Zoe Lofgren: “Just a few points. As I am sure the gentleman from Illinois knows, we had a markup last year on H.R. 1, and one of the…”

“Just a few points. As I am sure the gentleman from Illinois knows, we had a markup last year on H.R. 1, and one of the issues raised was the propriety of having taxpayer dollars fund the pilot program, the matching program. And we agreed--we agreed with that observation. So we changed it. We made an amendment to address that concern. It is not an additional--an existing fund. If a corporation does wrong and is assessed a fine, there is an additional fine hit on that bad-doing corporation that would fund the pilot project. And if there aren't enough bad-doers to actually fully fund the program, the program is scaled back. There is no taxpayer money in this program. These amendments in this bill address things that are important. And let me just reference the letter from the attorneys general that I included in the Record earlier. We are talking about what is happening right now, and this is what they state: ``. . . State legislators have seized upon former President Trump's baseless voter fraud allegations to curtail mail-in voting options, impose stringent voter ID requirements, limit voter registration opportunities, and allow even more aggressive purging of voter rolls. In the wake of a safe and secure election, which enabled greater levels of voter participation than in over a century, we should be building on this progress, not dismantling it.'' And that is what this act would do.…”