Press Releases

Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) House floor speech on “For the People Act” H.R. 1:


Transcript:

“I rise, not only in opposition to this bill, but in strong opposition, especially the attempt, to nationalize our federal elections, and the notion that people like Joseph Kirk, of Bartow County, Georgia, election superintendent - who has done a phenomenal job administering our elections - is not as qualified as people in this room… to run an election…. more importantly, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. The idea that that [those] up here can administer an election in Bartow County better than our election supervisor can and has, is a notion beyond compare. In fact, this flies in the face of our Founders, especially those at the Constitutional Convention. You see, there were arguments against Article 1, Section 4, the Elections Clause, because the fear that was stated was that those in power could use that power to manipulate elections, to keep them in power…that one day, someone would use this authority to manipulate the elections so they can maintain power. Madam speaker, I believe we have arrived at that.

“Now, Alexander Hamilton, he argued the opposite. He said it is important that institutions of government be able to preserve themselves;, but this was a backup. It was a backup… that the States had the priority to run their own elections. In fact, he said, ‘…it should only be used when extraordinary circumstances might render interposition necessary to its safety.’ We are not in that extraordinary circumstance. And in fact, the extraordinary circumstance that will be stated over and over again is how we ran the election in 2020, under COVID. Now, many of the provisions set out in this legislation, including universal mail-in ballots, a ban on voter ID laws, and mandated ballot harvesting, were changes that were made by states illegally in 2020, that caused a lot of the problems that we saw.

“It may be a novel idea, but I stand firmly against federal overreach and [with] the constitutional responsibilities of state and local governments. Unfortunately, H.R. 1 flies in the face of our governors, our secretaries of state, our local election officials, and more importantly, the people of this nation. If there's any other reason to be against it, it’s why an 800-page bill went to eleven committees, and could only receive two hours of a hearing in the smallest committee in this body. The American people want to know, what are you hiding when you continue to ramrod legislation through?”