On the eve of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s much anticipated testimony in the House of Representatives, Senate Democrats are trying to refocus the nation’s attention on Russian interference in US elections. Interference that they predict, and the intelligence community agrees, will only increase in 2020.
"The Russians are absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections through foreign influence,” FBI director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
There are a number of bipartisan efforts to protect the nation’s electoral process: The Honest Ads Act, cosponsored by Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), is aimed at keeping foreign actors from buying social media ads, among other things. The Duty to Report Act would “impose a legal duty on federal campaigns, candidates, and PACs to report offers of assistance from foreign nationals.” But one high hurdle to enacting those policies remains: Republican leadership.
“The only people that are stopping these kinds of common-sense measures from becoming law of the land are … [Senate majority leader] McConnell and President Trump,” said Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia), who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, at a press conference at the Capitol on Tuesday.
Warner and other Democrats argue that the holes in the nation’s electoral system are so obvious that proponents already have the votes to pass a myriad of bipartisan bills.
“We’re talking about low-hanging fruit that, if it came to the floor of the Senate, they would pass with close to 80-plus votes,” Warner said, claiming that these measures could easily bypass a presidential veto.
Still, Republican leaders dismiss these efforts as unnecessary, and they point to the last federal el ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
