JUST IN: Senate Republicans rip into Democrats in angry press conference

cease dad had already voted that day too so don't tell me there is not voter fraud and even a small percentage as they said it's not widespread we just had a house election that the person won by six votes a small spread of voter fraud makes a difference so i am totally against this i will fight it every single day we need to have confidence that our vote counts that there's one person for one vote thank you for this press conference because this message needs to be heard the american people know what they want they want elections that are fair and free from fraud that's what that's what people want and when i see what the democrats are proposing that's come over from the house to me that is radical extreme dangerous and i find it quite scary we have proposed legislation the the save democracy act which i think actually works much much better because it includes voter registration the democrats say you don't have to register to vote people should register to vote it's a privilege to vote and an opportunity that we all have when i take a look at what we've done with say mail in balloting it works in wyoming we do it because people who are registered to vote they request a ballot they get it in the mail they mail it back it works it has worked for many many years democrats don't do it that they they want to just send out ballots all over the place to people who may not be registered in the may not even know they're registered that's because the democrats in their bill do automatic registration if you sign up for medicaid you'd be registered to vote if you sign up for obamacare you're registered to vote if you sign up for unemployment benefits you would be under the democrats bill be register to vote i think people should actually go and register to vote now the constitution says that the states ought to run our elections that's how we've done it up until now the democrats bill takes it away from the states brings it to the federal government nancy pelosi is essentially saying and chuck schumer saying we are smarter than you the democrats under their leadership say we know what works best we don't want your states to be able to decide we from washington they say are going to dictate the way you run your elections and then finally of course this would be taxpayer funded because there'd be a six to one match you collect and are able to raise a hundred dollars you would get six hundred dollars from the federal government as a candidate that's not right taxpayers don't want to pay to buy campaign balloons and buttons and pay for attack ads candidates sort of have to go and raise the money themselves and that's why many people are calling it the corrupt politicians act i'm opposed to what the democrats are promoting in addition the democrats bill would provide that congress will do the redistricting not the states now think about that how many congressmen have been to nevada iowa nebraska are they going to allow nebraska to continue to apportion their electoral votes or not two states do that maine and nebraska is that going to be allowed when you take states rights away from states and give them to people in congress who have partisan motives who have regional motives and who don't even think about aligning congressional districts with counties cities and pursuing voting rights laws in a way that rationalize it comparing it to school districts or conservation districts the other voting opportunities that people have in their cities towns counties and states you're making a system of one size fits all and under the democrats bill that one size fits all is the size that fits democrats and gets democrats elected and if you look at this bill and the people who are not supporting the democrats bill it crosses racial lines because people of all races who are americans want to know the person who is voting is an american citizen that they are who they say they are they're only voting once and they have a right to vote in that district states are the ones who can ensure that those provisions are enacted if we allow the democrats election bill to pass it will fundamentally not only change elections over time but it will create chaos in 2022 roger wicker from mississippi i want to thank our friends from the press for showing up today i appreciate a free media in the united states i defend the first amendment but i have to tell you that the mainstream media's coverage of s-1 has been so frustrating i turned on the tv and they say today the senate will have a hearing on legislation s-1 to make it easier for americans to vote well who who could be against a bill to make it easier to vote but when we get into the details of this legislation s1 and you go one by one and ask the american people do they agree or disagree then they begin to understand what's wrong with this bill i have i got my driver's license here i don't know how many times i've had to show this driver's license this week i went to the doctor to get a shot i had to show my id i flew from washington dc uh flew from mississippi up to washington d.c i have to show my id i've shown it dozens of times you ask the american people should we have it should states have a right states have a right to ask for id to show that the person voting is indeed who they say they are the american people are overwhelmingly in favor of that a ballot harvesting nobody knows what ballot harvesting is that sounds like something gentle and nutritious ballot harvesting is allowing an individual oftentimes a paid operative of one party or the other to go out and collect ballots door-to-door and they can even say i'm here to collect democratic ballots i'll bring them in for you you ask the american people what they think about that what they think about one person having control of so many ballots with all the fraud that can happen there and the american people are overwhelmingly against ballot harvesting when when they're told what it is so we're having a hearing today uh going chapter and verse about what this bill actually does and what it actually doesn't do and if we can get that message out to the american people they i think will be back to us as members of the senate and say reject this bill let states on an interview on an individual basis sort out the kind of voter fraud protections that we need and when we do that i think this bill will go down mike braun from indiana a place that i think we could take a lead from it's a conservative state in the midwest you've got 10 different reasons to select a