The Democrat-controlled House passed bill HR 1 Friday — the dubiously named “For the People Act.” The purpose of the bill, according to Democrats, is to “expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and strengthen ethics rules for public servants.” However, far from “expanding Americans’ access to the ballot box,” the bill instead runs roughshod over Americans’ constitutional rights and states’ rights, diminishing the power of citizens’ votes by failing to prohibit noncitizen voting.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) noted the irony of a bill ostensibly crafted to expand and protect the voting rights of Americans but doing the exact opposite: “It sounds like I’m making it up. What kind of government would cancel the vote of its own citizens, and replace it with noncitizens?” Crenshaw added, “Today I offered a motion to recommit #HR1 reaffirming that only US citizens should have the right to vote. Dems rejected it. Next time you go to the ballot box, keep that in mind. The future of their party is in cities like San Fran, where illegals can vote. Let that sink in.”

The bill makes an absolute mockery of federalism, as it would establish greater centralized control over elections by Washington bureaucrats. In other words, this bill is little more than a federal power grab that National Review’s editors criticize for “creating a chilling effect on political communications through sheer uncertainty and confusion.” NR’s editors further note, “Democrats seem to believe that political speech is just too dangerous to be unrestrained. It has to be micromanaged, regulated by technocrats until it is directed into its government-approved lanes. This is of course exactly what incumbent politicians tend to prefer. They want predictable debates, reliable funding streams, and (above all) power — including the power to punish their opponents.”

In fact, HR 1 is so bad that even the leftist American Civil Liberties Union opposes it, writing in a 13-page letter that the bill would “unconstitutionally impinge on the free speech rights of American citizens and public interest organizations.” And the chairman of the Institute for Free Speech, Bradley Smith, observes that the Democrats’ “goal seems to be to limit discussion of candidates to the candidates and parties themselves, at the expense of the public at large. However, even candidates are likely to find their speech severely restricted were H.R. 1 to become law.”

The Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky astutely argues, “All legislation proposed by Congress should be necessary, constitutional, and good policy. H.R. 1 is none of these things. It is unnecessary, unconstitutional, and bad policy. It does nothing to protect voters or to help election officials administer a fair and secure voter registration and election process. Put bluntly, it imposes federal micromanagement on the states, reversing the local oversight of the election process that our Founders believed was essential to preserving liberty and freedom in America.”

This is nothing but a bald-faced attempt by Democrats to further direct and control the outcome of America’s national elections. It is anything but constitutional or democratic for that matter. Legislation like this, coupled with the attempt by several Democrat-controlled states to subvert the Electoral College, is yet more evidence of the extreme Left’s near-complete takeover of the Democrat Party. And for all intents and purposes, the current Democrat Party has more in common with one-party Marxism than the U.S. Constitution.