Fitzpatrick Opposes Voting Rights Bill Passed By US House

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — After breaking party ranks in December 2019 to vote in favor of the Voting Rights Advancement Act, U.S. Rep. Brain Fitzpatrick joined all of his fellow Republicans in the U.S. House on Tuesday in voting against a similar bill.

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the late Georgia congressman and civil rights champion, was approved by the House on a party-line vote, with support from 219 Democrats and none of the chamber’s 212 Republicans.

Democrats say the bill would restore and strengthen key components of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which has been weakened by several Supreme Court rulings since 2013, NPR reports. Supporters believe the bill will make it harder for states to restrict voting access in the future.

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Republican Rep. Rodney Davis, of Illinois, called the bill a “partisan power grab which circumvents the people to ensure one-party rule,” while others in his party have characterized it as federal overreach into states’ authority over elections, the report states.

Fitzpatrick was the only Republican to support a similar bill — the Voting Rights Advancement Act — in December 2019 as it passed the U.S. House, but the bill was never considered by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Fitzpatrick told Patch in a statement Wednesday that he did not support the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act because “further changes were made that unreasonably undermine legitimate efforts to ensure the integrity of our elections.”

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The bill would “make it harder for states to maintain accurate voter lists and require voted ID,” Fitzpatrick said.

“I look forward to working with my colleagues on bipartisan solutions to ensure we are expanding access to voting while upholding the integrity of our elections,” he said.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act now heads to the U.S. Senate, where it will face tough opposition from Republicans. The Senate is evenly divided, with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, who could need a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris to pass the bill.

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President Joe Biden urged the U.S. Senate to pass the bill, calling it “critical legislation to protect our democracy and the right to vote,” NPR reports.

Pennsylvania is among more than a dozen states that have tried to pass laws making it harder for some people to vote since the 2020 presidential election.

Republican state lawmakers passed a bill packed with voting restrictions in June that was later vetoed by Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf. The bill included a voter ID requirement, new restrictions on ballot drop boxes and mail-in voting, and stricter signature-matching requirements, among other measures.

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Wolf said the bill was “incurably riddled with unacceptable barriers to voting” when vetoing it in June, according to a report by Mark Scolforo of the Associated Press. He called the voter ID requirement “selectively discriminatory” and said the proposed signature-matching process was “arbitrary,” the report states.

Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate are expected to focus their efforts on a more limited set of election-law changes when they return in the fall, AP reports.

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