. >> host: 20 us from the american enterprise institute is john fortier, a resident scholar. he's you to talk about efforts to change federal and state boating laws. let's begin with h.r. one, this is one of the house democrats major legislative initiatives last week passing it and would do the following. automatic voter registration, strengthens early and absentee mail voting. protects against flawed purges of voter rolls. creates small dollar nontax payer public finance system for federal offices, calls for constitutional amendments to overturn citizens united decision. prohibits ordination between super pacs and candidates can require states to use independent redistricting commissions, and enhances resources to stave off foreign threats on elections. do you agree with the proposals innt this bill? >> guest: first, it's a long list. you listed many things and going back on theyo history of this, back in the last congress when democrats took the majority in house the introduced a similar bill also h.r. one meant to signal their priorities for democracy. the bill before and

john fortier.: what we have already seen before this election, a lot of states had moved to essentially all voting by mail or were open to voting by mail and large numbers of people voted that way. i think there are different systems that would work. i know that every state in the country has a process for people to vote by mail. sometimes it requires a reason. i think the hoops you are describing are likely unnecessary. hoops for the sake of putting barriers in place to not make sense. there is a good voting process by having extensive early voting in person, and that would be a preferred way of voting. allow voting by mail for people who need it. i would hope you would qualify for any absentee ballot in any state. the debate about voting by mail certainly moved in a direction, people are voting with their feet, states are moving in the direction of adopting more. there are other alternatives. there will be debates less had at the state level, what is best for that state, and sometimes large numbe

first john fortier who is recently of the policy center. he's come back to the american enterprise institute. we're very fortunate to have john. he's a long history working in government reform. john was executive director of the continuity of government commission which was a joint bi commission formed in wake of 9/11 to discuss continuity in government issues. also co-director of commission on political reform in 2013 that bpc organized. and so he's a lot of experience in washington thinking through and working through ideas about necessary reforms. we're also joined by kevin kosar. also a scholar at the american enterprise institute. kevin has worked in congress for the congressional research service. kevin and i have been working together on a project on article 1 spending powers and directed spending of congress. and of course kevin is the coed or the of a volume entitled "congress overwhelmed" which is a collection of essays by political scientists that are evaluating the different ways in which congress is overwhelmed in terms of capa