House Resolution 1 contains a series of provisions so commonsensical that, purely technical objections aside, no one with even a perfunctory commitment to democracy could reject them. Called “the most significant democracy reform bill since the Voting Rights Act” by voting rights expert Ari Berman, the legislation — which passed the House of Representatives 234 to 193 in early March — would establish automatic national voter registration, expand mail-in voting, create independent redistricting commissions for House districts to crack down on gerrymandering, and introduce measures designed to limit the influence of dark money.

HR 1 would, in short, make elections freer, fairer, and more transparent. It should come as no surprise, then, that it’s been greeted by strong opposition from Republicans, who’ve been engaged in a wider offensive against civil and voting rights for decades. What’s novel in this case, however, is that we now actually have a glimpse into what this campaign looks like behind the scenes — and how nakedly explicit its antidemocratic aims really are.

In public, as the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer has noted, GOP rhetoric has sought to portray HR 1 as an unpopular partisan gesture: none other than Ted Cruz has branded it “a brazen and shameless power grab by Democrats.” Opposition to voting rights, of course, has long articulated itself in terms such as these: the Right mobilizing bogus concerns about fraud (to take one obvious example) to cloak its antidemocratic ambitions in the language of fairness. As a recording recently obtained by Mayer and the New Yorker makes clear, claims like these are indeed every bit as opportunistic and dishonest as they seem. Rarely, in fact, do we ever get such a direct view of what it sounds like when right-wing plutocrats conspire — or get such an intimate glimpse at their contempt for democracy and majority rule.