Election security bills face GOP buzzsaw

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Election security legislation is hitting a wall on Capitol Hill despite special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report detailing Russia’s attempts to interfere with the nation’s last presidential contest.

The standoff is frustrating Democrats, who say President Trump’s remarks to ABC News that he would be open to accepting information on a political opponent invited more interference in the next election.

“I can’t believe Senator McConnell is not entertaining election security measures right now. ... For goodness sakes we don’t have a lot of time left,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate Democrat.

The House passed a sweeping ethics and election reform bill that includes a paper ballot requirement and early voting standards. It also includes unrelated issues like tightening campaign finance laws, requiring a president and vice president to release their tax returns and tapping independent commissions to draw redistricting maps.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed that it won't get a vote, referring to it as the “Democratic Politician Protection Act.”

McConnell argued during an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham that he cared about election security, but that the Senate wouldn’t be taking up legislation that tried to take oversight of elections away from state and local governments.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/448676-election-security-bills-face-gop-buzzsaw

[trev]

1. IOWs

McConnell wants to keep his criminal machine working.

[Frustratedlady]

3. How can he get by with that?

He has basically shut down Congress by his barricades in the Senate and he's done it for years...even came right out and stated he would do so. Surely, there is a remedy for this type of "leader" -- if you want to call him that.

[trev]

7. I don't know what authority can stop him from doing it.

The only real hope we have is that Kentucky sends him packing, I think.

[Kurt V.]

2. 🎵 he's a mean one, mr. Grinch 🎵

[yonder]

4. It's not: "oversight of elections away from state and local governments."

As McConnell would have you believe. It is oversight of our national security and constitutionally provided election processes to protect from foreign meddling.

Since when are our state and local governments solely responsible for that?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. I think that was a dog whistle to the old "states rights" argument.

[yonder]

6. Yes, I agree. Mr. GOP can't help himself.

But it doesn't take too much to see that that whistle should be silent, even for his own dogs.

[struggle4progress]

8. "We can't win if we can't cheat"