In the latest example of divisions among congressional Democrats over voting rights, four House Democrats emailed the party caucus on Thursday pushing for their colleagues to muscle through two election bills now being considered on Capitol Hill, arguing that “democracy is on the line.”
The email, which was signed by Representatives Mondaire Jones of New York, Val Demings of Florida, Nikema Williams of Georgia and Colin Allred of Texas, represented not-so-subtle pushback to recent statements from influential Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, who have each expressed to the caucus a preference for a more narrow strategy.
The most ambitious legislation Democrats have put forward is the For the People Act, a sweeping bill to overhaul the nation’s elections system that would protect voting rights, reduce the role of money in politics, strengthen enforcement of existing election laws and limit gerrymandering. They have also introduced the narrower John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would restore crucial parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013, including the preclearance requirements under which some states mostly in the South had to receive federal approval before changing their election laws.
The email from the four representatives argues that passing only the John Lewis Act — which Democrats like Mr. Manchin and Mr. Clyburn have recently told other members they would prefer — would be an insufficient response to the spate of voting restrictions Republicans have enacted across the country since the 2020 presidential election. The email states that passing the narrower bill alone would leave too much up to the courts, do little about laws already enacted, do nothing to reduce partisan gerrymandering, and would still be no closer to Senate passage.