And now they can all go home

It's amazing how bipartisan they can be when their vacation time is threatened.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Those are excellent revisions.

Election protection in the omnibus?

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.

[...]

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.

[...]

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.

[...]

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.

[...]

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.

[...]

[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.”

[...]

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?

Amen

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Dare we hope for bipartisan support for election reform?

[Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.)] will join 10 other Republicans sponsoring or cosponsoring the Electoral Count Reform Act, giving it enough formal GOP support to clear a filibuster if at least 49 of the chamber’s 50 Democrats also support the plan. Other Republicans have also expressed openness to the plan, potentially giving it even more room to maneuver through the Senate.

His support for the legislation, reported first by The Inquirer, comes after Pennsylvania was one of two states formally targeted by dozens of congressional Republicans on Jan. 6, 2021, as they attempted to dismiss its 20 electoral votes and the will of its voters. Toomey, who supported nearly all of former President Donald Trump’s policies and voted for him twice, strongly opposed attempts to throw out Pennsylvania’s election results as Trump fueled a riot at the Capitol.

[...]

“It is past time Congress act,” Toomey said. “This legislation would make commonsense changes to clarify the role of Congress, the vice president, and the courts in the certification of presidential elections to give the American people more confidence it will be their voice that chooses the next executive and those that follow.”

Toomey, who is not seeking reelection, was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial after the riot.

  Philadelphia Inquirer

The GOP is going to be left with no one with any integrity in Congress.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Electoral Count Act

It may seem improbable, given adamant Republican opposition to legislation protecting voting rights, but a bipartisan group of senators is close to agreement on a separate, crucial way to protect our democracy: reforming the Electoral Count Act of 1887.

[...]

This week, the senators are expected to reach a deal on ECA reform. Trump revealed the ECA’s vulnerabilities by pressuring his vice president and congressional Republicans to invalidate electors appointed for Joe Biden in several states, as part of a plot to get them to appoint new electors for Trump.

Now, however, solutions to this threat are also being debated as part of ECA reform. According to two sources familiar with the talks, here are some of these solutions, though they’re in flux or could drop out entirely:

• Presidential electors must be appointed by the manner the state’s laws dictated before Election Day. This would prevent a state legislature and governor from appointing sham electors after the voting.
• If a state appoints a slate of electors before a deadline — the sixth day before the presidential electors meet — it overrides any electors appointed after that deadline. This would also avert post-vote shenanigans.
• The governor of each state must certify the electors before that deadline. If a governor violates this duty, the aggrieved candidate can appeal to a three-judge panel of two circuit court judges and one district court judge.
• The slate of electors deemed the legitimate one by the federal courts is conclusive.
• Congress must count the slate of electors deemed the legitimate one by this revised process for states. This means if the federal courts deem one set of electors operative, Congress must count them, and must not count other electors, even ones certified by a state legislature or governor.
• If an election is disrupted by a disastrous event, the state legislature cannot simply appoint electors. It can only extend the voting period. This averts another scenario — a legislature finds a pretext to declare the voters failed to reach a decision, and appoints electors itself — which the current ECA might allow.

It’s not at all certain these ideas will end up in the final product. A spokesperson for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a leader of the bipartisan group, said these contain “inaccuracies," and warned that talks are fluid.

  WaPo

I'm sure she has concerns.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.