paper ballot you've got all kinds of time to vote early and most importantly not only constitutionally is this a state prerogative but we ought to learn from the laboratory of states we have 50 different states the constitution says to keep it there we ought to find that sweet spot that really works the other thing we need to be aware of with a lot of the agenda that's coming forward this will probably be the test of the filibuster as well in my mind for this to get through for all the reasons it shouldn't you'll have to push the envelope on that issue and i'm not going to repeat what others have said when it comes to the details of what's bad about this bill but it basically gets down to what the constitution says is right follow the lead end up with the best practices and here's a doozy that's part of it too if there is a dispute it takes it from a state jurisdiction and moves it to the district of columbia how do you think that would work in terms of people being confident that you'd ever adjudicate something in a way that would be fair i've seen a few monstrous bills in my time in the united states senate in the house this is one of the worst bills that i've seen that has a chance of becoming law and i appreciate my colleagues strong opposition to this legislation and we must rally the american people and it also may become the circumstance in which as was indicated the filibuster rule is set aside it would be terrible terrible for the united states of america and our citizens for the filibuster the 60-vote rule to be eliminated it protects the minorities and it brings people together in a necessity to get legislation passed with 60 votes do not use this monstrosity of a bill to further erode the power of united states senators and their ability to represent the american people do not use this bill to further erode the ability of republicans and democrats the necessity of us working together to get 60 votes and again this legislation it is a monstrosity because it takes something that is important and valuable to kansans and transfers the authority the right to vote the ability to vote the sanctity of our elections transfers that authority to the nation's capital the constitution says it belongs with the states i've been in every courthouse in kansas i've been in about every secretary of state's office since i've been an adult the state election officer i have visited with county clerks and i've been an election in county clerk's offices where they're counting votes on election night kansas figured out how to have pretty secure integrity in its elections we have a lot of faith in our state secretary of state and our county elected officials the the burden to have a safe and fair election rest with them and we have passed legislation we and we require voter id it's just common sense i don't want to distract or destroy anybody's right to vote that is legally entitled entitled to vote but id allows us to make sure that that person is legally entitled to vote this is a serious issue for the american people it's a serious issue for the future of the united states senate and very damning to democracy in our republic should it become law thank you i just came from the rules committee hearing and what was evident to me was that a lot of good things are happening with elections in this country you know in the state of nebraska in the 2020 election we saw 960 000 people vote out of 1.2 million registered voters in the state of nebraska i heard that from my colleagues on my side of the aisle and on the other side of the aisle talking about how they had great turnouts in their elections and the question that i asked the members of the rules committee was why would any elected official a state official want to put the federal government in charge why would you want to put the federal government in charge after we're hearing all the success stories of this last election we want to make sure that every citizen gets out and votes that's the goal of everyone republicans democrats that's what keeps our democracy strong we want to make sure people get out and vote but when you look at this bill and put aside all the all the partisanship that's go that goes on on it but when you dig into this bill and what's in it i mean there's no way that i can support it for example if you look at the the paper voting machines and the requirement which is conflicting in the bill is sloppily written it's conflicting in the bill how do how does a state election official adhere to that how do you implement it you know discounting the fact that those machines don't even exist right now but they're supposed to be an effect in 2020 you talk about chaos in an election put the federal government in charge with a reckless piece of legislation that that can't even be implemented 800 pages of confusion and chaos states are doing a good job that was pointed out over and over and over again in this hearing by republicans and by democrats why would we turn over our election system and threaten chaos in our democracy to the federal government president biden said on january the 20th he wanted to promote unity and heal divisions with his presidency but this bill if passed would destroy bipartisan consensus building it would eliminate the need for it in order to pass a purely partisan agenda and it would disenfranchise the 49 percent of the voters and the public that are in the minority that's what the consequences of this bill would be and to what end well we know that uh we know that there's folks on the progressive or radical left that would like to turn d.c into a state to get two more senators so that they would have a permanent partisan majority there are those who said well we want to pack the supreme court with more justices we want to make puerto rico a state get them two senators too is this motivated by the desire to actually build consensus heal our divisions and promote unity it's exactly the opposite all this would do again is to install a permanent partisan majority it would disenfranchise certainly the states and certainly the minority in this country and it would do the opposite of what president biden said he wanted to do on january the 20th which was to promote unity and heal the divisions in the country i just came from the rules committee hearing on the corrupt politicians act this is the most dangerous legislation that's ever been considered by the rules committee it is in the house h.r 1 it is in the senate s-1 that means it's the very first bill that was submitted by nancy pelosi and the democrats the very first bill that