Democrats eye voting rights bill as first priority in House majority
FREEPORT, N.Y. — A top House Democrat said this week that if the party wins the majority, its first priority in the next Congress will be election integrity — an issue that’s been front-and-center throughout a campaign in which former President Trump has floated baseless claims of voter fraud and laid the groundwork to challenge the results if he loses.
In a sit-down interview with The Hill on the campaign trail on Long Island, Rep. Katherine Clark (Mass.), the Democratic whip, laid out the contours of an ambitious legislative agenda if Democrats seize the gavel next year, including restoring legal protections for abortion access that were eliminated by the Supreme Court in 2022.
But she emphasized that all of the Democrats’ policy priorities stem from the core constitutional idea that Americans, through voting, hold the keys to government and self-determination. With that in mind, she said Democrats would make efforts to protect democracy their first legislative proposal out of the gate in 2025, with a voting rights bill receiving the coveted H.R. 1 title.
“We know that everything flows from the right to vote and having voter security, and what we have seen are attacks on that right to vote — undermining, through misinformation, Americans’ belief in the integrity [of elections],” Clark said. “We have fair and secure elections in this country. … Donald Trump and JD Vance are still denying the 2020 election, which is outrageous.”
Under former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Democrats promoted sweeping election reforms — designed to expand voting access and curb the influence of money on elections — as their first bill introduced in both the 116th and 117th Congresses, when they last controlled the lower chamber.
Pelosi and her leadership team have since stepped aside. But Clark, the No. 2 House Democrat, said the new party brass would follow suit if they win the majority in November, making election integrity and campaign finance the top priority.
She did not reveal what voting rights bill a potential majority would charge ahead with, though she offered two options.
One is the For the People Act, which won the H.R. 1 denomination in the past two congressional........
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