Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday sharply criticized new bills being offered by Republicans in dozens of states that would place limits on the ability to vote.
Schumer, testifying before the Senate Rules Committee on a sweeping elections reform bill, accused Republicans of trying to “disenfranchise” voters after losing the 2020 election.
“Shame on them. … This is infuriating. I would like to ask my Republican colleagues: Why are you so afraid of democracy,” Schumer said.
Schumer also spoke on the Senate floor about the election bills being proposed, accusing Republicans of embracing former President Trump’s “big lie” — that the 2020 election was “rigged” and stolen from him.
“They’re not even standing up to protect the sacred right to vote. Shame, shame, shame, on all of them,” he added.
The Brennan Center for Justice found that as of mid-February, Republicans in 43 states had proposed more than 250 bills that would make it harder to vote, including by proposing changes to mail-in voting or voter ID requirements.
A Washington Post analysis found that the changes could amount to the biggest shift in access to the ballot since Reconstruction, placing limits on the ability to vote for tens of millions of Americans.
Schumer’s comments come as the Senate Rules Committee is holding a hearing on the For the People Act, a sweeping bill that would overhaul the country’s elections. The bill passed the House earlier this month without Republican support and has no GOP co-sponsors in the Senate.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), speaking at the same hearing, called the bill “a solution in search of a problem” and an “invitation to chaos” that would “create a nightmare” if signed into law.
“States are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever. This is clearly an effort by one party to rewrite the rules of our political system,” McConnell said.
Supporters of the new state voting laws argue that they are needed after the 2020 election but, as the Post notes, many of the bills are being proposed in states that did not see election snafus. Election experts have also repeatedly rejected Trump’s claims of widespread fraud and his legal team lost dozens of challenges.
Schumer, testifying before the Senate committee, vowed that the House-passed bill would be “a priority” in the Democratic-controlled Senate, though the bill doesn’t have the votes to pass with the 60-vote legislative filibuster in place.
“Some of these voter suppression laws in Georgia and other Republican states smack of Jim Crow rearing its ugly head once again,” Schumer said. “Jim Crow still seems to be with us.”