Watch along with us as the House Oversight Committee holds hearings on HR-1, the bill proposed by Democrats to combat corruption in government and elections.
Andy Kroll has an excellent overview of the bill here:
Changes like: Anyone can easily register to vote online or on Election Day, which, by the way, is now a federal holiday. Want to cast your ballot early? Go for it — even if you live in a deep-red state — beginning two weeks before the election. Not to mention all early-voting sites are open four hours a day and are located near a bus stop or a subway station. Oh, and there’s more incentive than ever to vote in those congressional elections because an independent commission wrestled the redistricting process out of the hands of partisan lawmakers, ripped up your state’s old gerrymandered map and drew a new, saner one creating more competitive races.
As for the candidates, they go all-in to court $20- and $50-a-head donors because they’ll get matching public funds for relying on small-dollar contributions. Child care, rent and health insurance can now be paid for with campaign funds, so that a candidate who isn’t wealthy or doesn’t have ready access to rich people can run for office without going broke. A new law, the DISCLOSE Act, will finally reveal who’s behind those ominous dark-money-funded attack ads from a faceless group run out of a P.O. box with a bullshit name like Americans for an Awesome America.
This is obviously not the reality in which Americans currently live. But it is the world envisioned in H.R. 1, also known as the For the People Act, the first bill put forward by House Democrats after retaking the majority and returning Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the speakership.
The full text of the bill is here. And you know it's going to be fun, given that Mitch McConnell completely lost his mind over it last week. He hates it. Ethics are icky, Mitch. We know.
Fortunately for the country, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Rep. Rashida Tlaib will be on hand to participate in these hearings, which means winger media will be lit and angry, publicizing all those yummy ethics proposals like they're poison apples.
If you see something especially juicy, leave a note in the comments with the time and we'll clip it for posterity.
