We begin today’s roundup with an editorial from The Washington Post on the Democratic agenda in the House:
THE NEW Democratic majority House gaveled in on Thursday with reform on its agenda — not so much of policy but of democracy itself. Admirably, the majority aims both to repair House rules and to improve the functioning of democratic institutions more broadly. Given the coarsening discourse and widening polarization, the challenge is immense.
House Democrats will release H.R. 1 on Friday, and it will be a sprawling package — addressing campaign financing, voting rights, election cybersecurity and more. The bill reportedly will mandate that political action committees report their donors. It would mend the big hole that the Supreme Court ripped in the Voting Rights Act, which had guaranteed access to the voting booth to generations of minority Americans. It would help states replace old election equipment, curb extreme partisan gerrymandering and encourage small-dollar campaign donations.
At USA Today, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jim McGovern write about the Democratic commitment to clean government and accountability:
The Democratic majority means a fresh beginning after the most closed Congress in our nation’s history — a Republican Congress that shut out the voices of the American people to push backroom, speed-of-light, dark-of-night tax scams for the special interests, while enabling the worst of the Trump administration’s rampant culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence.
That is why we are proud to unveil a rules package that will usher in a new era of clean government that will honor the consensus of the American people — restoring the people’s house to the people. Transparency, ethics and unity will be the guiding light of the Democratic Congress.