was submitted by chuck schumer and the democrats it is their number one priority pause for a minute and reflect that the top priority of the democrats is not covet 19. it's not immunizations it's not getting people back to work it's not reopening schools and getting millions of kids back in the classroom it is locking in power for the democrats for the next hundred years that is their overarching priority how does it do this the corrupt politicians act mandates automatic voter registration whenever anyone has an interaction with the government whether they have an interaction getting a welfare check an unemployment check whether they have a driver's license from the dnv whether they attend a public university everyone is registered this bill is intended to and will register to vote millions of illegal aliens that is exactly what the democrats want to do with this bill is register millions of illegal aliens and the text of the bill acknowledges that and it says the illegal aliens who are registered to vote even though it's against the law for them to vote they face no liability because they're automatically registered to vote not only that this bill prevents the states from addressing that from correcting the voter rolls prevents the states from removing dead people from the voter rolls to facilitate voter fraud not only that this bill mandates that criminals be allowed to vote that all felons many states have very reasonable laws that prohibit felons from voting the democrats repeal every one of those laws they mandate that murderers that rapist the child molesters be allowed to vote the reasons the democrats do that is they've made the determination that if millions of illegal aliens and millions of criminals are allowed to vote that those voters are going to vote for democrats and they're going to keep democrats in power forever beyond that this bill strikes down the election integrity laws at the state level across the board photo id laws voter identification laws 29 states have voter identification laws by the way about 80 percent of americans support voter identification laws the corrupt politicians act strikes every one of those down among the states that have voter identification laws are georgia arizona and west virginia all three of those states have democratic senators in this body those democratic senators are saying to their states they're willing to strike down the voter identification laws that were adopted in those states this bill mandates ballot harvesting paid operatives from the democratic national committee collecting votes going to a nursing home collecting hundreds of votes potentially throwing out the votes they don't like it is an invitation to corruption you know in 2005 the carter baker commission was chaired by democratic president jimmy carter by republican former secretary of state james baker concluded that ballot harvesting poses a serious risk of voter fraud so what does the corrupt politicians act do it incorporates it beyond that this bill is also welfare for politician it provides a six to one match federal taxpayer dollars going to politicians to fund their campaigns hundreds of millions of dollars of federal money going to fund campaigns and you know what this bill also says the corrupt politicians can pay themselves a salary from the money from the federal government while they're running for office this bill is of the democrats by the democrats and for the democrats it is designed to keep them in power and a final point for 50 years the federal election commission has been bipartisan three republicans three democrats that has ensured some modicum of fairness what does this bill do it turns the federal election commission into a partisan attack machine ask yourself right now if democrats have control of the federal election commission if chuck schumer is in charge of elections you have republican senators here i can guarantee you every republican senator is getting fined by the chuck schumer federal election commission every republican senator is getting sued by the chuck schumer federal election commission every republican senator is getting targeted why this is not remotely an election integrity bill this is a bill designed to steal your vote to take it away and to give it to millions of illegal immigrants and criminals and it is a fundamental threat to our democracy senator cruz and so many others have talked about why this is a bad bill senator moran called it an 800 page monstrosity which again i would agree with i think the real story besides all of that is the fact that in the past congress republicans leading the way in the senate democrats having control in the house were able to come together and pass four trillion dollars worth of spending in the senate we had very few descending votes almost none in the house also very few descending votes so far this year we have a 1.9 trillion dollar bill that not only did not attract a republican vote but it was nowhere close to it i mean nowhere you have to work to do that now we're faced with this 800 page bill that again not only do republicans oppose it they're nowhere close to coming to agreement i talked to my uh secretary of state john thurston asked him about this bill no one has approached him nobody that created this bothered to talk to any secretary of state that i know of he said that and and i would liken this to the chaos that we have on the border because of poor uh administrative situations of guidance down there to what he says if we were to pass this tomorrow and put it in place he felt like we would have chaos in our election system in 2022 so it's far-reaching again we need to get ourselves in a situation where we're actually working on legislation coming up with meaningful bills rather than these messaging things to the far left okay all right the the the corrupt politicians acted that's great the corrupt politicians act i like this i want to start this morning by just talking about why most every american will dislike this bill it uses taxpayer dollars to fund the elections and campaigns it uses taxpayer dollars to fund campaigns that's going to result in more political attack ads and when americans find out they're going to have more political attack heads their heads are going to explode next i think what most every american thinks is not good in this bill is it dilutes your vote it devalues your vote i think about the sanctity of the election booth when you walk in there and make your one vote it counts as one vote one person one vote meanwhile an operative is being paid for the last 30 to 