For the People Act of 2021

Floor Speech

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Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, I disagree with this amendment. It would strike section 4208 of H.R. 1 which requires online platforms to retain records of certain online political advertisements. According to Forbes magazine, political advertisers spent $1.6 billion online in the 2020 election--almost 10 times what they spent in 2012.

At a time when Americans are increasingly bombarded with political ads online, striking this provision is not useful and would harm the efforts of this bill to provide increased transparency in political advertising. Fundamentally, Americans deserve to know who is paying for online political ads to ensure that they are informed voters.

Digital advertising can also have a far greater reach than broadcast advertising. Online political ads are relatively inexpensive to produce and can be disseminated instantly to vast audiences across great distances without regard to geographic boundaries. It is time for our disclosure and disclaimer laws and regulations to be updated to reflect how campaigns are run in the 21st century and how to keep pace with changing technology.

The online platform records requirements in this section are key to the Honest Ads Act, which is a part of H.R. 1, designed to improve transparency in political advertising. By requiring online platforms to retain copies of political ads, everyday Americans at home will be able to see who is paying for what. These requirements are narrowly drawn and only apply to online platforms with over 50 million monthly unique visitors and to advertisers who run over $500 a year in political advertisements.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the measure and protect this important reform.

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Ms. LOFGREN. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 179, I rise to offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. Speaker, this bloc of amendments provides important additions to H.R. 1 that strengthen the bill and enhance voter access.

Among the amendments in the bloc is an amendment from the gentlewoman from Virginia that would require foreign agent disclaimers to be included on social media content. This increases transparency by requiring disclaimers to be embedded on the face of a social media post itself, and those disclaimers must remain whenever the post is subsequently shared.

There are four amendments from the gentlewoman from California, including one that addresses longstanding privacy concerns of survivors of domestic and sexual abuse who want to register to vote but do not want their personal information to be publicly accessible; and a second that requires all in-person voting locations to have a sufficient number of accessible voting machines for their voters.

There is an amendment from the gentleman from California that clarifies prohibitions on polling places or ballot drop boxes that falsely purport to be an official location established for an election.

I would note that, in California, the Republican Party in southern California established drop boxes that purported to be from the registrar of voters. That was deceptive. An agreement was reached with the secretary of state that they could have the boxes, but they couldn't hold themselves out to be the registrar of voters.

H.R. 1 calls for all States to provide same-day voter registration. The gentlewoman from Michigan's amendment makes an important addition that will help ensure the successful carrying out of this requirement: States must ensure that they have adequate copies of registration forms and other relevant voter registration at polling places.

There is an amendment from the gentleman from New York that requires the GAO to conduct a study on voter turnout rates, broken down by age in States and localities that permit voters to participate in elections before the age of 18. This is an issue that merits examination, and this amendment will ensure that Congress is fully equipped to debate the issue.

There is an amendment from the gentlewoman from Illinois that would require the GAO to review small-donor campaign financing to study the extent to which the program increases opportunities for candidates of diverse racial, gender, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

There is an amendment from the gentlewoman from Georgia that would require the Director of the CFPB to work with the EAC to develop a statement providing certain individuals with information regarding voter registration and their voting rights. This commonsense reform ensures that tenants and homeowners will have easy access to voter registration and other voter-related information.

Finally, there is an amendment from the gentlewoman from California that would ensure that the bill's prohibitions against election disinformation cover false claims that voters will face civil and other legal penalties for voting.

I support these amendments, and I urge their adoption.

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Mr. RODNEY DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to request a meeting with the Parliamentarian. I personally witnessed one of my Democratic colleagues immediately remove his mask and was never told to put it back on from the Chair at the time. So all we ask for is consistency.

Madam Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on this bill. I urge support for the motion to recommit. I urge my Democratic colleagues: Don't vote to put money into your own campaigns.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. LOFGREN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I appreciate that the ranking member has shown us this chart because he has proven that all of the Republican Members claiming that there was tax money funding the pilot project for the small matching donors were wrong.

This is a pilot project that is funded by an additional fine on corporate wrongdoing. It doesn't take money away from anything else. It is an additional fine that, if H.R. 1 doesn't pass, will not be imposed.

I was interested to hear our colleague from New Jersey say it is your money that will be used. Well, it is only your money if you are a corporate malfeasance individual, a corporate wrongdoer that gets fined; and I don't think very many of us have sympathy for that crew.

I would like to just give some perspective here because all over the United States, because of the pandemic, efforts were made to allow for people to vote and not have to endanger their health. So absentee voting became more of the norm. There were more early voting efforts, a lot of things of that nature, because of the pandemic.

And what happened?

There was a huge increase in turnout, both among Republicans and Democrats. It was a safe and secure election, the most safe and secure election in modern history. There wasn't a bunch of fraud.

Some of my colleagues said that people don't trust our system.

Why is that?

Because there are politicians in this country that are misleading the American public about that election. And I would say the former President is first among them, telling things that are not true and convincing people of that.

So now that we have had this huge turnout because of the pandemic, we are seeing States--Republicans, I must say, unfortunately, all over the United States trying to cut off access to the ballot.

In Georgia, they just passed a whole slew of voter restriction measures to try and tamp down turnout, and we see hundreds of bills being introduced to do that.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this en bloc and on the underlying bill.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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