House Democrats Introduce H.R. 1, Begin Historic Effort to Revitalize our Democracy and Political System
Led by newly-elected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Democrats began an historic effort this week to revitalize our democracy.
Introduced yesterday as a first order of business in the new Congress, H.R. 1 is an unprecedented, holistic effort to repair our democracy and political system.
Sponsored by Representative John Sarbanes (D-MD), chairman of the House Democrats’ Democracy Reform Task Force, H.R. 1 addresses the problems of Washington influence-money corruption, secret money in our elections, voter suppression, extreme partisan gerrymandering and flawed government ethics rules.
In the coming weeks, Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) will introduce the Senate companion democracy reform bill to H.R. 1. Senator Udall led the democracy reform effort in the Senate in the last Congress as the sponsor of the We The People Democracy Reform Act of 2017.
We do not enter this battle wearing rose-colored glasses.
We know this fight will be difficult and will take time. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), an adamant opponent of political reform, will no doubt block action on this legislation in this Congress, but he cannot block the democracy reforms indefinitely.
We know this from past experience.
We faced Senator McConnell in the battle to enact the McCain-Feingold law banning unlimited soft money contributions to political parties. McConnell obstructed any Senate consideration of this legislation in the late 1990s. Despite his unyielding opposition, however, public outrage over the soft money scandals in Washington led to the enactment of the McCain-Feingold law in 2002.
Citizens will rise up again to win this democracy reform battle.
Democracy 21 has joined with more than 120 other organizations in the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, which is conducting a national campaign to enact the sweeping reforms in H.R. 1.
Our current campaign finance system takes us back to the Gilded Age and the Robber Baron era when Washington was owned and operated by moneyed interests. Washington corruption today cannot be stopped without providing candidates with an alternative way to finance their campaigns that allows them to run for office without being dependent on and obligated to big money, influence-seeking funders.
H.R. 1 accomplishes this by creating small donor, public matching funds systems to finance House and presidential elections. (The Senate bill will include its own small donor system for financing Senate races.) The new financing systems would empower ordinary Americans by making their small contributions much more valuable to candidates and would greatly reduce the power and influence of big money funders on whom candidates would no longer need to depend.
Democracy 21 strongly applauds the outstanding national leadership provided by Representatives John Sarbanes (D-MD) and David Price (D-NC) in developing the alternative small donor, campaign financing systems contained in H.R. 1 for House races and presidential races, respectively.
Recent New York Times and Washington Post editorials stressed that the small donor, matching funds systems are “central” and “crucial” elements of the H.R. 1 democracy reform package.
H.R. 1 also reforms the nation’s voting rights system, which currently takes us back to the voter suppression days of the poll tax, and our redistricting system, which currently has representatives choosing their voters rather than voters choosing their representatives.
The legislation also reforms government ethics rules to address a presidency unlike any other in our history. President Trump treats his office as a vehicle for his personal financial enrichment and has created an administration that has no ethical or moral boundaries or standards.
The American people overwhelmingly reject Washington’s rigged system that benefits the wealthy and powerful at the great expense of ordinary Americans. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll last fall found that 77 percent of registered voters said “reducing the influence of special interests and corruption in Washington” is “the most important or a very important issue facing the country.”
Our democracy is at a crossroads.
The enactment of H.R. 1 is a battle that must be won to revitalize our democracy, repair our political system and restore the credibility of the nation’s elected representatives.
The fight is on.
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