Republicans, screaming about voter fraud, then justify their plan to block sweeping voting rights legislation in the Senate this week by arguing that it's a huge federal power grab. But their past words and actions suggest they are again prioritizing their own political advantage over defending democracy.
Claims of vast voter fraud in 2020 -- which Republicans say justifies restrictive voting bills from Florida to Texas and Arizona to Michigan -- are false. And past statements from GOP leaders, including Trump, that allowing more people to vote will make it harder for Republicans to ever win power reveals a more genuine rationale for GOP opposition.
The Constitution does give the initial role to the states in setting the time, locations and conduct of congressional elections. But it does not state that Congress has no role in regulating elections and allows federal lawmakers to enact legislation that supersedes some state rules. There is evidence that the Founders worried that allowing states exclusive power to regulate elections could make them too powerful and introduce unfair electoral criteria that would threaten the unity of the Union. In Federalist 59, for instance, Alexander Hamilton explained the constitutional principle that Congress has the power "to regulate in the last resort, the election of its own members."
One of the core arguments going forward will be whether electoral laws in the states that threaten the most faithful application of democracy amount to exactly the kind of abuses that Hamilton appeared to have in mind.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, said on Fox News in November, "if Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there'll never be another Republican president elected again."
According to the non-partisan Brennan Center for Justice, at least 14 states had enacted 22 new laws restricting access to the ballot between the 2020 election and mid-May. At least 61 bills with restrictive measures were moving through 18 state legislatures as of the same point. Republican legislators are in many cases also giving themselves power to overrule non-partisan election officials after voting has been conducted, in measures that seem to codify Trump's pressure on election officials in states like Georgia to change the result of the last election.
Republican know that efforts to expand voting would harm their chances of ever winning elections.
If we are ever going to Build Back Better, we need to End the Filibuster...
GOP senators this week block Democratic moves effectively designed to protect a democracy. Yet the sincerity of Republican opposition is called into question by the actions of GOP state legislators who are actively undermining US democracy.