MONDAY 10am — US Senate Rules Committee to Hold Field Hearing in Atlanta
- Aunna Dennis (202)644-6500 adennis@commoncause.org
Media Contact
The US Senate Rules Committee will hold its first field hearing in 20 years on Monday, July 19, 2021 starting at 10:00 am at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, 100 Ivan Allen Jr Blvd NW, Atlanta, GA 30313.
The hearing was announced less than a week after Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans blocked even having a public debate on the For the People Act. The bill would create national standards for voting access, get big money out of politics, enforce ethics standards for all three branches of government, and require congressional districts to be drawn by a non-partisan commission so that no one party has an advantage.
Recent polling shows that when they learn about the For the People Act’s provisions, more than two-thirds of Americans support the bill — including half of Republicans and 65% of independents.
Statement of Common Cause Georgia Executive Director Aunna Dennis
We’re glad that the Senate Rules Committee is getting back out in the field, and meeting Americans where we are. Things look a lot different when viewed from Atlanta than they do from DC.
Here in Georgia, we’re watching closely what Congress does — and doesn’t do — this legislative session. We’ve heard that conservative donor groups are intent on killing the For the People Act. We continue to mobilize tens of thousands of Georgians to thank Senators Warnock and Ossoff for their strong support for the For the People Act, and urge them to do everything they can to get the bill to President Biden’s desk.
We hope that, with this field hearing, the Senate will begin to understand just how strongly voters support the changes that are included in the Act. Voters want to be sure that our elected officials represent us, not special interests. We want to be able to pick our politicians, not have politicians pick their voters through gerrymandering and voting barriers.
Far too many of us believe that our political parties and politicians ‘don’t care about people like me.’ It’s long past time to make the changes in the For the People Act, to ensure that we have a government ‘of, by and for the people’ and not the special interests.