It’s no secret that the 2020 election cycle left the Republican Party in a precarious spot. Following November’s election, Americans were left facing a Democrat majority in the House of Representatives, a Senate split right down the middle (with Kamala Harris serving as tie breaker), and a Democrat President in the White House.
As they headed into 2021, the Democrats wasted no time with their newly acquired power and got to work right away, attempting to push alarmingly radical policies into law. From infringements on the Second Amendment to blows against election integrity, here are four examples you might have missed.
The “For The People Act of 2021”
On March 3rd, 2021 the House of Representatives passed H.R.1, also known as the “For The People Act of 2021”.
Sponsored by Representative John P. Sarbanes (D-MD), the bill was advertised as a “common sense” legislative measure, designed to supposedly provide Americans with easier, more reliable access to the voting process. On the other hand, critics argue that the bill is an attempt to provide an unfair advantage to the Democrats during future elections.
H.R.1 includes various policies that would expand mail-in voting, early voting, automatic registration, and same day registration. The bill also aims to place restrictions on state voter identification requirements by allowing citizens to sign a “sworn written statement” instead of showing their legal identification. The given reasoning behind the crackdown on voter ID focuses on the claim that identification requirements are “excessively onerous” and “disproportionately burden” minority communities.
Senior Legal Fellow Hans Von Spakovsky elaborated on the dangers of the bill in an article for The Heritage Foundation, which outlined three key reasons why the bill should be opposed:
First, the bill would “usurp the role of the states” in elections and ultimately damage the integrity of the voting process as a whole. Second, he argues that citizenship and identity should be authenticated before casting a ballot. And last, he stresses that it is not Congress’ job to try and fix election related issues since federal intervention would only make existing problems worse.
Those who oppose the Democrats’ “For the People Act” posit that the removal of identification requirements endangers America’s Republic, and should be condemned. Valid identification is already required to drive, drink, and purchase a firearm, and to maintain logical consistency, identification should be required to vote.
The fate of the bill will be decided by the United States Senate.
The “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021”
H.R.8 — more commonly known as the “Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021” — was passed by the House of Representatives on March 11, 2021. The final tally was 227 votes to 203, with all but one Democrat member voting yes, alongside eight Republicans.
The bill requires a federal background check for nearly every change of possession a firearm goes through, even those which are temporary or private. According to an analysis of the bill conducted by the NRA, simply handing a firearm to another person would, in many cases, become a criminal offense.
The original sponsor of the bill is Representative Mike Thompson (D-CA). When explaining the legislation, Thompson claimed it was to “help prevent gun violence and keep our communities safe.”
Conversely, critics argue that Thompson and others are being misleading. They claim that the bill is not about safety, but rather exists as an outright attack against law abiding gun owners.
The bill now awaits a vote in the U.S. Senate.
The “Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021”
The Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, or H.R.1446 is a bill that passed in the house on March 11th, 2021 with a final vote of 219-210.
The bill was sponsored by Representative James E. Clyburn (D-SC) and aims to eliminate the “Charleston loophole” — named after the Charleston shooting in 2015 that left nine individuals dead inside of the Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Charleston loophole is a term used to describe an event where an individual obtains a firearm after their mandatory background check takes longer than three business days to complete. The so-called “loophole” is possible because of an amendment to the 1993 Brady Bill made three days the maximum amount of time an uncompleted background check can prevent an individual from obtaining a firearm.
The proposed bill would raise the firearm hold limit to a maximum of ten business days, meaning Americans could expect wait periods of over three times the length they experience now.
Numerous experts on the second amendment have weighed in, including Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Keane claims, “This bill increases the burden on small business firearm retailer owners and flips the burden of proof on its head. This would make it incumbent upon the law-abiding citizen to prove his or her innocence to the government to exercise their Second Amendment right to purchase a firearm instead of the government being responsible for proving an individual is prohibited. This could potentially deny a law-abiding citizen their rights for up to a month, while they are saddled with the burden of proving their innocence. That’s un-American.”
The Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021 was passed the same day as the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 (above), and they both aim to complete the same goal — outright suppression of the firearm rights of millions of law-abiding citizens across the country.
The U.S. Senate will vote next to determine the fate of the bill.
President Biden’s Flurry of Executive Orders
When President Biden took office earlier this year, he wasted no time and released a flurry of executive orders that created new policies and reversed old ones. According to a Newsweek fact check, President Biden broke the record for the most executive orders in a president’s first week.
According to the Daily Wire’s Ian Haworth, when it comes to Biden’s “Executive Order on Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act”, federal agencies will be directed to expand access to Obamacare and effectively work towards the long-term goal of achieving socialized medicine.
The Democratic Party is by no means shy about socialized medicine being part of their radical agenda. On the official website of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — a prominent face of the Democrats — she “is an unapologetic advocate of Medicare for All, which would create a universal, single payer healthcare system.” Some might argue that Ocasio-Cortez is too far Left and doesn’t represent the entirety of the Democratic party, though. So, what about the sitting Vice President?
In a 2019 op-ed for Medium, Vice President Kamala Harris — who was a Presidential candidate at the time — claimed that, “In America, health care should be a right, not a privilege only for those who can afford it. It’s why we need Medicare for All.”
Biden’s “Executive order on Strengthening Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act” is simply the Democrats taking another step towards making socialized medicine a reality.
Another alarmingly radical executive order known as the “Memorandum of Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad” rescinds the Mexico City policy. According to Haworth, this means that the executive order would allocate tax payer dollars to abortions taking place outside of the United States.
It should come as surprise to no one that the Democrats are taking advantage of the control they have of multiple branches of the federal government, that’s the way politics work. However, the question that every American needs to be asking themselves is how far (or how radical) will they go before midterms hit in 2022?
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.