Posted on 12/23/2022 5:53:37 AM PST by TigerClaws
Lawmakers have said over and over that they want to prevent another Jan. 6-style attack on the U.S. Capitol from ever happening again.
It took almost two years, but on Thursday, as part of a government spending package, the Senate passed the first federal elections legislation to that aim.
The omnibus spending bill includes a section that would reform the Electoral Count Act, a 1887 law that governs the counting of Electoral College votes in Congress.
For years, legal scholars have worried the law was poorly written and in need of clarification, and former President Donald Trump and his allies targeted the law's ambiguities in their attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
"Imagine that there was a law on the books requiring you to travel by horse and buggy. That is what the Electoral Count Act is like," Rebecca Green, co-director of the election law program at the College of William & Mary, told NPR this summer.
In the time after voting ended in 2020 and results were certified, Trump and his team argued that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the power to interfere with the counting of electoral votes because the law as it currently stands names the vice president as the presiding officer over the joint session of Congress where those votes are counted.
Legal experts across the political spectrum debunked that reading of the law, but Trump's pressure campaign still led to the powder keg that erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when chants of "Hang Mike Pence!" rang through the halls of Congress.
The update passed by the Senate would clarify that the vice president's role in the proceedings is purely ceremonial.
Importantly, the measure also would raise the bar for objecting to a state's slate of electors. As it stands now, it takes just one member of the House and one senator to challenge a state's electors and send both chambers into a potentially days-long debate period, even without legitimate concerns.
The new legislation would raise the threshold for an objection to 20% of the members of each chamber.
The spending bill now goes to the House, which in September passed a similar electoral reform measure, with nine Republicans voting with all Democrats in favor.
Legal experts and many lawmakers had said it was imperative to get this certification update done before the next Congress, and especially before the 2024 presidential cycle heats up. A bipartisan group of senators, led by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, spent much of 2022 negotiating the changes.
"We're holding on by a thread," said Manchin of the legislation recently, at an event hosted by the National Council on Election Integrity. "By a very, very thin thread of democracy."
Were there not actors recording videos encouraging electors not to vote for Trump? They ever charged with sedition?
How about sealing the border.
We are no longer a Constitutional Republic and have not been for a long time.
So they just invalidated the Declaration of Independence? You know, that bit about throwing off an onerous government. I’ll have to think about that for a minute.
Agreed, the republic is by and large dead. Our overlords are still cleaning up some of the ruins of the republic, biggest one left is the electoral college, won’t be long. It’s really not even much of a constitutional democracy anymore, more of a social democracy moving towards bolshevism.
20% from each body? Twenty senators and 82 House members must object? That’s too high a threshold.
The ECA of 1887 is blatantly unconstitutional in that it gives Congress the power to cancel the electoral votes of any state in a presidential election. This is a flagrant violation of the clear provisions of Article II of the U.S. Constitution as well as the plain language of the 12th Amendment.
So if what Trump “did” was illegal, an “insurrection”, why do they have to pass a law that makes it illegal?
We are no longer a republic.
Constitutional is whatever Deep State says it is.
How about sealing the border.
*********
Interesting and I don’t disagree. But think back over history
since 1492 and the changes made to the gov’t of this land
called the USA. Major changes have been made since then.
This means that they need only control a majority of electors by having control of key states.
In case you didn’t know it, Texas is well on its way down the bunnyhole.
This change spells major trouble and if the evidence for 2020 fraud ever does see a court, I predict that a Constitutional challenge before SCOTUS at some future date will be the ‘make or break’ moment for the Republic.
(And I have little faith)
They were trying to take the ability to object from the state legislatures. Is that still in there?
OK.
Solidifying their cheat machine
Yes, it looks like it’s still in there. It appears that they’ve raised the threshold for objections.
Clearly, even around here, denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Never let a crisis go to waste.
Sure we are.....a Banana Republic.
I’ve always loathed that term.
It’s a silly sounding euphemism for something evil.
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