The Need for Political Reform Hasn’t Changed. The GOP Has.

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FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | February 25, 2021

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“The need for reforms to repair our political system has not changed. The Republican Party in Congress has.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced this week that H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021, will be on the House floor for consideration the week of March 1.

H.R. 1, the For the People Act, is scheduled for House floor consideration next week.

The landmark legislation includes voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting, government ethics, and election security reforms.

All 221 House Democrats have cosponsored the legislation.

Most, if not all, House Republicans are expected to vote against it. In contrast, congressional Republicans for decades provided leadership and support for these kinds of reforms.

During the Watergate scandals, for example, Senate Republican Leader Hugh Scott led the effort to successfully break a filibuster and enact the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974. House Republican Conference Chair John Anderson led an unsuccessful effort to pass congressional public financing. The effort was supported by some one-third of House Republicans.

In 2000, legislation sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain and Republican Representative Amo Houghton to close a gaping campaign finance disclosure loophole for outside spending groups passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate. 48 Republican Senators voted to close the disclosure loophole. Only six Republican Senators voted against it.

In 2002, two of the lead sponsors of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act were Senator McCain and Republican Representative Chris Shays. They were joined by two Democrats, Senator Russ Feingold and Representative Marty Meehan. More than 20 percent of Republican Senators voted for the legislation, which passed 60-to-40.

In 2006, 192 House Republicans (85 percent of House Republicans who voted) and every Republican Senator voted to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, which passed the Senate, 98-to-0. The Voting Rights Advancement Act will be considered later in this Congress.

Two changes occurred that ended Republican support for political reforms.

First, following the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United in 2010, Republicans concluded they had a big political advantage with Super PACs and dark money, and that reforms would undermine that advantage.

Second, the ideological make-up of congressional Republicans has changed dramatically since the early 2000s.

Led by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, the nation’s leading opponent of campaign finance laws, congressional Republicans abandoned any past support for campaign finance reforms after Citizens United. Since then, they have stood firm for protecting the status quo and its corrupting campaign finance system.

When the DISCLOSE Act was voted on in 2010 to close another gaping disclosure loophole for secret contributions spent by outside groups, instead of 48 Republican Senators voting to close a disclosure loophole as they did in 2000, no Republican Senator voted for the disclosure legislation.

When the Voting Rights Advancement Act passed the House in 2019 by 228-to-187, instead of 192 House Republicans voting for the voting rights provisions, only one Republican voted for the measure.

The need for reforms to repair our political system has not changed. The Republican Party in Congress has.

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