substantive and forward looking to try to kind of take the heat off this issue or at least to sap it of some of its ongoing destructive power. after republican senators in june blocked the big voting rights bill called the for the people act, these nine senators went back to the drawing room to try to find something else, some other approach that could potentially get around the republican opposition while also bolstering voting rights for real. right now these republican fantasies and fabalisms about elections are being treated as pretext enough to nuke voting rights and to nuke the professional nonpartisan administration of elections all around the country. well, the freedom to vote act released today for the first time is 592 pages of compromised legislation that would establish national minimum standards for early voting and vote by mail
around the country. well, the freedom to vote act released today for the first time is 592 pages of compromised legislation that would establish national minimum standards for early voting and vote by mail and national minimum standards for nonpartisan map making for drawing congressional districts and federal standards for handling elections equipment and records including cyber security around those things. it s a lot. it s 600 pages of a lot. the democrats say every single democratic senator will support it. crucially they have put democratic senator joe manchin of west virginia in charge of scaring up ten republican senators to vote for this major so it can survive another inevitable republican filibuster. that said the lead republican of the senate, mitch mcconnell, already promised today within hours of the bill being announced that won t happen,