Senate group plows forward with election law changes after Trump remarks

The Hill |01/31/22 08:15 PM EST

(Abridged for brevity)

A bipartisan group of senators is plowing forward with negotiations to make changes to election laws after former President Trump weighed in on the discussion and lashed out at GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who is leading the group, and former Vice President Mike Pence.

Senators have divided themselves into five subgroups that will take the lead on various pieces the group is working on — reforming the 1887 Electoral Count Act; protecting election workers; voting practices and rights; the election assistance commission; and presidential transitions — with the goal of regrouping as soon as Friday to measure their progress.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who is leading the group along with Collins, added that "we’re going to try to work all this week here and see where we can get by Friday."

The meeting has been on the books since last week, but it comes the day after Trump lashed out at Collins in a statement on Sunday calling her "Wacky Susan Collins." He also argued that the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that outlines how the Electoral College results are formally counted, allows a vice president to throw out election results.

Trump led a pressure campaign to try to get Pence to throw out 2020 Electoral College results from key states as part of his role overseeing the formal counting by Congress. Pence argued at the time, and several senators agreed, that the Constitution tied his hands. But Trump made clear in his statement on Sunday what he hoped Pence would do, saying that he "could have overturned the Election!"

As part of their discussions, senators are discussing making clear that the role of the vice president in the formal counting of the Electoral College results is ceremonial. They are also discussing raising the threshold for the number of lawmakers from both the House and Senate that need to back an objection to a state's rules before they can force a vote on those objections.

Currently it takes the support of just one member of the House and one member of the Senate to force both chambers to vote on an objection to a state's rules. Republicans were able to force votes on both Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, 2021. Though the challenges both fell short, they were interrupted for hours after a mob of Trump's supporters breached the building, forcing the House and Senate chambers to be evacuated.

[Link to story]

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/592194-senate-group-plows-forward-with-election-law-changes-after-trump-remarks

[Link to the 1887 Electoral Count Act]

https://govtrackus.s3.amazonaws.com/legislink/pdf/stat/24/STATUTE-24-Pg373.pdf

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Underscores what POTUS mentioned at his rally over the weekend. If Pence couldn't have decided the outcome, why are they doing this?