Lee compares election reform proposal to Sedition Act

During a Wednesday appearance on Fox News Channel, Sen. Mike Lee delved into his bag of hyperbole to attack HR1, the Democratic-sponsored election reform bill currently under debate in the Senate.

“This bill would turn the Democratic Party into a sort of revolutionary institutional party that would control American politics for decades, and would do so in a way that would clamp down on political free speech to such a degree that it would almost rival the Alien and Sedition Acts in terms of the tyranny it imposes on the American people,” hyperventilated Lee.

Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798 in response to a perceived threat that France was about to invade the United States. The laws increased residency requirements for U.S. citizens to 14 years and permitted the government to arrest and deport all male citizens of an enemy nation in the event of war. The president was given the power to expel any non-citizen suspected of plotting against the government, even in peacetime. The Sedition Act was particularly heinous as it outlawed any “false, scandalous and malicious writing” against Congress or the president.

This is not the first time Lee has railed against HR1, which provides for nationwide automatic voter registration, enacts several campaign finance reforms, and requires every state to use an independent redistricting process to prevent gerrymandering. In March, Lee said the proposal was “written by the devil himself” and that he disagreed with “every single word in HR1, including the words ‘but’ and ‘the.’”

Read more: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2021/05/13/rundown-lee-compares/
(Salt Lake Tribune)