Lindsey Graham on H.R. 1: "It's Sick" For President Biden To "Play The Race Card Continuously In Such A Hypocritical Way"

"FOX News Sunday" host Chris Wallace asks Lindsey Graham about a controversial new voting rights bill proposal in Georgia and the chances H.R. 1, Democrats' omnibus voting rights bill, has in the Senate. In response to President Biden saying Georgia's attempt to restrict voting rights is "sick," Graham said: "You know what's sick is have the president of the United States to play the race card continuously in such a hypocritical way. He said the filibuster was a relic of the Jim Crow era. Well, he made an hour speech when he was a senator suggesting the filibuster was the best thing for the Senate to make it different in the House." "They use the racism card to enact a liberal agenda, and we're tired of it," Graham said. "What's sick is HR 1, federalizing state elections. In our Constitution, states are supposed to run elections. H.R. 1 is the biggest power grab in the history of the country. It institutionalizes ballot harvesting. It does away with the voter ID requirement. It will take over every election in every state. It makes the Federal Election Commission a partisan commission. It will no longer be bipartisan. So that's the power grab we're standing up to." <blockquote>WALLACE: President Biden has come down hard on Republican legislators in traditionally red states voting to restrict voting rights. Take a look at what he said in his news conference. <A href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/03/22/president_biden_plans_to_visit_the_southern_border_at_some_point_i_know_whats_going_on.html">JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What I'm worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It's sick. It's sick.</a> WALLACE: Senator, are Republicans going too far in some of these various states? GRAHAM: You know, what's sick is have the president of the United States to play the race card continuously in such a hypocritical way. He said the filibuster was a relic of the Jim Crow era. Well, he made an hour speech when he was a senator suggesting the filibuster was the best thing for the Senate to make it different in the House. This is a letter signed by 61 senators in 2017, when we had the House, the Senate, and the White House, 27 Democrats saying please keep in place the filibuster. What's sick is HR 1, federalizing state elections. In our Constitution, states are supposed to run elections. H.R. 1 is the biggest power grab in the history of the country. It institutionalizes ballot harvesting. It does away with the voter ID requirement. It will take over every election in every state. It makes the Federal Election Commission a partisan commission. It will no longer be bipartisan. So that's the power grab we're standing up to. To my friends in Georgia, they had the highest turnout in the history of Georgia. We had 150 million something people vote. So every time a Republican does anything, we're a racist. If you're a white conservative, you're a racist. If you're a black Republican, you're either a prop or Uncle Tom. They use the racism card to advance a liberal agenda and we're tired of it. H.R. 1 is sick, not what they're doing in Georgia. WALLACE: All right, well, let's take a look at some of the provisions in Georgia. And -- and these are specific ones that a lot of people are having heartburn about, Senator. It would limit the number and location of drop boxes. It allows counties to cut off early voting at 5:00 p.m., before a lot of working people get off and could go vote. And this is the one that I think is creating the biggest fuss, it prohibits, it makes it a crime to give food or drink to voters waiting in line. Senator, why on earth, if Americans are willing to wait in hours to vote, would you make it a crime for people to come and give them a bottle water? GRAHAM: Well, we -- all I can say is that that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I agree with you there. But, in Georgia, you had an explosion of mail-in balloting. The Carter-Baker Commission in 2005 looked at our election system and they had two warnings for us. Absentee mail voting is ripe for fraud and ballot harvesting where an individual can collect ballots on behalf of other people is a threat to democracy as we know it. Both of those provisions are in H.R. 1. So if you don't like what they're doing in Georgia, you can go to court and stop them. But what they're doing with H.R. 1 is destroying the ability of any state to run elections, doing away with voter idea, changing the Federal Election Commission to make it partisan and institutionalizing national ballot harvesting, which would be a disaster to our elections.</blockquote>