The For the People Act is Very Popular. The GOP Wants to Change That.

The For the People Act is under consideration in committee now in the Senate, and the Republicans are aiming to put Democrats on the defensive. In the larger sense, it may seem odd for any party to stand against the expansion of voting rights and protections. But the GOP understands that the bill would operate to the strong advantage of Democrats in registration, turnout, and representation. As such it presents an existential threat to their party, but they have to find another way besides “it helps Democrats too much” to explain their opposition.

Photo by Tom Williams and Bill Black, CQ Roll Call / Getty Images

The House version of the bill, which passed in March, has several headache-inducing measures for Republicans. It proposes creating automatic voter registration nationwide, would require 15 days of early voting in every state, commits to a full restoration of the protections of the Voting Rights Act, mandates no-excuse absentee voting, compels greater disclosure from political donors, reduces partisan gerrymandering by requiring independent commissions to draw Congressional districts, and imposes stricter ethical rules in elections, among other things.

This all sounds good and fair to most voters, who appear strongly to support most parts of the bill. According to a poll conducted in April by Data for Progress, which is admittedly left-leaning, 80 percent of respondents approve of preventing foreign interference in our elections, limiting the use of money in politics, and modernizing equipment to increase security. And 60 percent of respondents support non-partisan redistricting commissions, 15-day early voting periods, same-day registration for voters, automatic voter registration for all eligible voters, and no-excuse absentee voting as required option.

Given the popularity of such provisions, how can the GOP effectively torpedo the Act? Of course, they still have the filibuster, which they can deploy to stop the bill from ever reaching a vote. But because they’re now in the minority, they can’t use it to stop consideration and debate on it, so they know they also have to present their positions and try and win the battle for voters’ hearts and minds. That debate is about to take place, and senate Republicans are eager to discover which parts of the bill are most easily targeted for criticism and negative right-wing talking points. And while the bill does contain some very popular measures, it is also dressed with some wish-list items that render it vulnerable to rhetorical assault.

That assault begins from the broad notion that the federal government is trying to take over local elections through the bill. Big government doesn’t belong in state or county elections, they will argue, but the Democrats won’t leave well enough alone. This, Republicans will claim, is evidenced by a provision that provides for public funding of local Congressional elections. They will also cite mandates that are too costly and impractical for local officials to implement before the next election. 

According to reports, Democrats already have been busily revising parts of the bill to allay concerns of county election officials and to blunt anticipated criticism by the GOP. This includes giving more time to implement federally mandated provisions by extending compliance deadlines and granting waivers in some cases, and by eliminating some of the more costly provisions, such as the requirement for local election offices to provide self-sealing envelopes for mail-in ballots and to cover the cost of return postage. But none of these measures, the GOP likely will argue, changes the fact that this is Washington barging in to tell states and counties how to run things.

For all the earnest efforts by Democrats to make the bill more palatable, the bottom line is that Mitch McConnell doesn’t really want any version of the bill to pass, nor for a more modest version of it to gain the support of conservative Democrats such as Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. An actual Democratic majority in the Senate would force McConnell to deploy the filibuster to kill the bill as it gets voted out of committee, giving further ammunition to that rule’s critics. As of today, Manchin has not publicly put his support behind the bill and has indicated that he wants it to receive bipartisan support before he will back it. Whether that means getting a single senator—say, a Lisa Murkowski or a Susan Collins—to sign on to a watered down bill, or whether he means solid support of at least 10 GOP senators to get past the filibuster remains unclear (though the latter seems wholly unrealistic). 

Given that the bill would undo some of the most restrictive laws now being passed by GOP-controlled states like Georgia, Florida, Iowa and Texas, and that it would like.y help Nancy Pelosi hold her House majority, it is highly unlikely that even a bill with just its core provisions intact can garner a single vote of support from any GOP senators. Manchin probably knows this and is playing coy, knowing that the bill has zero chance of passing without him and only even a tiny chance with him. After all, passage would require a change to the filibuster rules, a move that he has publicly stated he opposes.

The stakes, however, are not just about whether the bill as amended actually passes but how the American public, particularly independent voters, view the two sides. Can the GOP paint the Democrats as once again guilty of federal overreach in what should be a purely local affair? Or can the Democrats cast the Republicans as anti-democratic politicians bent on protecting their own power and their minority rule? The parties’ staked-out positions could substantially impact voter enthusiasm and turnout for the midterm elections—the results of which will determine control of both chambers of Congress.