Washington, DC – Today, U.S. Representative Young Kim (CA-39) released the following statement on H.R. 1:
“We must promote free, fair and secure elections so as many eligible citizens as possible can vote and have their voices heard. H.R. 1 fails at doing this and constitutes a massive overreach by the federal government. This partisan bill nationalizes our elections, codifies misguided policies like ballot harvesting, allows public money to fund political campaigns and politicizes the IRS and agencies overseeing federal elections,” said Kim. “The last thing we should be doing is further politicizing non-partisan institutions, undermining local election officials’ legitimate authority and expanding the worst of California’s election laws nationwide. I’m committed to working in a bipartisan way to protect Americans’ First Amendment rights and empower our state and local entities with the tools to ensure fair and secure elections.”
H.R. 1:
- Overreaches on states’ rights by imposing strict, one-size-fits-all federal mandates to our election system instead of equipping state and local entities with the tools to ensure secure elections;
- Allows public funds from corporate lawsuits to be used for funding political campaigns at a 6:1 ratio;
- Gives the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) the ability to consider political beliefs of an organization before granting tax-exempt status;
- Politicizes the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by changing the size of the FEC from the current bipartisan 6-member commission to a partisan 5-member commission; and,
- Undermines states authority to run their own elections and imposes one size fits all laws and regulations.
