Congressmen Barry Moore, R-Alabama, and Mo Brooks, R-Alabama, on Tuesday commented on their decisions to vote against HR4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act.
“After failing to federalize our elections through HR1, Pelosi’s deceitful sequel is yet another unconstitutional power grab intended to keep Democrats in power,” said Moore. “Despite being named after a Civil Rights icon, the title only serves as a guise to hide Democrats’ true intentions of centralizing election power with the federal government. I cannot support this delusional attack on democracy, but I remain committed to strengthening election integrity for all Americans.”
“The Socialist Democrats were dealt a blow when the Senate voted down HR1, the ‘Socialist Democrat Election Fraud Enhancement Act,’” Brooks said. “Now, they seek to again undermine America’s election systems with HR4, a bill that eliminates state safeguards that protect honest and accurate elections. Much like HR1, HR4 undermines our republic and effectively turns election results into what we so often see in North Korea, the old Soviet Union, Venezuela and any number of other pretend republics. Citizens can vote, but the election results are predetermined.”
According to information provided by Moore’s office, following HR1’s demise in the Senate, Speaker Nancy Pelosi turned to her backup plan, HR4, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Moore’s office asserted that:
- Under HR4, Democrats are attempting to weaponize the Department of Justice, nationalize our elections, and politicize voting rights:
- R. 4 transforms President Biden’s Attorney General into an unelected, unaccountable “Elections Czar” with power over all voting across the country, even requiring states to submit existing statutes to the Elections Czar for approval.
- R. 4 will also give the Biden administration authority to veto states’ voter ID laws, even though a recent survey found that 81 percent of Americans support voter identification laws.
- This bill gives the Biden DOJ authority to designate a voter ID law as a voting rights violation or as evidence of voting discrimination.
- Despite years of claiming that minority communities face discriminatory forces at every turn, Democrats are unable to present any evidence of voter suppression.
- 2018 and 2020 saw record turnout among Americans from minority communities, and voter registration is also high.
HR4 was introduced by Congresswoman Terri Sewell, D-Alabama.
Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Hans von Spakovsky recently spoke with the Daily Signal’s podcast with host Virginia Allen. Von Spakovsky warned that HR4 is a danger to states’ election rights.
HR4 “gives federal bureaucrats control over all these state [election] rules all over the country,” said von Spakovsky, a former member of the Federal Election Commission. “It is an unbelievable invasion of state sovereignty.”
“They will get rid of and say that every voter ID law in the country is void,” von Spakovsky said. “They will tell states that they can’t do the kind of maintenance that needs to be done on registration lists to make sure they’re accurate.”
“So for example, if states want to check with other states to find people who are potentially registered in more than one state, and therefore might have the opportunity to illegally vote in more than one state, they’re going to try to prevent them from doing that,” von Spakovsky said. “In essence, they’re going to arrange things so it’s easy to cheat and easy to manipulate election results. And if people think I’m exaggerating about this, during the Clinton administration, the Civil Rights Division was forced to pay out over $4 million in attorney’s fees and costs to states and others who they had targeted, claiming that those folks had engaged in discrimination in the voting context, and court ruled against them saying that the claims they had made were frivolous.”
HR4 narrowly passed in the House of Representatives today by a vote of 219 to 212. It now goes to the U.S. Senate for their consideration.
Brooks is a 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate.
