at the Capitol.