By U.S. Representatives Glenn Grothman, Mike Gallagher, Bryan Steil, Tom Tiffany and outgoing Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner Wisconsinites have lost trust in our election system. Whether you agree or disagree with the many claims of election fraud, the fact is there are glaring problems with our voting processes that need to be fixed. Just as Florida passed election reform in 2001 after the 2000 election controversy, Wisconsin must do the same before any future election is held. This election reform should include, at a minimum, the following steps. Step 1: Correct the voter rolls First, Wisconsin must maintain up-to-date, accurate voter rolls so non- residents and deceased individuals cannot vote in Wisconsin elections. This was perhaps the Wisconsin Election Commission's (WEC) biggest failure leading up to the 2020 election. Due to WEC decisions, tens of thousands of names of individuals that had moved remained on the voter rolls. Those registrations, at the addresses from which they had moved, should have been deactivated. The state legislature and the courts cannot allow WEC to continue this conduct which creates a substantial opportunity for voter fraud. If WEC will not comply with the law as written, then the law must be updated so that WEC has no wiggle room to make up the law as it prefers. Also, we must clarify, in our state criminal code and in federal criminal law, that double-voting is illegal and demand elected District Attorneys enforce the law. Step 2: Ban Ballot Harvesting "Ballot harvesting," where individuals or groups gather other people's absentee ballots and deliver them to election clerks, is a dangerous idea and is ripe for voter intimidation. Technically it is already illegal in Wisconsin, but again WEC has failed to enforce the law as written. Instead, WEC issued guidance that permits ballot harvesting and allowing reckless partisans to exploit the guidance to conduct de-facto ballot harvesting events like "Democracy in the Park" in Madison, which additionally violated early voting timelines. Restoring trust in our elections means we all follow the rules we agreed to before the election, not altering the rules to benefit one side when voting has begun. Step 3: Close the Voter ID Loophole Wisconsin has strong, necessary voter ID laws, but a current loophole allows absentee voters to sidestep these requirements if they self-identify as "indefinitely confined." Unsurprisingly, after liberal county clerks in Dane and Milwaukee counties encouraged voters to claim indefinite confinement due to the coronavirus pandemic, the number of "indefinitely confined" voters in Wisconsin skyrocketed from 72,000 to over 200,000. The massive increase is not a result of age, physical illness, infirmity, disability (i.e. legitimate reasons for claiming indefinite confinement), or even coronavirus. Moreover, in a state where elections are frequently decided by just thousands of votes, to allow nearly a quarter of a million voters to vote without showing an ID invites fraud and skirts the obvious intent of the law. We should close this loophole and require an ID in order to vote. Step 4: No Midnight Ballot Dumps On election night, after weeks of voting, many Wisconsinites went to bed thinking President Trump had won re-election, only to wake up to see that his 100,000 vote lead had disappeared when absentee ballots in largest cities were counted. Thirty-nine Wisconsin municipalities count ballots at a central location and consistently some of our most liberal cities return their ballots late in the night. Even if every one of those votes was a legal vote, counting in this manner often presents confusion and creates many questions in the minds of voters, campaigns, and the media. Many other states have solved this issue and report absentee ballot counts on time. We must find a way to avoid central counts coming in late, either with more manpower, disallowing central counts, or by allowing clerks to review and verify signatures without opening absentee ballots prior to election day. Step 5: All clerks must follow the letter of the law All clerks must follow the letter of the law and follow the same rules. A core tenant of fairness is to treat everyone equally. This is critical in our elections. We need consistent rules across the state and clerks must be required to follow them to the letter of the law. We can no longer allow some clerks to discard a ballot when a witness address is not complete and allow another to "cure" the ballot by filling in missing information. Failure to treat every voter the same allows clerks (who naturally have their own political preferences) to decide which ballots to "correct" and then count, and which ones not to fix. Our current practice means that the process can be different in different municipalities, and we all know different municipalities have different voting patterns. What is needed are clear, consistent rules applied fairly and uniformly across the state. Step 6: Eliminate confusion Under current law, voters can request an absentee ballot at the beginning of the year for every election held in that calendar year. This practice has created confusion and misunderstanding for both voters and clerks. Many clerks have reported that voters forget (or do not realize) that they checked the box to receive a ballot for every election in a year. This has resulted in people showing up to vote in person who have already been issued an absentee ballot. These lost absentee ballots create the ability for fraud to occur and makes it difficult for clerks to keep accurate records on absentee ballots. At minimum, the law should allow voters to only request an absentee ballot for one primary and general election at a time. Conclusion Doing nothing and ignoring the legitimate concerns of so many Wisconsinites is not an option. Many of these reforms require state law changes. The U.S. Constitution rightly gives states the authority to conduct elections. As the Governor, State Senate and State Assembly work to make improvements, we believe the reforms should contain these key steps. We need a Wisconsin election reform law now, one that sets the new national standard for electoral integrity, transparency and simple fairness.

By Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Todd Young, Rep. Ro Khanna, and Rep. Mike Gallagher We must reposition the United States to lead the 21st Century with the greatest scientific and technological breakthroughs. Today, researchers across the world are using all the scientific tools available in a global race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. But America is no longer the preeminent leader in scientific research as we were for the second half of the 20th Century. We must address this vulnerability. Though we sit on opposite sides of the political aisle, recently we all came together to respond to this sudden, unprecedented health and economic crisis, approving the largest economic recovery package in American history. This unifying moment brings clarity to a longstanding national vulnerability: our decades-long underinvestment in the infrastructure that would help prevent, respond to and recover from an emergency of this scale -- namely, scientific and technological discovery, and the ability to turn fundamental research into innovations we produce here at home. In coming months, as we address this public health emergency, stabilize our economy and formulate a recovery plan, we must also reposition the United States to lead the 21st Century with the greatest scientific and technological breakthroughs. When America discovers a vaccine or develops a cost-effective ventilator, then we can manufacture and deploy such life-saving innovations here at home. Conversely, America's dwindling investments in the tools and talent essential to modern research and development threatens our long-term health, economic and national security. We cannot allow our research capabilities to atrophy without undermining our global competitiveness and leaving our people vulnerable during a time of crisis. So what are we proposing? The Endless Frontiers Act proposes a renewed national investment in public research and development to strengthen our nation's innovation ecosystem now and into the future. In the near-term, this means specific investments in the urgent research and production needed to confront COVID-19. This should involve dedicated investment for federal and university labs and technical facilities, paired with infrastructure investments like the broadband build out needed to tap the innovation potential of communities across America. This should also include investment in technical education. We must fund undergraduate scholarships, graduate fellowships, trainees and post-doctoral support in the targeted research areas. Longer term, we should sustain our global leadership through investment on the frontiers of modern science and technology -- the types of investments that will soon help us overcome COVID-19. We also must continually improve our ability to rapidly move groundbreaking ideas from government laboratories to job-creating companies and, in turn, to the world's consumers. Finally, at a time of historically low interest rates, we should work to pair federal investments in research and development with public- and private-partner investments in scientific and technical moonshots. Even as we continue to fight the coronavirus, our country must prepare to confront the next generation of global threats and seize opportunities that lie over the horizon. We must also remain mindful that, as our nation recovers, China gains ground. Beijing"s authoritarian leaders aim to capitalize on this moment with an eye toward outpacing the United States by investing in technological innovations essential to Americans' future safety and prosperity. The private sector efficiently funds research and development of goods and services that meet the demands of individual consumers. But many of the technologies that will collectively benefit our citizens over the long term require bold public investments in fundamental research. In the decades after World War II, America's leaders wisely anticipated the benefits of such investments. By 1965, we invested 1.8% of GDP to rapidly advance the frontiers of knowledge. The returns were spectacular. In fact, the engines fueling our modern economy trace their roots to such investments, from aerospace to modern computing, from the internet to life-saving pharmaceuticals. Even our now-ubiquitous smartphones were spawned by public investment before the private sector brought them to consumers. In the weeks ahead, America will need to support those impacted by this pandemic and the private businesses that sustain our way of life. But, as we prepare for the post-COVID-19 future, we should draw inspiration from the past. Our own history proves that smart, targeted and substantial public investments in the infrastructure and talent necessary to produce cutting-edge scientific breakthroughs will result in higher rates of economic growth, sustained job creation and greater wealth creation. Today we know that every dollar invested in the National Institutes of Health leads to $3 in increased stock market valuation for private companies. And studies show that raising public research and development spending by $100 billion per year on a permanent basis could help generate as much as 4 million new American jobs. Unfortunately, our appreciation for the benefits of such investments has waned. Federal R&D spending has fallen to a mere 0.6% of GDP. Whereas America once led the world in the share of our economy invested in R&D, we now rank 12th globally. If we fail to change course, China will invest more than the United States in just 10 years. America is enduring a national stress test. Our people are up to the challenge, but our gradual retreat from global scientific leadership has been laid bare. America's pharmaceutical scientists are working tirelessly to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, but smarter, bolder investments in recent decades might have better prepared us for this moment. Similarly, many of our teachers and other workers have resiliently adapted to shelter in place orders. But strains on America's broadband network to support the surge in online demand for remote work and distance learning have surpassed the capacity of private carriers. Now is the time to change course. In the face of adversity, Americans are resilient. We adapt, improvise, overcome. We are a nation of problem solvers, freelancers and innovators. In 2020, as we face one of the most powerful enemies humankind has ever faced -- and we steel ourselves against the next threat to our way of life -- we should harness this creative power. We should make a down payment on science and technology today by passing The Endless Frontiers Act.

By Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. Mike Gallagher Earlier this month, a Chinese Communist Party propaganda outlet insinuated that Beijing could cut off supplies of life-saving medicine to the United States at any time, dooming our country to "sink into the hell of a novel coronavirus epidemic." Unfortunately, this isn't an empty threat. The United States is dangerously dependent for pharmaceuticals on the very regime whose failures and coverups caused this deadly pandemic to spiral out of control. It's time to change that. We have a plan to end America's dependence on Chinese drugs and take back our ability to make pharmaceuticals and medical devices right here in America. We weren't always dependent on China for medicine, but we are now. For two decades, the CCP has targeted America's domestic drug manufacturers for destruction, using cartelization, state subsidies and lax safety standards to flood our hospitals and pharmacies with cheap and dangerous Chinese medicine. This strategy succeeded in shuttering American factories, robbing our workers of good-paying jobs and our patients of high-quality medicine. Just years after the United States granted China special trade privileges in 2000, the last penicillin plant in America closed down. American factories that made aspirin, vitamin C and other essential medicine closed after that, put out of business by China's predatory pricing. China has come to dominate the world market for basic drugs as a result. A substantial share of all generic drugs we import comes from China, including a staggering 93 percent of all imported ibuprofen. And focusing on direct trade between China and the United States actually understates our reliance, because most of the active ingredients in drugs imported to us from countries like India also come from Chinese superlabs. Dependence on our chief communist adversary for essential medicine is an obvious threat to national security. As Rosemary Gibson, author of "China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America's Dependence on China for Medicine," said in testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission last year, if the CCP cut the world off from its pharmaceutical ingredients, "military hospitals and clinics would cease to function within months, if not days." This may seem like an extreme and remote possibility, but consider that multiple countries have already hoarded drugs and medical supplies in response to the China virus pandemic. China itself is hoarding much of the world's supply not only of medical masks, but also of the materials to make those masks. Emergencies like pandemics and wars break down previously dependable supply chains and relationships as nations start to fend for themselves. It's sadly clear America gave up the ability to fend for ourselves in basic medicine long ago. But dependence on China for basic drugs threatens our safety in a more basic way. The drugs China produces are notoriously low quality, even deadly. This fact became tragically apparent in 2008, when more than 246 Americans were killed by a tainted batch of blood thinner that was made in China. Investigations later revealed that the blood thinner had been spiked with cheaper drugs to save money at unregulated labs and farms in China. Even the CCP itself has acknowledged the poor quality of its drugs. Beijing suspended a program to bribe African countries with anti-malarial drugs in 2012 after entire shipments were found to be fake, posing a danger to the sick patients who took them. As the China virus pandemic clearly shows, the CCP has no business posing as the world's doctor and drugmaker. That's why we've introduced a bill, the Protecting Our Pharmaceutical Supply Chain From China Act, to end our dependence on Chinese drugs and take back our ability to make medicine here at home. Our bill would require federal entities like the Department of Defense, VA hospitals, Medicare and Medicaid to cut off purchases of drugs with Chinese ingredients no later than 2025. This requirement would phase in over a period of years to give drug companies time to adjust, but would put clear pressure on importers to stop doing business with the CCP. The bill also would require drug companies to label the origins of ingredients in their drugs, so U.S. consumers are better informed of where their medicine comes from and whether it's likely to be safe. Finally, our bill encourages the medical industry to manufacture in our country again by offering full and immediate expensing of factories, warehouses and capital goods related to the manufacture of drugs and medical devices on American soil. This bill poses a threat to China's ambitions, and the CCP knows it. Earlier this week, a Communist Party spokesman responded to the growing clamor in America for medical repatriation by saying that China's dominance in pharmaceutical manufacturing was the inevitable result of "market forces" that would be "unrealistic and insensible" to sever. Set aside the irony of a Communist Party spokesman for a mercantilist regime lauding the power of market forces; there's nothing inevitable about our dependence on China for medicine. That dependence was the result of the CCP's ruthless tactics, abetted by bad decisions by American policymakers and business people over many years. We can begin to undo the damage now. The antidote to our dependence on Chinese drugs is to stop buying them and take back our ability to make basic medicine here in America.