FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 4, 2021
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Mike Lewis (334) 353-2199
Joy Patterson (334) 242-7491
Attorney General Steve Marshall Opposes Congressional Democrats’ Bill That Mandate Less-Secure Elections and Invite Voter Fraud
(MONTGOMERY) – Attorney General Steve Marshall joined attorneys general from 19 other states Wednesday in calling on the leadership of Congress to reject attempts to federalize elections and remove the constitutional right of states to conduct elections.
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Attorney General Marshall and his colleagues called on Congress to oppose the constitutionally-flawed For the People Act, H.R. 1.
“Under both the Elections Clause of Article 1 of the Constitution and the Electors Clause of Article II, States have principal – and with presidential elections, exclusive – responsibility to safeguard the manner of holding elections. The Act would invert that constitutional structure, commandeer state resources, confuse and muddle elections procedures, and erode faith in our elections and systems of governance,” the attorneys general wrote.
The attorneys general also pointed out that H.R. 1 would allow Congress unprecedented and unconstitutional power to control federal elections including mandating mail-in voting, requiring states to accept late ballots, overriding state voter-identification laws, and mandating that states conduct redistricting through unelected commissions. Many of these changes would increase the risk of voter fraud, and all of them would deprive states of the right to manage their own elections.
“As Chief Justice Roberts noted with respect to congressional elections, the Framers ‘assign[ed] the issue to the state legislatures, expressly checked and balanced by the Federal Congress.’ . . . Here, Congress is not acting as a check, but is instead overreaching by seizing the role of principal election regulator.”
House Democrats passed H.R. 1 yesterday on a party-line vote. The bill is now headed to the U.S. Senate for consideration.
The letter was signed by the attorneys general of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
The letter is linked here.
[For links, click PDF icon at upper right of press release]
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