Topline
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) on Sunday launched plans to introduce a bill to offer protection to voters’ salvage entry to to water while waiting in line at polling areas, a switch designed to fight a minor but controversial facet of latest legislation passed in Georgia and other states as more comprehensive vote casting reform legislation faces long odds in Congress.
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 03: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) listens at a Hometown Security and Governmental … [+] Affairs/Strategies and Administration Committee hearing March 3, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee is scheduled to listen to testimony about DHS, FBI, National Guard and Division of Defense toughen and response to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. (Photo by Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
Key Info
Ossoff, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, will preserve a press convention on Monday unveiling a bill to “offer protection to voters’ salvage entry to to water when they’re made to wait on in line exterior polling areas,” in step with an advisory from his role of enterprise.
The advisory takes purpose at a bill passed in Ossoff’s home squawk of Georgia last month that makes it a misdemeanor to give away food or water inner 150 feet of a polling residing, noting that the legislation “makes it a crime punishable by as a lot as a year in jail.”
Republicans possess argued the bill cracks down on political affect at polling areas and eminent the bill mute permits ballotemployees to produce a water source – though there are few examples of it being a pervasive discipline.
The advisory notes Georgia polling stations were habitually troubled by long lines, including throughout the 2020 necessary and regular elections, and particularly in nonwhite areas.
Ossoff’s bill targets a minor provision of the bill, but it completely’s one Democrats were particularly vocal about given the optics of denying water to voters, with President Joe Biden arguing “you don’t need something” except for the water ban to know the bill has a “punitive develop.”
The bill would likely trail the Home but faces a steep hurdle within the Senate, where it may perhaps perhaps also also be filibustered – but it completely would place Republicans on record on the discipline, something Democrats may perhaps well are also attempting to exhaust in opposition to them in 2022.
Key Background
Republican squawk officers throughout the country possess seized on feeble President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of popular voter fraud, and subsequent distrust of elections among Republican voters, to trail recent election reform funds. The Georgia bill caused allegations of voter suppression from Democrats and caused outcry from companies. Extra currently, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis passed a bill limiting mail-in vote casting, even after Trump lauded Florida’s mail-in vote casting machine throughout the election as an exception to his vocal disdain for the arrangement.
Substantial Number
10. That’s the likelihood of Republican votes Democrats must trail most legislation within the Senate. Despite latest tweaks, Home Democrats’ sweeping election reform bill H.R. 1 is mute far from that threshold. Some activists possess argued for Senate Democrats to prioritize more granular reforms, luxuriate in the John Lewis Vote casting Rights Act, which possess a more practical shot at passing.
Chief Critic
“In level of truth the furor over this – while comprehensible – has eclipsed powerful more troubling aspects of this legislation,” tweeted election administration expert Jessica Huseman, noting vote casting line wait situations dropped off precipitously in Georgia between the first day of early vote casting and election day. “Enact we possess got far bigger fish to fry? Sure. Nonetheless it completely’s the most reasonable likely segment of the bill and the most memorable so it makes for factual campaign fodder,” she added.
