rifle association and have voted for more gun control. by this friday, they will have an opportunity to vote on a bill that will get them an f. rating with the national right to life. it's hard to go back home ratingu have an f. with the national right to life and an f. rating with [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> kate ackley is the senior roll call.er with cq foris hr one a big priority democratic leadership? >> well, it was on the campaign well, it was on the campaign trail. they talked about the components that have made their way into h.r. it was really a signature piece of the campaigns for a lot of

the people who are now democratic freshmen, lawmakers and to make this a top priority -- they signed a letter urging house speaker nancy pelosi to make this a top priority, so i think you are seeing them trying to make good on a campaign pledge. >> it's a big bill in terms of not only priority, but the number of pages in the bill covering three distinct areas, campaign finance, voting rights and congressional ethics. tell us some of the key details in each of those areas that we should know about the base bill. >> it is a very big legislative package. it's up to 622 pages at last count. when it comes to the campaign finance component, some of the signature pieces that are in there is a public matching system so government money could be used to fund the election.

this is something that many democrats and liberal organizations really, really like about this bill, and it's also been a main line of attack of people like senator mitch mcconnell and other opponents of this measure. but what that would do basically is it would incentivize people to give small dollar contributions. so if you gave $20 say, the government would come in with a so it wouldatch, give a big punch to the small dollar donations, anything under $200 could be subject to the six to one match. that's a big deal. another big deal in the campaign finance overhaul portion of this bill would remake the federal election commission. in charge of regulating federal elections. it's been widely viewed as sort of a broken and dysfunctional agency. it only has right now four commissioners out of six and to take action, they need four in

favor of moving to take an enforcement action so they're down two members. that's an issue. what this bill would do is transform it from a six-member, three democratic, three republican agency to a five member panel and you would have the chairman or the chairwoman would have new power to bring enforcement action and the general counsel would have additional power. so people see this as a way to sort of break the deadlock but then you have opponents of the bill saying it's basically just going to turn the federal election commission into sort of partisan hack, if you will, taking action only against people on the others of the aisle and so forth. >> you were also writing about this, this bill, some areas where things may not be obvious to everybody. things we should know about the bill. what are one or two of those?

>> we look at that. what are some of the things people haven't been talking about as much. we have been talking about the taxpayer match. but one of the things she highlighted in her portion of this story was that it would provide statehood for d.c. so those of us who are residents of d.c. would get two senators and a full voting member of congress, that's something that folks in d.c. talk about a lot. that's interesting. that's in that bill. one thing i was interested to discover is it would no longer allow corporations or unions to donate money to inaugural committees. those are the committees that raise a whole bunch of money to basically celebrate an incoming president right on his or her inauguration. so that would be a big change. it would also roll down the donation limits for those

inaugural committees. to $50,000, so you could no longer see a company give $1 million to an inaugural committee. >> the rules committee is allowing amendments to be 72 debated on the bill. what are some of the contentious ones? roilme that were going to the congress were not included. one that would have rolled back the johnson amendment. which has been widely controversial. republicans tried to roll back the johnson amendment in their tax overhaul in 2017. the johnson amendment basically prohibits churches and charities from doing express political endorsements and things like that. it's something that house republicans have really had their eyes on for decades, but certainly, years to roll that back so that, you know, a pastor, for example, could expressly endorse someone for

the presidency or congress. democrats did not rule that in order. so that will not be debated. one that is interesting, a ayannan democrat, pressley of massachusetts, has one that will be considered, to lower the nation's voting age to 16. that would mean you could start voting when you get your driver's license. that would be a big change. she noted the youth of the country have been taking a key role fighting certain policy debates such as gun control and she said that she thought that the young people of this country starting at 16 deserve the right to vote. i think you will see vigorous debate there. i am not sure there will be bipartisan support but i will be watching that with keen interest. >> lastly, if this likely passes the house, it is pretty clear

the senate won't take it up. senator mcconnell holding another news conference about that, the president making his position clear, this tweet saying that if it was presented to the president, he wouldn't sign it. does that relegate hr1 to just a messaging bill for democratic leadership? >> it is a messaging bill. it is a political document. even some of its most ardent supports have said they think this is a multi-year push. that is something both sides agree on, whether you love this bill or hate it, nobody predicting it is going to be enacted in this congress. mcconnell said he won't bring it for a vote, and the president has threatened to veto it. not likely to be enacted this congress. but it is something you are going to see being discussed on the campaign trail. we have seen every single democratic candidate for

president in the primary swear off corporate pac donations and try to kind of one up each other when it comes to money in politics, so this will be a starting point, major point of discussion for presidential, senate candidates, house members. >> we have been speaking with kate ackley. you can read more at rollcall.com. her latest piece on campaign spending. well.on twitter as thanks so much. >> we will have more live coverage of the house when they return at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. after a. , there will be a debate and final vote on the bill. watch live coverage on sees and -- on c-span. liveashington journal,"

every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up thursday morning, north dakota congresswoman kelly armstrong discusses house democratss' investigations of president trump, and a discussion about the u.s. trade deficit, which increased to 803 billion dollars, highest in history. . and a new report on american debt and spending habits. watch c-span's "washington ive at 7:00 eastern. join the discussion. >> the war in the pacific, a measles, and the life and legacy of dwight eisenhower, this i weekend on american history tv. pacific war scholars on the first major allied pacific

offensive, the battle of guadalcanal. >> for the american public, guadalcanal came to symbolize the first real test of the generation that had to fight the war. then reel america, with rash of measles outbreaks this year, we look at a film about the history of measles and the development of a vaccine. >> in a few weeks, the monkeys that were not vaccinated developed measles. the ones like this one that were given the experimental vaccine showed no signs of measles, and developed protective antibodies. now knows they have developed a vaccine that will provide safe protection against measles. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern, a university of virginia professor, william hitchcock, on the age of eisenhower. >> dwight eisenhower was the most popular, respected, admired man of that period, 1945 to

1961. he garnered massive approval from the public, winning two landslide elections. his average approval rating when he was president for eight years, 65%. average. and the next closest to that was afterlinton, at 55%, and that ronald reagan at 53%, way in the rearview mirror. >> watch american history tv this weekend on c-span3. >> now a look at recent debates in australia's parliament, including discussions about china's foreign policy, australian military operations in the south pacific, and climate change. this runs 35 minutes. >> thanks for your company.