Voting Rights: Congress

Congress Main Page
 

Legislation That Matters

Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) - 2001/12/1
(Link: http://www.fec.gov/hava/law_ext.txt)
 Passed by Congress in October 2002 in response to the voting mishaps of the 2000 election, the Help America Vote Act is a federal law that requires significant reforms in the election process. The law includes national mandates that require state and local governments to keep a single list of registered voters, better educate voters and election workers and which specify the type of voting equipment that can be used. The Act also requires each state’s Secretary of State create an Advisory Committee and formulate a state plan on how they will meet these new federal requirements.
Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 - 2001/12/1
(Link: http://www.brennancenter.org/programs/downloads/engrossed_house.pdf)
 The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), a federal law that significantly changes how political campaigns are funded, amends the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. The law, which grew from legislation sponsored by Senators McCain and Feingold and Reps. Shays and Meehan, makes a number of changes to election law. Three major components are most often noted: First, the Act prohibits certain types of raising and spending money by federal officeholders and candidates and by the national parties, and severely restricts the use of this money by state and local parties when used for federal election campaigns. Under previous law, state and national parties could raise unlimited amounts of contributions that could be used for “party building” and voter mobilization efforts. Funds raised for these purposes are commonly referred to as “soft money”. In contrast, money raised directly by candidates for their campaigns is commonly called “hard money” which is regulated by the second part of the law. The Act raised the amount that an individual can contribute directly to a candidate for federal office (a maximum of $2000 per campaign cycle up from $1000 per campaign cycle). Finally, the Act redefines what constitutes a campaign advertisement to include both ads run by candidates and ads run by other groups or organizations that show a candidate and target voters if run within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. The law requires advertisers to disclose who paid for the ad.
Show All

 

Congress Speaks

Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) - 2005/4/20
“527 groups by definition are in the business of influencing campaigns and have voluntarily sought the tax advantages conferred on such political groups. They are ‘political organizations’ under the tax code which are defined as groups ‘organized and operated primarily’ to influence candidate elections. These groups cannot be allowed to shirk their responsibilities to comply with federal campaign finance laws when they are spending money to influence federal elections.
…
“While all other groups participating in the 2004 federal elections were spending money subject to federal contribution limits, the 527 groups were operating outside the law and collecting unlimited soft money to influence the federal races.
…
“[I] propose requiring 527 groups to register as political committees with the FEC and comply with federal campaign finance laws, unless they raise and spend money exclusively in connection with non-Federal candidate elections, or state or local ballot initiatives. I believe this is the proper course of action, and would ensure the future success of the reforms enacted in BCRA. It is essential that federal election law is fully implemented and fairly enforced. It is imperative that the FEC execute the will of Congress with respect to all campaign law, but they have consistently failed to do so.”

(Link: http://www.house.gov/shays/news/2005/april/aprilreform.htm)
Sen. John McCain (527s) (R-AZ) - 2005/2/2
“The blame for this lack of enforcement does not lie with the Congress, nor with the Administration. The blame for this continuing illegal activity lies squarely with the FEC. This agency has a duty to issue regulations to properly implement and enforce the nation’s campaign laws - and the FEC has failed, and it has failed miserably to carry out that responsibility…We are not going to allow the destructive FEC to continue to undermine the nation’s campaign finance laws as it has been consistently doing for the past two decades.”
(Link: http://mccain.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Newscenter.ViewSpeech&Content_id=1510)
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) - 2005/1/6
“The debate we have today will not change the outcome of November’s election. We know that. But out of today’s debate, I hope this Congress will respond to our challenge:
• A challenge to hold true bipartisan hearings to get to the bottom of what went wrong in Ohio and around the nation on Election Day.
• A challenge to show the same concern about voter disenfranchisement in this country that we show in Afghanistan, and the Ukraine, and Iraq.
• A challenge to enact real election reform; that gives all citizens the right to a provisional ballot; that gives all voters a verifiable paper trail; and that bans election officials from serving as campaign chairs.
The thing we should never fear in Congress is a debate, and the thing we should never fear in a democracy is the voters. I hope that today we have a fair debate and four years from now, we have an election all our citizens can be proud of.”

(Link: http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/mi14_conyers/109_01_6_05.html)
Show All

 

Background Links
Problems viewing our site?
Click here.

Justice Learning is brought to you by a partnership of Justice Talking and The New York Times Learning Network.
© 2002-2010 Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania
View Privacy Statement.
Email the Webmaster.