Sen. Ted Cruz joined other Republican colleagues on Tuesday (May 11) in combating legislation to improve voting rights access for Americans. The GOP lawmakers claimed Democrats’ voting rights bill would actually suppress votes by the millions around the nation, even though Republican state lawmakers have pushed hundreds of bills that are actually imposing limits on voting in 47 states.
“This legislation is profoundly dangerous, and the reason it suppresses millions of votes is by allowing millions of people to vote illegally,” Cruz said during a rules committee hearing on the bill, The Huffington Post reported. “That is the intended effect and that would be the actual effect of this bill. It dilutes the legal votes of American citizens.”
Cruz, like many other Republicans, continues to peddle the baseless, false claims that extensive voter fraud led to Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election. The claims fueled the deadly January 6 Capitol riot.
During the committee hearing, Cruz said the legislation “intended to” get undocumented immigrants registered to vote and said that the bill is “designed to ensure that Democrats never lose another election.” Republicans gained 14 seats in the House in 2020.
Leading the charge against the bill is Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who said “If this bill were to pass, nobody would have any confidence in [our democracy].”
“None whatsoever,” McConnell added. “Let’s call it what it is. Put aside the flowery language. This is a partisan effort to take over how you conduct elections in our country.”
Georgia and Florida recently passed legislation imposing voting restrictions there, and Texas took a step closer to enacting its own law to impose barriers to the ballot. The laws sparked backlash from advocates who point out how such laws disproportionately impact Black, Latino, and Indigenous voters, and low income voters, and dubbed it “Jim Crow 2.0."
To fight against the restrictions, organizers and voting rights activists have called on business and state and local leaders to come out against the legislation, the efforts of which have been seen in Georgia.
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