Did a Senate committee block McConnell’s attempt to redirect proposed congressional campaign funding to address opioid abuse?
By Gus Fisher
Copy link
Copy featured image
YES
Republican Senators in committee proposed more than 100 amendments to an expansive Democrat-backed election reform bill. One, proposed by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, would have redirected new funding for congressional election campaigns to efforts to address the nation's opioid epidemic. The amendment didn’t win the required majority.
The campaign funding provision in the bill would allow candidates to opt into accepting public funding, a step intended to diminish the influence of special interests. Other provisions in the legislation address early voting, absentee voting and voter registration. The House has passed the bill, but its prospects of passage by the Senate remain uncertain given strong Republican opposition.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
US Congress S.1—For the People Act of 2021
National Conference of State Legislatures Public financing of campaigns: Overview
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
