Then there are the campaign-finance provisions (opposed, in part, by the ACLU on free-speech grounds) that seem designed to address the problems of a decade or more ago. (Small-money donations have a far greater impact on politics today than "dark money" from a handful of right-wing billionaires.) The bill's litany of provisions covering government ethics are even more scattershot and lacking in an overarching rationale. Worst of all, because the bill dates from before the 2020 election, it does nothing at all to address what is by far the most pressing problem of the moment, which is Republican-controlled states taking vote certification out of the hands of election officials and giving it to partisan legislatures. If such procedures had been in place during the two months between Election Day last November and Jan. 6 of this year, Donald Trump's efforts to get the vote tally tossed out in crucial swing states may well have been successful. The best case for passing the For the People Act in its current form amounts to something like, "It's better than nothing." But is it? Does it really make sense for Democrats to expend limited political capital, federalize elections in dozens of ways, and not actually address the biggest election-related problem confronting the country? Are we supposed to believe that Democrats will be better positioned to address the problem later, after they've already passed a bloated and ill-defined election-reform bill on a party-line vote that required eliminating the filibuster?