The ladies of “The View,” both conservative and liberal alike, blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Thursday for voicing opposition to a bill that would make Election Day a national holiday to allow more citizens to vote.
The bill, known as the “For The People Act of 2019,” would not only result in rising voter turnout because more Americans across the country would have the day off to go vote, it would prevent gerrymandering, institute national early voting and get corporate money out of political campaigns.
But McConnell attacked the legislation as a “power grab” by Democrats and claimed it would amount to a “paid vacation” for federal employees.
His remarks outraged many, who threw the book at him on social media for admitting that Republicans don’t want more people to vote because they think higher voter turnout benefits Democrats.
One would have expected the conservative hosts on “The View” to defend McConnell, but that was not the case on Thursday when the topic came up. In fact, all of the hosts blasted him.
“I think one, Election Day should be off,” Whoopi Goldberg began to commence the criticism. “And Mitch, I know this is going to come as a shock, but Republicans vote too.”
Indeed, many Republicans would love the day off so they have time to vote. Both parties would benefit from higher voter turnout and the ability for people to exercise their civic responsibility to democracy, something Republican lawmakers like McConnell apparently don’t care about.
Joy Behar noted that Republicans also oppose the bill because more black and Hispanic voters would be able to get to the polls, and since those two groups mostly vote for Democrats it would be a disadvantage to the GOP.
“The demographics are changing and more people of Hispanic heritage and African-American are coming in,” Behar said. “They don’t like that because they don’t vote Republican.”
But Abby Huntsman chimed in by saying if Republicans really want more people to vote for them they should change their own messaging instead of making things worse by opposing this bill to make democracy work better.
“But you don’t run scared from that,” Huntsman said. “Maybe we should change some of our messaging so we can get more federal workers to vote Republican.”
Sunny Hostin said that McConnell is a hypocrite for whining about federal workers getting a “paid vacation” when the recent 35 government shutdown caused by President Donald Trump and Republicans resulted in 800,000 of them not getting paid for weeks. She also suggested holding elections on the weekend like other countries with higher turnouts do instead of on a Tuesday, which has contributed to the United States having one of the lowest turnouts of the world’s democracies.
Even Meghan McCain criticized McConnell because our Election Day is based on an outdated system going back to when people had to travel by horse and buggy to vote. McCain went on to support the Democratic plan because working parents would not have to get a babysitter so they can go vote. She then reminded everyone that she supports Australia’s voting system.
“I want people to be fined not to vote,” she said. “I’m for Australia’s way of voting at this point. If you don’t vote you’re fined.”
Behar continued slamming McConnell’s hypocrisy because the real “power grab” occurred when he blocked Merrick Garland from getting on the Supreme Court for a year even though former President Obama had every right to pick a replacement for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.
Hostin then cheered for another aspect of the bill, which requires presidential tickets to release ten years of their tax returns, an obvious response to Trump refusing to release his despite repeatedly promising he would during the 2016 campaign.
Overall, the ladies resoundingly rejected McConnell’s opposition to a bill that everyone, even Republicans, should support.
Here’s the video via Twitter.
McCONNELL SLAMS ELECTION DAY BILL: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a strong reaction to a bill that would make Election Day a federal holiday, calling it a “power grab” by the Democrats — the co-hosts weigh in on the bill and his reaction. pic.twitter.com/9tWXyuF9Zr
— The View (@TheView) January 31, 2019
Featured Image: YouTube screenshot
