Tag: HR 1

Arizona Free Enterprise Club Files Lawsuit Against ‘Radical’ Elections Ballot Initiative

Rachel Alexander

The Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AFEC) filed a lawsuit last week against a sweeping elections initiative modeled after the federal HR 1 that is seeking to get on the ballot this fall. The complaint alleges the PAC behind it committed seven statutory violations, including collecting over half the signatures illegally, and provides evidence that many of the initiative’s paid circulators provided false information or failed to register with the Secretary of State.

“After analyzing over 45,000 petition sheets and 420,000 signatures, it’s clear that well over half of the signatures on this election initiative were collected in violation of state law,” said AFEC President Scot Mussi. “That should be more than enough to invalidate this initiative.”

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Arizona State Rep. and Secretary of State Candidate Shawnna Bolick Favors Statewide Audit, Other Measures

Rachel Alexander

The results of the Maricopa County ballot audit has many elected officials demanding accountability and action. Arizona State Rep. Shawnna Bolick (R-Phoenix), who is running for Arizona Secretary of State, issued a statement denouncing the fraud that the audit uncovered, and recommended conducting a statewide audit. 

Bolick said in a recent campaign update, criticizing Democratic election officials Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and former Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, “Who is surprised that Secretary Hobbs and the former Maricopa County Recorder Fontes bent the rules last year, taking advantage of Covid to consistently undermine our election processes? It didn’t stop in 2020. They continued to obstruct the State Senate’s audit to serve justice. Then we saw how Maricopa County refused to turn over election routers despite a subpoena, but it went deeper. Throughout the audit report, it was clear that at almost every point Maricopa County was uncooperative in providing important context and information. They disrupted the audit processes by deleting logs, files, and important documents from the Election Management System.”

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President and CEO of the Job Creators Network Alfredo Ortiz Slams Biden ‘Voting Rights’ Speech

Cooper Moran
Biden ‘Voting Rights’ Speech

Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network (JCN), released a statement on Tuesday criticizing President Joe Biden for his recent speech on “voting rights” in Philadelphia. 

“Biden’s fear-mongering that Republicans are trying to take over state elections in defiance of the will of the voters is ridiculous slander. What he calls voter ‘suppression’ and ‘subversion’ is really just commonsense voting integrity measures,” Ortiz said of the speech.

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Ahead of Senate Attempt to Federalize Elections, Senator Blackburn to The Tennessee Star: Local Government Will Always Run Elections Better

Corinne Murdock

Ahead of the Senate vote to federalize elections, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) hosted a press call to predict the outcome and explain her position against the bill. As Blackburn predicted on the call Tuesday morning, Senate Republicans blocked the bill.

On that press call, Blackburn told The Tennessee Star that local governments are better built to handle elections than the federal government. 

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Commentary: Quashing H.R. 1 is Not Enough

Admin
People going to vote

Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has upset the plans of his party leaders to jam though hyper-partisan legislation and tip the electoral balance in favor of Democrats for all future elections. Manchin, a secretary of state before he was elected governor, is refusing to end the filibuster, or to vote for H.R. 1, the cynically named “For the People Act.” Writing in the Charleston Gazette Mail, Manchin contends: 

The right to vote is fundamental to our American democracy and protecting that right should not be about party or politics. Least of all, protecting this right, which is a value I share, should never be done in a partisan manner. . . . I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy . . .

H.R. 1, which Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to bring to the floor for a vote this week, proposes a near-complete takeover of elections by Congress; it would replace most state election laws, substituting new laws that in some instances are even worse than the “progressive” approach take in states like Minnesota and California. The proposed law also taps the people’s tax revenue for political campaigns and hijacks state rules on redistricting. 

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Progressives Accuse Arizona’s Senator Sinema of Supporting Jim Crow

Peter D'Abrosca
Krysten Sinema

As the progressive wing of the Democrat Party continues to clash with the rest of the party, one far-left group plans to spend millions calling Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) a racist for refusing to end the filibuster. 

“The group, Just Democracy, is spending $1.2 million for TV ads and another $200,000 on digital ads in Arizona from June 21 to June 30, said a spokesman for the group, adding the effort will feature two ads on cable news programs, local news and local sports in the state,” NBC reported. 

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Stacey Abrams Refers to Georgia’s Voter Integrity Law as ‘Jim Crow 2.0’

Chris Butler

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and others said at a Thursday night town hall that Republicans nationwide are passing voter integrity bills to prevent black people from voting. During this virtual town hall, Abrams told audience members to pressure the U.S. Senate to pass the For the People Act. Some people also refer to the bill as H.R. 1. The For the People Act, if enacted into law, would nationalize federal elections. The proposed law would require that states automatically register residents to vote and also require absentee ballot drop boxes. The For the People Act would also eliminate state restrictions on mail-in voting, require same-day voter registration, and gut state voter identification laws.

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Commentary: Both Parties Want to Remodel the Voting Booth

Admin

In the shadow of a national election that featured record-high voter turnout and record-low confidence in the process and outcome on the part of much of one side, both major political parties are pushing election “reform” measures. Their approaches couldn’t be more different.

One party is seeking a disciplined process with security procedures in place to ensure that only qualified voters vote and that all legitimate votes are counted quickly, honestly, accurately, and the results made public promptly. The other party is seeking a process that is as loosey-goosey as possible, leaving wide avenues for vote diddling and labeling any attempt by the other side to thwart election fraud as racist voter suppression. No points awarded for guessing which party is pursuing which approach.

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House Passes Partisan Election Bill with Zero Republican Votes

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The House of Representatives late Wednesday passed HR 1, an expansive government ethics and voting rights bill that would implement a series of anti-corruption reforms and require states to adopt various voting reforms, such as no-excuse absentee voting and automatic voter registration.

The bill, titled the “For the People Act of 2021,” passed with the support of all but one Democratic member and over total Republican opposition. Included in it are provisions outlawing partisan gerrymandering, requiring same-day voter registration nationwide and mandating that states provide ballot drop boxes ahead of future elections.

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