Dan Balz for WaPo:

Ben Ginsberg, a Republican election-law attorney who called out Trump’s falsehoods about the election being stolen, said that in any bill this big, there are good provisions and questionable ones. “It’s an almost 800-page bill, so while there is some fine stuff in there, significant other parts read like a bill hijacked by the wily political operatives in the Democratic Party. . . . It’s a huge gift to the Republicans because two weeks ago the story was GOP civil war and now, lo and behold, they’re unified.”

The debate in Congress over the For the People Act is set against the backdrop of action by Republican legislators in states to make voting more difficult. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, which has pushed for the federal legislation, about 250 bills to restrict voting have been introduced or pre-filed in 43 states, a roughly sevenfold increase over a year ago. Many of these state-level bills would tighten rules for mail-in ballots or require more restrictive voter identification provisions.

“Democrats and Republicans have very different views on how to run elections, on how easy it should be to vote,” said Nate Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School, an expert on election laws and procedures, and an advocate for H.R. 1. “They have diametrically opposed views on how elections should be financed and how districts should be drawn. There is very little middle ground here. If Democrats had 60 votes in Senate, it would be a different battle, but it is their last chance to make some of these changes in time for the 2024 election.”