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Democrats Unveil First New Bill

January 4, 2019

Democrats unveiled their first piece of legislation Friday, a collection of voting rights provisions, ethics reforms and a requirement that presidential candidates release 10 years of tax returns, an action aimed at President Donald Trump, who has defied decades of precedent by refusing to release his tax returns to the public. The bill, which will become the first priority of many of the House's most high-profile committees, is expected to move swiftly through the House of Representatives, but won't pass in the Republican-controlled Senate or be signed by the President…. Democratic Rep. John Sarbanes of Maryland told reporters that the bill was intended to "set the table" on what Democratic priorities in the new Congress look like even if Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won't take them up in the Senate. "You could stamp on this thing 'McConnell rejected,' and it would immediately give it more credibility because everything that he has done over the last few years to undermine democracy are the things that we are trying to respond to here," Sarbanes said. Democrats formally introduced the bill Thursday, but didn't unveil the contents of it until Friday.