Negotiators add Electoral Count Act reforms to year-end government funding package

The mammoth $1.7 trillion funding bill unveiled early Tuesday includes reforms to the Electoral Count Act pushed in response to the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

Former President Trump had urged then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the vote of the Electoral College on Jan. 6, 2021, and the reforms in the omnibus package would clarify the vice president’s role as ministerial during the joint session.

A group of bipartisan senators led by Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in July unveiled reforms to the Electoral Count Act, which was enacted in 1887 to govern the joint session proceedings, and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) signaled last week that the provisions would be included in the omnibus package.

Lawmakers are working this week to pass the 4,155-page funding package for fiscal 2023, which runs through September, after reaching a deal on top-line spending levels that held up an agreement for days.

The omnibus package, released before dawn on Tuesday, includes $772.5 billion in nondefense discretionary spending and $858 billion in defense funding.

The Electoral Count Act reforms are aimed at removing any ambiguity lawmakers thought Trump exploited in attempts to stop President Biden’s transition to power.

The provisions include an increase in the threshold required for both chambers to consider objections to a state’s slate of electors.

Current law requires one representative and one senator to voice an objection, but the reforms would require that at least one-fifth of the members of both houses of Congress object.

The reforms would also identify state governors as responsible for submitting certificates identifying slates of electors unless state law specifies otherwise.

A bipartisan group of 14 senators participated in the negotiations, and the measure has garnered the support of other lawmakers like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who argued it is necessary to preserve the broader Electoral College system.

“In 2021, the theater act went too far and culminated in a mob disrupting the joint session of Congress to certify the presidential election,” Paul said in a Louisville Courier-Journal op-ed published on Monday.

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