“What Democrats put in their voting rights megabill — and what got left out”

A good summary of the contents of the FTVJRLA (I think that’s the right acronym).

The new combined legislation largely draws on the Freedom to Vote Act to expand ballot access in several ways. The provisions include requiring states to offer online and Election Day voter registration, as well as offering automatic voter registration when an eligible would-be voter interacts with a state’s motor vehicle department. . . .

The package does not mandate universal vote-by-mail systems, in which states automatically mail ballots to voters without a request. Eight states currently conduct at least some elections this way, with limited in-person options typically offered as well. . . .

The megabill also includes the Right to Vote Act, which some legal scholars believe would open up expansive opportunities to sue over voting practices that are not specifically enumerated. . . .

The mega-package also pulls from the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, a bill that would restore a key provision of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. The Voting Rights Act set up a concept called “preclearance,” which meant states and other jurisdictions with history of discriminatory voting practices had to get election law changes — including new political boundaries — preapproved by either the Department of Justice or the federal district court in D.C. . . .

One of the biggest provisions in the bill would be a significant overhaul of the congressional redistricting process — namely banning partisan gerrymandering. In a 2019Supreme Court decision, Rucho v. Common Cause, the high court ruled that federal courts had no power to police congressional lines that were drawn to give a party a partisan advantage. This bill would write that power into law. . . .

The bill also has sections that address attempts to subvert a federal election, mainly targeting attacks on elections administrators and the tallying of votes. One provision makes it harder to remove local election officials, giving a removed official the right to sue and the federal government the explicit ability to intervene in lawsuits to try to stop the removal. . . .

The voting provisions have gotten the most attention in this bill, but the legislation also proposes dramatic changes to federal campaign finance laws in the United States. It includes the DISCLOSE Act, which would force a slew of politically active nonprofit organizations — which can keep their donors secret under current law — to publicly disclose their funders. It would also apply disclosure requirements to groups that spend supporting or opposing federal judicial nominations, and it lays out firmer bans on foreign campaign contributions. . . .

The bill would also create various public financing programs for House elections. One is titled the “optional democracy credit program,” allowing states to opt into a program that would provide voters a “democracy credit” of about $25 which they can give to a candidate. The bill, separately, creates a 6-to-1 public matching program for small-dollar donors to House candidates. Republicans have opposed these provisions particularly vocally.

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