Republicans Rewrote Voting Laws for 8 Years. Now Democrats Say It’s Their Turn.

In the years after Republicans swept state and congressional elections in 2010, legislatures in 25 states — all but a handful of them dominated by the party — enacted laws that made it harder to register and vote, from imposing ID requirements and curbing voter registration drives to rolling back early voting periods. In November, Democrats reclaimed some of the ground they lost eight years ago. And now the rules for casting a ballot are moving fast in the opposite direction.... And in the House of Representatives, they are pressing a sweeping overhaul of election and ethics laws — titled H.R. 1 to underscore its importance — that would, among many other things, end partisan gerrymanders, disclose anonymous donors to political causes and reinstate crucial parts of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court invalidated in 2013. Republicans call the legislation an attack on states’ constitutional authority over elections and redistricting, and its campaign finance limits an assault on free speech. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican and majority leader, already has said the bill would be dead on arrival in the Senate should it clear the House, as appears all but guaranteed.... Should Republicans block the bill, “it becomes a marker by which we start measuring McConnell, the Senate and anybody else who stands in the way,” Representative John Sarbanes, a Maryland Democrat who is the House bill’s principal sponsor, said in an interview. “I think it’ll be increasingly difficult for him to resist this as a narrative.”