House GOP leadership is whipping against a bill to reform the Electoral Count Act that is scheduled to be brought to the floor on Wednesday, a source in House Minority Whip Steve Scalise’s office confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
The bill, spearheaded by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Liz Cheney (R-WY), looks to clarify “ambiguous provisions” on the vice president’s role in overseeing the process of certifying an election in the wake of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
The House-led bill would require one-third of each body to approve debate to challenge a state’s results and allow for the courts to appoint a state official to send electors to Congress if a governor refuses. Parallel legislation has also been introduced in the Senate.
Scalise told reporters earlier in the day that he believes that some of the House bill’s language infringes on states’ rights.
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“If you look at the bill, it’s got some components, like it allows more lawsuits to drag out elections, to allow trial lawyers to change states’ election laws that were debated in their legislatures, which goes against democratic principles,” he said.
Proponents of the bill argue it’s a necessary step to avoid a repeat of the Jan. 6 siege of the Capitol, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the building in an attempt to disrupt the certification of the election, and note the pressure campaign Trump allies levied on former Vice President Mike Pence to send the votes back to the states.
“We’ve spent a significant amount of time consulting with constitutional law experts, conservative constitutional law professors, and election lawyers and have worked in a totally bipartisan way with a focus on making sure that we can protect elections in the future and ensuring that we sort of stick to several fundamental principles,” Cheney said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
“And those are, first of all, you know, we reaffirm what existing law already makes clear. And that is, the vice president has no authority or discretion to reject official electoral slates,” she said. “And I want to make absolutely clear at the outset that, you know, what we saw happen in 2020, with Donald Trump and Mike Pence, with Donald Trump trying to convince the vice president to do what was illegal under existing law. We begin by affirming that, but we need to then take steps to make sure that another Jan. 6 is something that never happens again.”
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One centrist GOP lawmaker said that while the Senate version is a step in the right direction, the legislator believes some of the House bill’s language is an overreach.
It is uncertain when the legislation in the Senate will come up for a vote.
