On the recordMarch 7, 2019
I appreciate the spirit with which this amendment is offered, but I disagree. This is about Federal elections. The Constitution says that the Congress has the ability to promulgate laws about Federal elections. The reason why we are looking at it is there have been States who have gone into AVR, they are grandfathered into the bill, but the problematic States are those States that are trying to suppress the vote, trying to keep people from voting, and we need to do something about that. Madam Chair, while we are here, I do want to say something about, not the gentleman's comments, but the prior comments of the ranking member about the costs of the bill. We have a score from CBO, and almost all the money that CBO has scored goes to grants to the States to upgrade their computer systems: $1.5 billion from 2019 to 2024; 750 for other computer assistance; and the other big amount is for making polling places accessible to disabled voters. So it is not about the other provisions in the bill. I would also like to note, and I put this into the Record yesterday, the Joint Committee on Taxation has estimated that the fine and forfeiture fund that will go into the Freedom From Influence Fund is estimated to raise $1.948 billion between 2019 and 2029. They also estimate that it will reduce the deficit by $83 million, which is interesting, because it will deter people from cheating on their taxes. So the comments made about the money were simply incorrect.…
