Former Vice-President Mike Pence on Wednesday broke his silence to criticize HR1, a sweeping government, ethics and election bill the House is expected to pass on Wednesday by spreading false claims about election fraud in the November election.
In an op-ed in the Daily Signal a publication run by the conservative Heritage Foundation, Pence did not give specific examples of what he believes to be voter fraud. Instead, he repeated Trump’s claims that there were “significant voting irregularities” and “numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law” in the 2020 presidential election.
Pence who was a target of the mob that called for his hanging, said the events of Jan. 6 had “deprived the American people of a substantive discussion in Congress about election integrity in America.”
He urged Congress to vote against HR 1 arguing that the bill “mandates the most questionable and abuse-prone election rules nationwide, while banning commonsense measures to detect, deter, and prosecute election fraud.”
He also called the bill an “unconstitutional power grab”that would increase opportunities for election fraud, trample the First Amendment, further erode confidence in elections and dilute the votes of legally qualified eligible voters.
The bill is expected to pass the House on Wednesday but will likely fail in the Senate since there aren’t enough Republicans votes to overcome a filibuster.
One of the provisions in the bill bars states from restricting the ability to vote by mail and calls for independent redistricting commissions to draw the electoral map.
The bill would also institute an ethics code for the US Supreme Court that would apply to justices and would implement measures intended to prevent presidential conflicts of interest, according to CNN.
