Mitch McConnell accuses the left of pushing a ‘Big Lie’ on voting

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has turned a Democratic charge back on them, accusing the left of spreading the ‘big lie’ about an ‘evil anti-voting conspiracy’ as they try to pass voting rights legislation.

Republicans have vowed a ‘scorched earth’ policy if Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer tries to eliminate the filibuster in order to advance voting legislation, which Republicans charge will federalize elections that should be handled by the states. 

As part of that effort, McConnell’s office sent out a memo to reporters this weekend slamming Democrats and arguing their party has ‘repeatedly stood up to the left and their Big Lie that there is some evil anti-voting conspiracy sweeping America.’ 

‘They will try to use fake hysteria to break the Senate and silence millions of Americans’ voices so they can take over elections and ram through their radical agenda,’ the memo claimed.

In response, Schumer on Monday accused McConnell of ‘gaslighting’ America.   

Schumer has vowed to pass voting rights legislation by January 17th – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – making this a critical week for Democrats. 

But his plan to go ‘nuclear’  and change the Senate rules to allow the legislation to proceed with a simple majority vote faces opposition from two of his own: Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Republicans are solidly opposed to the voting rights legislation, calling it an attempt to federalize elections they argue should be run by states. 

Thay have said they will filibuster any attempt to pass federal legislation.  That means Schumer would have to take the so-called ‘nuclear’ option, in which he holds a vote to change the rules to bypass the 60-vote threshhold to advance the legislation.

‘If Republicans continue to hijack the rules of the chamber to protect us from protecting our democracy, then the Senate will debate and consider changes to the rules on or before Jan. 17,’ Schumer warned on the Senate floor last week.

But Manchin and Sinema don’t want to kill the filibuster without buy-in from Republicans, who are opposed. 

As part of their counter-offensive, Republicans also point to a 2016 study from Stanford that found making it easier to vote doesn’t actually increase voter turn out. 

‘The recent wave of electoral reforms does not seem to have had any significant effect on voter turnout. And there is even evidence that some of the new reforms may have actually decreased turnout,’ the study found.

In contrast, Democrats point to what they call a wave of restrictive voting right laws in various states.

Between January 1 and December 7, 2021, at least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting, the nonpartisan Brennan Center found. More than 440 bills with provisions that restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions, the center said. 

Democrats also tried to tie their push on voting legislation to the one-year anniversary of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, using it as a rallying cry.

In a letter to his colleagues last week, Schumer wrote that ‘what happened on Jan. 6 and the one-sided, partisan actions being taken by Republican-led state legislatures across the country are directly linked, and we can and must take strong action to stop this antidemocratic march.’

Republicans say invoking January 6th is offensive. The voting bills were largely written before the riot in the Capitol. 

‘It is beyond distasteful for some of our colleagues to ham-fistedly invoke the Jan. 6 anniversary to advance these aims,’ McConnelll said. ‘The fact that violent criminals broke the law does not entitle Senate Democrats to break the Senate.’

Democrats are seeking to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, named after the late Congressman and civil rights activist. It would replace part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013.

The bill would also restore voters ability to challenge laws, such as those related redistricting or voter ID requirements that could be seen as discriminatory. 

It passed the House in August 219-212 along straight party lines. 

The Senate is also trying to approve the House-passed For The People Act, which expands voter registration, early voting, mail-in voting and introduces restrictions on campaign finance. 

Biden, who spent 36 years in the Senate, has been reluctant to get involved in the fight over the filibuster.

However, in December, he conceded in an interview with ABC News that he would support making an exception ‘if the only thing standing between getting voting rights legislation passed and not getting passed is the filibuster.’  

Biden heads to Atlanta on Tuesday to push for the voting legislation – traveling to the home state of civil rights icons the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis. Georgia was also ground zero in the 2020 presidential election, where Donald Trump falsely claimed Democrats stole votes to hand Biden a victory there.  

The state also has two competitive races this fall: Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock is  in a tough re-election bid and Democrat Stacey Abrams is making a second attempt to become governor. 

He will lay a wreath at the crypt of Martin Luther King Jr. and will visit the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Warnock is a pastor. 

He’ll speak at the Atlanta University Center Consortium, which consists of four historically black colleges.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who is in charge of voting rights efforts for the Biden administration, will accompany the president on the trip. Harris would also be the tie-breaking vote in the 50-50 evenly divided Senate.