The Jan. 6 Sales Pitch
THE JAN. 6 SALES PITCH. Some press accounts characterized the Democrats' Jan. 6 anniversary ceremonies as a day of "somber remembrance." But for some, the events were also an opportunity to sell the party's top priority — a move to federalize control over voting procedures on terms highly favorable to Democrats. "Democrats are making a fresh push on voting rights legislation around the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection," NPR reported a few days ago. Indeed they are.
Vice President Kamala Harris got the pitch going in her remarks at the Capitol Thursday morning. "Here, in this very building, a decision will be made about whether we uphold the right to vote and ensure free and fair elections," she said. "Let's be clear: We must pass the voting rights bills that are now before the Senate." With her choice of words, Harris continued the Democrats' mischaracterization of their voting bills as measures to "uphold the right to vote."
They don't do any such thing. Does throwing out every state voter ID law in the country uphold the right to vote? Does legalizing ballot harvesting nationwide uphold the right to vote? Does making permanent the "emergency" COVID measures adopted in 2020 uphold the right to vote?
"The bill would overturn effective, organically developed voting laws in all 50 states and replace them with mandates written behind closed doors by Democratic activists and politicians," Republican Sen. Mike Lee wrote last year. "It would impose on the entire country same-day and automatic voter registration, extended early voting, legalized voting for convicted felons; institute a prohibition against prosecuting illegal immigrant voters who had been automatically registered; and ban badly needed voter ID requirements."
President Joe Biden, speaking immediately after Harris, followed up with an appeal to history. "From the brutality of Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus Bridge came historic voting rights legislation," Biden said. "So now, let us step up, write the next chapter in American history, where January 6th marks not the end of democracy but the beginning of a renaissance of liberty and fair play."
In the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer sharpened the pitch. The Jan. 6 anniversary "means we must pass legislation, effective legislation, to defend our democracy, to protect the right to vote," Schumer said. "We must pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act, so that our country's destiny is determined by the voice of the people, and not by the violent whims of lies and even mob rule."
And on it went. But here's the kicker. The two voting bills Democrats are pushing have nothing to do with the Capitol riot and the congressional certification of Electoral College votes that was the occasion for it. Nothing. And yet, there is a move to reform the Electoral Count Act, and Democrats want nothing to do with it. Passed after the presidential election crisis of 1876, the ECA is cumbersome and maddeningly unclear. It allows the possibility of abusing the electoral vote certification process to protest or even overturn an election. Reforming it would be directly related to Jan. 6 — a legislative move to prevent such a situation in the future. And yet Democrats firmly oppose Electoral Count Act reform.
When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently suggested that Republicans might work with Democrats to fix the ECA, Schumer immediately shut it down. McConnell's idea is "unacceptably insufficient and even offensive," Schumer said. With that, Democrats made clear that, while they will talk endlessly about Jan. 6, they will not try to actually fix the problem.
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