Under current law, if a GOP-controlled state legislature appointed electors for the Republican nominee in defiance of the state’s popular vote, the GOP House could count those electors, leading to a stolen election or constitutional crisis.
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In a big step forward for protecting democracy, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced Tuesday that he expects action in the lame-duck session on reform of the arcane law that Donald Trump exploited during his attempted 2021 coup.
WaPo
"Expects". At least they're considering it, I suppose.
“I expect an omnibus will contain priorities both sides want to see passed into law, including more funding for Ukraine and the Electoral Count Act,” Schumer said, in a reference to an end-of-year spending bill the two parties are negotiating.
Good luck, because the Republicans apparently want neither support for Ukraine or fair elections.
The Senate version of ECA reform would clarify the vice president’s role in counting electors as purely ceremonial, make it harder for Congress to invalidate legitimate electors and make corruption of the appointment of electors at the state level much harder.
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It would require governors to certify lawful electors, create new pathways for legal challenges to corruptly appointed electors and require Congress to count the electors validated by the courts.
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All these points would make a rerun of Trump’s 2020 effort less likely, in part because they would patch up ECA vulnerabilities that invited him to attempt it.
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ECA reform has long risked being seen as “anti-Trump.” That might have rendered it unlikely that 10 GOP senators would support it and make it possible to circumvent a filibuster.
But Schumer’s announcement is cause for real optimism. That’s because it’s unlikely Schumer would have made it if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hadn’t quietly indicated support for attaching reform to the omnibus.
Do we all of a sudden trust Mitch McConnell?
In a twist, the prospects for passage might be improved by attaching it to the omnibus. As this column recently noted, holding a stand-alone Senate vote on ECA reform might subject it to more attacks from MAGA-loyal forces in Congress and in right wing media, making it harder for GOP senators to support it. Schumer’s plan allows McConnell to move it forward a bit more quietly.
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[Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)] noted that negotiations over it have been a “strong bipartisan effort” and reform boasts some “very conservative members supporting it.”
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New developments this week forcefully underscored the need for reform. In a widely noted speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) openly declared that had she been in charge of Trump’s insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, it would have been “armed.”
And text messages from House Republicans to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, unearthed by Talking Points Memo, show members of Congress scheming in the run-up to Jan. 6 to overturn Trump’s loss in all kinds of ways, with one even calling for Trump to declare martial law.
That makes the need for reform obvious, but Republican support for reform?
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