This morning, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been a steadfast defender of First Amendment rights, spoke on the Senate floor about the SHIELD Act under consideration by the House today.  He called it "the latest installment in Speaker Pelosi’s campaign to expand government’s control over Americans’ political speech."  

Speaker Pelosi's current crusade against Americans' political speech rights began with H.R. 1, and the SHIELD Act contains portions of H.R. 1, the Honest Ads, and other dangerous provisions.  The RNLA sent a letter to the House opposing it.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has jurisdiction to issue regulations and enforce federal campaign finance laws; in other words, to interpret and enforce the regulation of Americans' political speech, which is protected by the First Amendment.  

For years, Democrats have attempted to expand regulation of political speech through onerous disclaimer, disclosure, and reporting requirements; low contribution limits; making the FEC a partisan body controlled by the President's party (such as in H.R. 1 and the perennial DISCLOSE Act); outright speech prohibitions; and even through spending limits (which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional back in Buckley v. Valeo).  

With the resignation of Republican FEC Commissioner Matt Petersen, the FEC is back in the news.

After the hotly contested election in 2000, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the bipartisan Help America Vote Act ("HAVA").  HAVA was a response to the chaos of the 2000 Florida recount.  HAVA was not perfect but it represented a good faith effort on all sides to come together and passed 357-48 in the House and 92-2 in the Senate.  This should be the way all election reform is done.  Unfortunately, it is not true anymore. 

As Republican Leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California has proven his unique ability to unite Americans and deliver results. Leader McCarthy is a principled conservative who consistently fights for policies that grow our economy, protect our national security, and uphold our values.

Recently, Congress has been focusing on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) and election cybersecurity by holding hearings.  Lawyers Democracy Fund (LDF) has been covering these hearings on its blog and Twitter feed.

House Democrats and their most loyal liberal allies are attempting in multiple different ways to effectively repeal the First Amendment.  By taking away donor privacy and controlling how money is spent.  The effort was their top priority as shown by the very symbolically numbered HR 1.  As Real Clear Politics describes it:

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is no friend of Republicans or conservatives, but it has traditionally been a defender of free speech and First Amendment rights, especially for marginalized and unpopular speakers.  While there are signs that its traditional support for civil liberties is waning and being replaced by support for liberal policy goals (the current pop-up on their website reads: "We need you with us: Donate monthly to fight Trump's attacks on people's rights."), the ACLU still will support some First Amendment rights.  For example, earlier this month, the ACLU sent a letter to the House Rules Committee opposing H.R. 1 despite supporting many of its election administration "reforms":

It is rare for a Senate Majority Leader to address legislation in the House.  That has changed with the unprecedented assault on our Democracy undertaken by the Democrats in the form of HR 1.  Or as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called it in a speech today, "The Democrat Politician Protection Act":

This week, Democrats in the House are expected to pass the sweeping legislation I call the Democrat Politician Protection Act. It aims to give Washington D.C. vast new control over elections, give tax dollars to political campaigns, and give election lawyers more opportunities to determine the outcome of elections. 

Lawyers Democracy Fund's board member Joanne Young published an op-ed today cataloguing the many problems with California's automatic, or mandatory, voter registration system, which is especially relevant as the House debates and votes on H.R. 1 this week.  H.R. 1 would require all states to adopt automatic voter registration (AVR) according to the bill's requirements, regardless of each state's existing laws.  It would also require a massive data dump from various government databases in the states' voter registration systems, which would introduce errors in the voter registration databases that would only be exacerbated by the new required AVR systems.

The Democrat Politician Protection Act, or as it is officially called HR 1, the For the People Act of 2019, is being rushed to the House floor this week.  This unprecedented rewriting of all aspects of elections is ironic, because it does many things that the Democrats have screamed about for years.