Jane Mayer on How to Kill a Bill
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 5 April 2021
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
The investigative reporter Jane Mayer recently received a recording of a meeting attended by conservative power brokers including Grover Norquist, representatives of PACs funded by Charles Koch, and an aide to Senator Mitch McConnell. The subject was the voting-rights bill H.R. 1, and the mood was anxious. The bill (which we discussed in last week’s episode) would broadly make voting more accessible, which tends to benefit Democratic candidates, and it would raise the curtain on “dark money” in elections with stringent disclosure requirements. The problem for this group, a political strategist says, is that the bill is popular among voters of both parties, but H.R. 1, they insist, must die. As we hear the participants tick through options to tarnish the bill’s public appeal, Mayer notes how the political winds have shifted in Washington, leaving the Republican coalition newly fragile.
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| 1:11.4 | I'm Dorothy Wickender on today's Politics and More podcast, David Remnec talks with the New Yorker's |
| 1:17.7 | Jane Mayer about H.R.1, a bill that would expand voting rights nationwide. A leaked recording |
| 1:24.5 | of a call with the Republican strategists outlines the tactics conservatives are using |
| 1:29.5 | to sink the bill despite its popularity among both Democrats and Republicans. |
| 1:38.8 | H.R. 1 is probably the most important voting rights law since 1965. And if it's passed, and that's a very big if, |
| 1:47.2 | H.R. 1 would bring automatic voter registration across the country. It would take on gerrymandering, |
| 1:53.3 | and it would restore voting rights to felons who have served their time. But there's another aspect |
| 1:58.4 | of H.R.1 that we didn't talk about last week, and that's campaign financing. |
| 2:04.0 | So-called dark money could be dark no more. |
| 2:07.3 | Political groups would have to make their big donors public. |
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