To watch Senator Capito’s speech, click here or the image above.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, today spoke on the Senate floor about S.1, the partisan legislation that seeks to federalize local elections, ban voter ID laws, make the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) a partisan agency, and allow federal funding of campaigns, among other provisions.

Senator Capito also highlighted a resolution signed by 54 of West Virginia’s 55 county clerks, entering the document into the official U.S. Senate record, and saying, “The biggest demonstration in opposition to this bill has come from West Virginia County Clerks Association. They adopted a resolution in opposition to S. 1 that 54 of the 55 county clerks in my state signed. These are Republican and Democrat county clerks. They raise numerous grievances, many of which I’ve talked about…they fully reject the usurping of what is their constitutionally-based responsibility to run elections safely, securely, and on time. I appreciate the letter from our clerks and understand their deep, deep concerns.”

MORE SPEECH HIGHLIGHTS:

ON DEMOCRATS’ SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM THAT DOESN’T EXIST: “Advocates claim this sweeping effort, which comes in the form of legislation ironically called the “For the People Act” is to get more people to vote. Let’s be clear: everyone, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, we all want to see more people vote. The good news is we’ve already been doing that across the country, and in my home state of West Virginia. Remember last year we were voting under a pandemic, under incredibly difficult situations for everybody. West Virginia ran a very successful election, suited to our state. We had thousands more people vote in 2020 than they did in 2016. In fact, the total number of ballots cast in 2020 was more than any other election in West Virginia’s history with the exception of the 1960 election…More than 158 million ballots were cast in 2020. That’s a seven percent increase since 2016, this is under a pandemic. Every state decided the best way to get the maximum participation. Last November, every single state saw higher turnout rates compared to the previous presidential election.”

ON WHAT THE BILL IS REALLY ABOUT: “It’s about the federalization of elections, an election power grab. I believe it lacks credibility. It is really about a way to implement absurd and downright un-American provisions in the bill that prioritize power over the will of the people.”

ON PARTISAN PROCESS: “I am glad to see that some of my Democratic colleagues are finally acknowledging the concerns with this bill. During the Rules Committee mark-up, Republicans and Democrats offered a number of amendments, some of which were adopted on a bipartisan basis. That’s what we’re supposed to do, work it through committee. These amendments have been heralded by some of my Democratic colleagues as an example of how we can work together on this issue. Despite this, the version that the Majority Leader may bring up for a vote does not include any amendments that were adopted during the markup even though they had bipartisan support. To me, this is a clear sign that the majority is not trying to cooperate in good faith, but rather trying to ram through a partisan bill that will encroach on the states’ abilities, my state’s ability, to ensure free and fair election, and a well-attended election at the same time.”

ON PROVISION BANNING STATE VOTER ID LAWS: “The legislation would strip states of their constitutional authority to run elections and allow the federal government to determine what’s best. It would ban voter ID laws, which are adopted in many states, mine included, which maintain the integrity of elections in my state and a majority of others.”

ON PROVISIONS MANDATING SAME-DAY REGISTRATION, BALLOT HARVESTING: “The bill would also force states to administer same-day voter registration, a cumbersome mandate that many states wouldn’t be able to comply with for dozens of reasons. My state: internet connectivity. Many of our polling areas wouldn’t be able to accept same-day registration because they can’t connect, unfortunately, to the bigger system to find out of this person is fraudulent or not. It would also require that states mandate the unpopular and dangerous practice of ballot harvesting, which is ripe for fraud. Some states have made ballot harvesting legal. Some states have same-day voter registration. Good for them. They’ve decided what’s good for their state through the constitutional duty of states to run elections.”

ON BURDENSOME MANDATES PLACED ON STATES: “Speaking of fraud, this bill would mandate absentee ballot boxes, drop boxes and force county clerks to accept regular ballots filed in the wrong precinct without proof of residency, both of which leave the door open for voter fraud.”

ON PROVISIONS BANNING WEST VIRIGNIA’S E-VOTING SYSTEM: “And, if that’s not enough, if signed into law, West Virginia’s e-voting system and others like it – this is the e-voting system that allows active military who are deployed overseas to be able to vote safely by their mobile phone, and the legislature opened that up to people with disabilities to be able to use an e-voting system. This bill would severely curtail that and negate it in many cases. That’s an expansion if voting rights that this bill would take away.”

ON PROVISION MANDATING PUBLIC FUNDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL CAMPAIGNS: “This legislation would allow government funding of congressional campaigns with small donations being matched with federal funds…Senator Cruz talked about if his contributions were matched for the first three months of this year, he would get millions of dollars, over $20 million of public financing for his campaign.”

ON PROVISION MAKING THE FEC A PARTISAN COMISSION: “The bill also would make the Federal Elections Commission, which oversees our elections and our finances, which is now neutral 3 Democrats, 3 Republicans on the commission as it always has been, t would make it into a partisan majority vote…Do we really want a political organization making those [decisions]? Not when we’ve had a nonpartisan FEC for years and have enforce our campaign laws and put it above party politics.”

ON PROVISION STRIPPING STATES’ AUTHORITY TO DRAW CONGRESSIONAL MAPS: “The disaster doesn’t stop with politicizing the FEC. It would also remove the authority of states to draw district maps and would mandate how you do that. Our states can figure out what’s best – some of them have commissions, some of them by the legislature, some of them doing them by the Supreme Court, let’s let the states make that decision.”

ON THE FULL BILL: “S. 1 is merely a partisan power grab that includes all kinds of unrelated, harmful provisions. It strips the states of their authority to run elections. To put it simply: states don’t need the federal government to strip them of their authority and impose burdensome requirements to fix problems that do not exist. And that’s exactly what the bill does, and it’s why the “For the People Act” doesn’t live up to its name.”

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