WASHINGTON, D.C. – Eastern Washington Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05) released the following statement after voting against H.R. 1.

“I support efforts to reduce fraud and increase transparency in our elections, but H.R. 1 doesn’t even come close to accomplishing that,” said Cathy. “First, H.R. 1 gives taxpayers funds to political candidates for their elections. The federal government has no business putting taxpayer dollars into campaign slush funds. Your hard-earned tax dollars should be going toward keeping our country safe and providing for important programs like Medicare and Social Security, not going to political candidates for them to use to get elected.

“If we truly want to protect our democracy, we need to have the tools to protect the integrity of our elections. This legislation also takes those tools away, making it more difficult for election administrators to verify residency and registration status and reduce fraud and abuse in our elections. At the same time, it makes the enforcement of election laws partisan by decreasing the number of Federal Election Commission (FEC) commissioners from six to five. This weaponizes our election laws by giving whoever occupies the White House out-sized power over our Democracy. This is the wrong approach to bringing transparency and accountability to elections, and even the ACLU opposes this bill because of its blatant attacks on free speech rights.”

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