"U.S. democracy is in existential crisis.
The country already suffers from unrepresentative winner-take-all, single-seat-district legislative elections, a two-party duopoly, partisan gerrymandering, the corrupting influence of big money in politics, and an Electoral College and US Senate that give vastly outsized influence to some voters over others. In the case of the Electoral College, it can also prevent the presidential candidate receiving the most votes from being elected.
But now even worse, the nation faces the return of Jim Crow era-type election laws, surgically designed to suppress the vote of millions of Americans, Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian and young voters - perhaps permanently impaling our democracy in all but name only.
The clock to prevent this is ticking. This Congress, with this President, may be the last best chance to pass needed protections and enhancements to our right to vote. And H.R. 1 - already passed out of the House and soon to be heard in the Senate - contains a multitude of those needed reforms.
As a stand alone bill, the voting rights section in H.R. 1 would be landmark legislation. Lamentably, major parts of the campaign finance section of H.R. 1 are dubious and partisan. It appears that to secure desperately needed voting rights, partisan political advantage must be conveyed to the bill’s sponsors. That appears to be the sausage-making behind H.R. 1 - the For the People Act."