A slew of Hollywood celebrities including Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Chrissy Teigen have added their names to Michelle Obama’s effort to convince the Senate to pass the “For the People Act” — a Democratic bill that would expand vote by mail and ease requirements for voter photo identification.
Condemned by Republicans as a potential disaster for the country, the 791-page bill would also restore voting rights to convicted felons and facilitate ballot harvesting.
In an open letter published Tuesday, Michelle Obama urges Americans to pressure their senators into voting for the bill, which has already passed the House of Representatives. The letter also invokes the Capitol Hill riots of January 6, calling it a “historic day of shame.”
“We urge every American to remember how it felt to watch as our Capitol was desecrated earlier this year—and to channel that outrage into patriotic duty,” says the letter, which is co-signed by former Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett.
Among the more than 60 celebrities who added their names to the letter are Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Schumer, Chelsea Handler, Faith Hill, Eva Longoria, and Whoopi Goldberg.
The “For the People Act” — formerly known as H.R. 1 — would reduce the powers of states to oversee their elections, giving the federal government more power to determine voting laws at a local level.
As Breitbart News reported, the bill would vastly expand vote by mail without requiring voter identification. The bill calls voter photo ID and other measures “restrictions on the right to vote,” while suggesting these are forms of “racial discrimination” and “systemic racism.”
The bill would also protect illegal aliens from prosecution if they are registered to vote automatically and never made an affirmative declaration that they were U.S. citizens. Agencies that register voters would not be required to keep records of people who declined to affirm their citizenship.
Republicans have denounced the bill, saying that it would damage the country’s electoral system and lead to a the federal government seizing power from states to govern their owwn elections.
“This is something that will federalize our elections. It’s a D.C. takeover of our elections,” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) told Breitbart News last week.
Michelle Obama’s letter comes from her When We All Vote organization, which recruited celebrity influencers to promote vote by mail during the 2020 presidential election.
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