“Clearly this request is not a serious effort to make a law. Clearly something so partisan that it only received one single solitary Republican vote in the House is not going to travel through the Senate by unanimous consent,” said McConnell.<
McConnell also objected to Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Connecticut) request for consent to pass the Duty to Report Act, which requires candidates, campaign officials and their family members to inform the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) when they receive offers of assistance from foreign nationals. The bill also requires the disclosure of all meetings between candidates/campaign officials and foreign government agents.
On Wednesday, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Mississippi) blocked Democrats request for consent to pass a trio of election security legislation including the Duty to Report Act, the Foreign Influence Reporting in Elections (FIRE) Act and the Senate Cybersecurity Protection Act.
Sen. Hyde-Smith did not provide any reason for her objections to the election security bills. However, in a tweet on Thursday, she echoed McConnell’s argument that Democrats were attempting to pass “partisan” legislation.
