Natural State News

After the House of Representatives passed a Democratic bill that addresses voter access, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) vowed in a recent press conference to block the For The People Act.

Former President Donald Trump made baseless claims of voter fraud leading up to the 2020 Presidential Election, saying that the only reason he would lose his second term as president is if it was stolen from him. The former president's claims resulted in many GOP attempts to make it more difficult to vote. As a response, Democrats have created the act as a solution to combat attempts to restrict voters' right to vote in future elections which have made many Republican lawmakers feel uneasy.

"They (Democrats) are trying to leverage a sliver of a majority in the House and an evenly divided Senate to lock in permanent and radical changes to the structure of our government," Sen. Tom Cotton said.

Other Republicans have spoken out against the legislation, including Rep. John Kavanagh, saying that not everyone should be voting.

"Democrats value as many people as possible voting and they're willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don't mind putting security measures in that won't let everybody vote – but everybody shouldn't be voting," Kavanagh said.

The bill expands voter registration, voter access and places limits on removing voters from voter rolls. States would be able to create independent and nonpartisan redistricting commissions. Election security would also be addressed by allowing intelligence information to state election officials as well as banning foreign nationals from contributing or spending on US elections. The bill also would require candidates for president and vice president to submit 10 years of tax returns, among other things.

"They are doing this because they know the rest of their agenda is unpopular – trying to raise taxes and waste trillions of dollars of taxpayer money and to hold over the heads of American's the loss of a job or loss of a spot in school or boycott of a business because they express opinions that are not consistent with progressive norms and fads and fashions," Cotton said.

At his press conference, Cotton emphasized that he will dedicate as much time as it takes to stop Democrats from passing the voter legislation.

The For the People Act passed the House floor on March 3.

The bill must pass in the Senate and finalize with a signature from President Joe Biden.