Florida on Thursday joined Georgia in enacting a sweeping Republican election law that constricts voting rights in the state, and Texas, which already had some of the most stringent voting laws in the country, is on the cusp of joining them. Democrats were not able to stop the new voting laws in the country's biggest red states, but House Democrats passed their own countervailing national voting rights legislation, the "For the People Act" or HR1, in March, and Senate Democrats are working on their own version, S1.
When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that "100 percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration," these voting reform bills might have been what he had in mind. McConnell has publicly and privately conveyed his fervent opposition to the legislation. But "what's different, conservatives say, is his personal level of commitment behind-the-scenes to educate activists on just how damaging the legislation would be to the future electoral prospects of Republicans," McClatchy D.C. reports.
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