H I L A R Y O N T H E HILL
On Capitol Hill, It’s Already 2022
E
lection Day, November 5, marked the end of the unprecedented 2020 election cycle, but also the beginning of the 2022 election cycle. As the outgoing president questioned the validity of the outcome of the election and civil unrest began to foment, erupting into a riot on January 6, state legislatures across the country began to propose, and enact, legislation to restrict Americans’ access to the ballot box. In reaction, Congress began to debate in earnest a sweeping measure designed to combat what Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls “the greatest contraction of voting rights since the end of reconstruction and the beginning of Jim Crow.” NYSBA is monitoring federal legislation currently being proposed, and its potential impact on redistricting, in
order to advocate for the preservation of this fundamental aspect of democracy: the right to vote. On January 4, the For the People Act was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives as H.R.1. The nomenclature denotes the prominence the House Democratic majority ascribes to this issue. On March 3, the measure passed on a largely party-line vote of 220–210. This nearly 800-page bill is designed to provide a nationwide floor on election and voting requirements and prevent states from restricting voting access. States would be permitted to go further or, theoretically, jurisdictions could ignore the rules for state and local elections, but this would be difficult to implement. Democratic congressional action has been spurred by legislative proposals
Hilary Jochmans is the policy director for the New York State Bar Association and a member of the House of Delegates. She is also the founder of Jochmans Consulting, a boutique government affairs business. Previously, Jochmans was the director of the New York State Governor’s Office in Washington for both Andrew Cuomo and David Paterson. She has spent a dozen years on Capitol Hill working in the House and Senate.
New York State Bar Association
40
Journal, July/August 2021
