Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on Wednesday took aim at a measure intended to simplify voter registration and make voting easier, suggesting that the House Democrats’ For The People Act was “written in hell by the devil himself.”
“Everything in this bill is rotten to the core.” Lee told “Fox & Friends” hosts in an interview earlier Wednesday about the HR 1 Bill. “This is a bill as if written in hell by the devil himself.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on H.R. 1, For the People Act, which makes it easier for everyone to register and vote:
"Everything about this bill is rotten to the core. This is a bill as if written in hell by the devil himself." pic.twitter.com/K289I5STfv
— The Recount (@therecount) March 10, 2021
The House passed the landmark bill a week ago, but it faces long odds in the Senate. Lee’s comments on Wednesday come as voting rights advocates have lauded the legislation as a potential protection to disenfranchised groups who have historically been targeted in effort to restrict voting.
The bill is a sweeping defense against legislation in dozens of states that have prioritized voter suppression in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and proposed changes that back up a series if gripes from former President Trump and his allies put forward in their efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s win last year.
In one counter effort on Monday, a bill that would end no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia, which became a decisive state in Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential race, survived a key procedural step when the state Senate voted to advance the omnibus election legislation.
During the Fox News interview on Wednesday, Lee argued that the American electoral process has always been managed at the state and local level and that the proposed bill would be an effort at micromanagement.
“They are completely flipping that principle on its head so that these things can be micromanaged from Washington,” Lee said. “That’s wrong, it’s really wrong. It’s bad policy.”