Sam Levine from The Guardian reports:
In a very unusual move, Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, the respective Democratic and Republican leaders, both spoke at the Senate’s first hearing about a sweeping bill on voting rights, underscoring the way in which the struggle for the right to vote has exploded at the center of US politics.
As senate leaders of their respective parties, both Schumer and McConnell rarely speak at hearings. Both gave long opening speeches on Wednesday.
ABC news
(@ABC)Senate leader Chuck Schumer: “If a political party believes that when you lose an election, the answer is not to win more votes, but to try to prevent the other party from voting, then we have an existential threat to democracy. . “https://t.co/xY8G8YiI04 pic.twitter.com/qYSYlXcM9t
Schumer repeatedly referred to the fact that there are hundreds of bills pending in the state legislature that would limit voting rights, saying they were “one of the greatest threats we have to modern democracy in America.”
‘This is annoying. I would like to ask my Republican colleagues, why are you so afraid of democracy? Instead of winning over voters to what you lost in the last election, why are you trying to prevent them from voting? ” he said.
Ticking off a number of measures that make it more difficult to vote, Schumer became particularly outraged about a measure in Arizona that would require voters to get a notarized deed in the mail.
“How are poor people going to pay for a notary?” he said. “It’s one of the most despicable things I’ve seen in all my years.”
McConnell downplayed Democratic concerns about voter oppression as exaggeration. He said the law was unnecessary, pointing to high voter turnout in the 2020 election, and that the new federal law would create chaos.
“States are not in the business of oppressing voters in any way whatsoever. This is clearly an attempt by one party to rewrite the rules of our political system, ”he said.
But McConnell’s comments have been undermined by many members of his own party, who have openly said they are trying to keep people from voting.
“Everyone shouldn’t vote,” John Kavanagh, a Republican from Arizona, told CNN earlier this month. David Ralston, the Georgia House speaker, said last year that more votes by mail would be “devastating for Republicans.” Donald Trump last year also rejected attempts to make voting easier, saying, “You would never have elected a Republican again in this country.”