House Democrats Embrace One Effort to Strengthen HR1, Reject Another

This afternoon, the House voted on a series of amendments on HR1 ( For the People Act of 2019), House Democrats’ pro-democracy omnibus bill. Read about what’s in it here.

The House voted in favor of one effort to strengthen the law but, unfortunately, passed on another.

Jamie Raskin (MD-08) filed an amendment to prevent corporate expenditures for campaign purposes unless the corporation has established a process for determining the political will of its shareholders. If corporations are supposed to act in the interest of their shareholders, how could one argue against this?

The amendment passed (albeit narrowly) 219 to 215.

17 Democrats joined Republicans in voting against it:

Sanford Bishop (GA-02), Anthony Brindisi (NY-22), Sean Casten (IL-06), Henry Cuellar (TX-28), Sharice Davids (KS-03), Josh Gottheimer (NJ-05), Susie Lee (NV-03), Ben McAdams (UT-04), Lucy McBath (GA-06), Stephanie Murphy (FL-07), Collin Peterson (MN-07), Brad Schneider (IL-10), Kurt Schrader (OR-05), Elissa Slotkin (MI-08), Tom Suozzi (NY-03), Xochitl Torres Small (NM-02), and David Trone (MD-06).

The House, however, voted down an amendment from Ayanna Pressley (MA-07) to lower the voting age for federal elections to 16.

The amendment failed 126 to 305. 125 Democrats and Republican Michael Burgess (TX-26) voted in favor. Burgess may have done so by accident.

The 125 Democrats included both some of the caucus’s most progressive and most conservative members. Jim Himes (CT-04) and Katie Porter (CA-45) both voted present.