Sen. Hagerty: HR1 is Democrats’ attempt at ‘complete power grab’

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Sen. Hagerty on border ‘crisis,’ election bill

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., discusses the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border on ‘America Reports.’ He also expresses criticism of Democrats’ proposed election security bill, which he calls a ‘complete power grab.’

Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., is speaking out against Democrats’ proposed election reform bill, calling the measure a "complete power grab" designed to take authority away from the states.

The For the People Act of 2021, known as H.R. 1, passed the House last week with no Republican support. President Biden has urged the Senate to pass the bill.

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Hagerty joined John Roberts on "America Reports" on Wednesday to make his case against the bill.

SEN. BILL HAGERTY: "If you like the way the Democrats are handling border security, just wait till they get their hands on election security. This so-called ‘For the People Act’ is another typically misnamed act here in Washington. It should be called ‘for the politicians,’ because what it does is it allows the Democrats, if it were to pass, to federalize our election system.

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You know, the Constitution is very clear in Article Two, Section One, state legislatures have the sole responsibility for setting the election laws. Those state legislators are directly responsible to their state’s voters. What happens in this bill? They want to take all that away.

It’s going to create a lot more concern about the election at a time when we need to be creating more confidence in our elections.

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I cannot imagine a single Republican going for this effort, which is really just a complete power grab by the Democrats. They’ve taken control of the executive branch, the legislative branch. This is their effort to make it permanent, to go to a single party system.

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We’re looking to Senator [Joe] Manchin and to Senator [Kyrsten] Sinema [to] keep to their word to maintain the filibuster. I think what this will feel like on the other side, they don’t want to be in the situation either. It would remove any chance of having bipartisanship. So my hope and my expectation is that it will not change. As long as the filibuster rule stays in place, this will not become law."

Fox News’ Evie Fordham contributed to this report.