Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell continued his career-long obsession with giving corporate special interests and billionaires more power and influence in our democracy at the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration’s markup of the For the People Act (S. 1) yesterday.
Despite a recent deadly insurrection at the Capitol, the corrupting influence of big money and corporate special interests drowning out the voices of everyday Americans, and a dark money-financed attack on our freedom to vote around the country, McConnell argued that the For the People Act is unnecessary because “our democracy is not in crisis.” McConnell went on to make the absurd argument that even though the FEC is failing to do its job of holding candidates, super PACs, and dark money groups that break the law accountable, it “is not dysfunctional at all” because “failure to… reach an agreement is a decision.”
“It comes as no surprise that Mitch McConnell does not see the attack on our freedom to vote and the inability of Congress to act on behalf of everyday Americans as a crisis, given that he has spent his entire career trying to stifle the voices of regular people in service of corporations and billionaires,” said End Citizens United // Let America Vote Action Fund President Tiffany Muller. “McConnell is the ringleader of Washington corruption and is determined to stop the For the People Act because he’s terrified that we might finally rein in the influence of the corporations and special interests that keep him in power.”
The For the People Act (H.R. 1/S. 1) passed the House in March, underwent a successful markup in the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration yesterday, and will soon be brought up for a vote in the full Senate. The critical package of anti-corruption, voting, and ethics reforms that would end dark money, ban partisan gerrymandering, protect our freedom to vote, and stop billionaires from buying elections is a top priority for the Biden Administration as well as the Democratic-controlled Congress. Majority Leader Schumer has repeatedly reminded the Senate that “failure is not an option” when it comes to protecting our democracy, and President Biden has called for Congress to send the bill to his desk “right away.”
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