Chuck Schumer was against it before he was for it.
No, this isn’t the filibuster. The Electoral Count Act, if changed, would have ended the conversation about what then Vice President Pence’s role would have, or could have been, on January 6, 2021 (before January 6 became a pejorative).
The Week defines the Electoral Count Act as such:
“The ECA permits states to appoint new electors if an election has "failed" (with failure defined very vaguely); it gives members of Congress an open-ended power to object to electors; and it fails to specify precisely the vice president's role in counting electoral votes.”
Regardless if you’re an R or a D, put the shoe on the other foot. Would you want Mike Pence to throw out state electors he didn’t think were valid so Donald Trump could stay in office, or maybe would you like Kamala Harris to declare Donald Trump’s 2024 victory to be “against democracy” and declare Joe Biden the winner?
Checks and balances are good, but those already exist at the state level. The VP’s role has been notoriously vague in determining the next president at Electoral Count time.
Now, a bipartisan group of senators including Angus King (I), Susan Collins (R) and Joe Manchin (D), 13 others, are looking to reform and clarify the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
How? Yahoo News describes it this way:
“Collins says she wants her group's bill to narrowly focus on raising the bar for members of Congress to object to a candidate's electors and clarifying that a vice president can't unilaterally flip states, plus maybe protecting election workers.”
It’s unclear whether Schumer is actually for it, but he’s certainly listening. So is Mitch McConnell, who said he’s, “happy to take a look at what they come up with.”
Could this be a rare moment of bipartisanship in the U.S. Senate? Possibly. As long as Democrats don’t try to turn this into the new John Lewis Act to expand mail-in voting and drop boxes, which they are reportedly discussing. If this legislation has legs, it will have to be done narrowly on grounds everyone agrees to. And the narrowest, most agreed upon grounds are that the VP's role is vague, and could probably use better definition.
© 2022 KFTK (Audacy). All rights reserved. | Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Ryan Wiggins is the author of the extremely serious and not funny robot novel, The Life of Human, and is a writer and producer of television shows. He is the host of Wiggins America on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis.
