SC Gov. McMaster, Sen. Graham call federal election bill a ‘power grab’ by Democrats

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster and U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham took turns on Tuesday blasting a sweeping federal elections bill out of the U.S. House that Democrats argue would expand voter access to the ballot box and strengthen campaign finance laws, too.

“I’ve been in the House and the Senate for a while now, and I’ve never been more worried about a piece of legislation than I am HR. 1,” Graham said of the “For the People Act.”

The House passed the reform measure in 220-210 vote back in March, months after President Joe Biden won the White House and, though narrowing their majority in the lower chamber, won two long-held GOP seats in Georgia to win the majority in the Senate.

The bill would restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts by requiring states to use nonpartisan commissions, instead of state legislatures, to drawn political boundaries, according to a New York Times summary of the bill. It also includes some campaign finance reforms.

The bill also would require states with voter ID laws to allow voters to swear to their identities if they don’t have an ID.

South Carolina already has an exception to its voter ID law, adopted in 2011. The following year, a federal court said the state must allow voters who can demonstrate a “reasonable impediment” to getting an ID to vote anyway.

“H.R. 1 is an attempt by the radical left to take over every election system in the country,” Graham said. “H.R. 1 would be the federalization of elections for Congress, it would be in violation of the Constitution, in my view, but the contents of this bill should scare everybody in South Carolina and throughout the nation who believe in robust voting, but integrity at the ballot box.”

McMaster echoed those claims, saying the legislation “threatens the constitutional sovereignty” of South Carolina.

“This country, our state is built on the sovereignty of the states,” McMaster said. “This bill takes that away.”

The omnibus election legislation has a narrow chance of passage in the Senate despite the Democrats’ razor thin majority.

One key Democrat that Democrats would need to win over is West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin. From the Governor’s Office in South Carolina, Graham implored Manchin to buck his party and, instead, think about his constituents in West Virginia.

“I think that Joe Manchin is not going to turn on the people of West Virginia,” Graham said. “Because here’s his choice: Allow the people of West Virginia to conduct elections, or allow the federal government to take over the election system for every American.”

South Carolina election reforms

State lawmakers are considering some of their own election reforms.

This year, the state Legislature could tighten the grip the State Election Commission has over county election offices, which the House bill would do, and restructure the state elections agency board, giving the Senate more control over who serves on it, which the upper chamber has proposed.

Both proposals come as mostly Republican State House leaders stand at odds with the agency’s director, Marci Andino, after she recommended last year that the state expand absentee voting during the COVID-19 pandemic and do away with the witness signature requirement.

The witness signature rule became the centerpiece of a legal battle that made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Since then, legislators have filed more than a dozen bills aiming to either expand or restrict voter access to the polls. But most have not made any progress.

McMaster called the Senate’s proposal “unnecessary,” while the bill sponsored by House Speaker Jay Lucas, R-Darlington, is “superb.”

“I think that’s a bad idea,” McMaster said of the Senate measure. “It doesn’t make sense to me. Looks like a power grab for no reason.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.