Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., criticized Democrats' election reform bill Thursday as "exactly the wrong response" to address concerns about the nation's voting process.
Every House Democrat signed onto the bill Monday. They claimed H.R. 1, the For the People Act of 2021 will expand voting rights and "clean up" political corruption.
McConnell took to the Senate floor Thursday to rip the opposition for trying to "recycle failed legislation" that would give Washington Democrats "unprecedented power" over how elections are conducted and "how American citizens can engage in political speech."
He said Democrats wanted to use their "slim majorities " and temporary power to "ensure they'll never have to relinquish it."
"For several years now, we've seen the political left grow less interested in having normal policy debates within our governing institutions, and more interested in attacking the institutions themselves to tilt the playing field in their side's favor," McConnell said, per Fox News.
"When their side loses a presidential election, it's not Democrats' fault, but the Electoral College's. When they don't like a Supreme Court decision, it's time to threaten the justices or pack the court. When long-standing Senate rules threaten to frustrate far-left proposals, it's the Senate rules they want to change."
With election integrity an increasingly hot topic following the November election, McConnell said the bill "would be exactly the wrong response to the distressing lack of faith in our elections" seen from both major parties in recent years.
"As recently as late last September, only a minority of Democrats said they were confident the 2020 presidential election would be 'free and fair,'" McConnell said. "Just weeks later, by mid-November, once things had gone the way they wanted, Democrats' confidence magically skyrocketed up to 90 percent.
"We cannot keep trending toward a future where Americans' confidence in elections is purely a function of which side won. A sweeping power grab by House Democrats, forcibly rewriting 50 states' election laws, would shove us farther and faster down that path."
The bill, which was pushed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in the last Congress, was expected to be debated on the House floor early next month.
Democrats have said H.R. 1 would "improve access to the ballot box" by creating an automatic national voter registration, and by ensuring people who've completed felony sentences get their voting rights fully restored.
The bill, according to Democrats, would simplify voting by mail, expand early voting, and enhance federal support for voting system security. It also would close loopholes for lobbyists and foreign agents.
Republicans have argued passage would give the federal government more power in deciding the people's representation.
"They want to force all 50 states to allow the absurd practice of ballot harvesting, where paid operatives can show up at polling places carrying a thick stack of filled-out ballots with other people's names on them," McConnell said.
"They want to forbid states from implementing voter I.D. or doing simple things like checking their voter rolls against change-of-address submissions. They want to mandate no-excuse, mail-in balloting as a permanent norm, post-pandemic."
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