WASHINGTON—Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1, the For the People Act. The legislation is an important package of government reforms aimed at cleaning up government corruption, protecting the right to vote, and restoring the integrity of our elections. It makes voting easier by expanding same-day voter registration and automatic voter registration, strengthens vote-by-mail and early voting, and combats voter suppression efforts and voter intimidation. Additionally, it ends partisan gerrymandering, enforces ethics and conflict of interest rules, and ends the dominance of dark money from undisclosed sources pouring into our political system.
“The rampant corruption and attacks on our electoral process of the last four years were an unfortunate masterclass in how our government shouldn’t operate and why government reform legislation like H.R. 1 is so important,” said Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva. “This bill is what we need in this moment to restore faith in government, renew integrity in our elections, and ensure that those in power are working for the people—not themselves.”
The passage of H.R. 1 included two amendments offered by Rep. Grijalva. The first would call on each state to submit a report to the Election Assistance Commission on the number of individuals who were purged from voter registration lists or moved to inactive status, including the rationale behind those actions. The second amendment would ensure that all polling location notices took into account the linguistic preferences of voters in the jurisdiction. Both amendments included language from his Voting Access Act he introduced earlier this year to establish national standards for conducting federal elections and to address serious voter suppression issues such as long wait times, unjustified closure of polling locations, and systemic purging efforts.
“Efforts undertaken by Republicans in state legislatures around the country, including here in Arizona, to limit the right to vote are anti-democratic,” continued Rep. Grijalva. “We should always seek to make voting as accessible as possible, and H.R. 1 is a step in the right direction. Now, we must build off this success, urge the Senate to take swift action, and pass further legislation to restore federal voter protections so that we have every tool at our disposal to combat voter suppression efforts.”
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