60 days to go out and collect ballots ballots that may have belonged to a dead person to people that don't even live in the state yet so when that person walks in with 30 ballots 60 ballots 100 ballots a day it dilutes your value of your vote what i'm for i'm for election integrity and i think in kansas we have solid election integrity and part of that is voter id and i think most every american thinks that voter id adds to election integrity i can't get a hotel room tonight i can't rent a car tomorrow i can't get in in the halls of congress without my id and i don't think it's too much to ask of a person to have an id to vote not having an id devalues your vote as i think about this legislation i think it's an unconstitutional power grab by speaker pelosi and senator schumer it's an unconstitutional power grab look just because you can grab power doesn't mean you have to and actually one the first test of leadership is do you turn down power when you have opportunity to gain more this legislation will end up with a one-party system this is exactly what president washington did not want was a monarchy a one-party system and i believe americans will remember this in 2022 and 2024. thanks so much i want to join all of my colleagues and stressing what the democrats are trying to do with this legislation they are trying to leverage a sliver of a majority in the house and an evenly divided senate to lock in permanent and radical changes to the structure of our government they want to change the rules of the senate change the traditions of the senates to pass massively unpopular legislation that will help them never lose another election or that will help them pack our federal courts or pack our senate all these things are massively unpopular you know americans have to show id to get cough medicine at pharmacy or get into a government building or get on an airplane they believe they should have to show id to vote things like same-day registration again radical ideas that would overturn almost every state's election law they want to voiced upon our states and they are doing this because they know the rest of their agenda is unpopular trying to raise taxes and waste trillions of dollars of taxpayer money and to hold over the heads of americans the loss of a job or loss of a spot in school or boycott of a business because they express opinions that are not consistent with progressive norms and fads and fashions and i know there's a lot of talk about how the senate is going to approach this legislation and will the democrats have the votes to change the senate rules will they require a talking filibuster i joined all of my colleagues in saying there is no amount of time that i will not dedicate on the senate floor to stopping the democrats from passing this kind of radical legislation so i just want to say i'm shoulder shoulder with all my colleagues here i hope that on many of these issues addressing the country's problems we can find a bipartisan compromise approach which is what senate rules have always been designed to do and the role the senate has always played in our country thank you all right well i think it's clear we all 100 participation zero fraud we want to make sure people feel comfortable about elections and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that bad legislation does not pass to change our election system uh and where the federal government can makes all the decisions so we any of us can answer any questions anybody has a proposal of the same democracy act as a response to this s-1 bill do you have any democrat support for them whatsoever well it's not the first bill i sponsored a bill last last september to try to make sure we do mainland ballot the right way we do it in florida it works in florida we don't have sponsors so far on the democrat side because they they're in for the federal government controlling elections i mean they're they're against voter id the most basic principle is you have to have an idea to vote on top of that why should our taxpayers be paying for elections they should never be paying for attack ads and if you if you don't have the democrat support in s1 if they're not able to get that through a lot of republicans lacked confidence in the 2020 election so how do you bring republican confidence back in elections if nothing passes before 2022 or 2024 i think it's i think we've got to get the public to show up and you've got to get them to call their senators and congressmen and women and say you know we expect election reform and it's got to be in a manner that that we've we're not going to be our votes not going to be diluted of you alluded to the idea that this could be the bill that democrats would choose to try to change the rules on the filibuster on i was wondering if you could address that possibility directly and whether that increases pressure on you all to meet with senator manchin to figure out sort of what the if there is some other path on this it's not just they're going to blow up this rule if we don't come up with something right well i don't know what the democrats going to do with regard to filibuster but i know what i'm going to do i'm going to make sure the public knows how bad this bill is and this is this is a bad bill it's not what the public wants it's not republicans independent democrats want and so what i'm going to do every day is make sure people understand that the democrats don't want you to have to show an idea to vote they want they don't want you to register to vote ahead of time they don't they want the federal government to pay for elections so that's what i'm going to do can i follow up on one specific thing you mentioned this idea of same-day registration i i've not heard anybody convincingly argue why you shouldn't be able to register to vote on the same day i'll tell you why and you are to be able you ought to be able to um you ought to be able to vet people to make sure that they are they have a right to vote and make sure they're a u.s citizen uh make sure they live in your state make sure that they're they're voting in the in the uh the right a area uh you'd have to ask the secretary to say we don't do it that way we you have to register to vote and you should have to register to vote you should have to ask for your absentee ballot your signatures ought to match and you have to have your vote in on time that's what we do in florida all right thank you guys thanks take you hour

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Length: 30min 27sec (1827 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021