The outside of the U.S. Capitol is seen at sunset in Washington, U.S., December 13, 2022.
Sarah Silbiger | Reuters
Congressional leaders released a bipartisan government funding bill early Tuesday that features a rewrite of federal election laws aimed toward stopping one other Jan. 6-style attack and choking off avenues for future candidates to steal elections.
They expect to pass the bill, which is a product of lengthy negotiations between the 2 parties, in the approaching days to avoid a government shutdown slated to start this weekend.
The laws comes only a day after the House’s Jan. 6 committee held its final public meeting, issuing criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and alleging he waged “a multi-part scheme to overturn the outcomes and block the transfer of power” after losing the 2020 election. But unlike the panel’s recommendations, the bill’s provisions would have the force of law.
The large $1.7 trillion spending package funds federal agencies through next fall. It includes additional U.S. aid to Ukraine because the country fights to carry off Russia in the continuing war.
The Senate is anticipated to vote first and send the laws to the House. It may very well be the last major bill that passes this yr before Republicans seize control of the House on Jan. 3.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who’s courting the votes of anti-spending conservatives to develop into speaker next yr, has sought to torpedo the package and punt the difficulty until Republicans take control. He has pressured GOP lawmakers to vote against it, forcing Democrats to produce many of the votes to pass it within the House. The bill has more bipartisan support within the Senate, where it is anticipated to get the 60 votes it needs to interrupt a filibuster.
Capitol Hill leaders decided to connect the election bill and Ukraine aid to ease the technique of passage, on the assumption that the combined package has the votes to pass.
“I’m confident each side can find things in it that they’ll enthusiastically support,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Monday, calling the spending bill “the last major item on our to-do list” this yr before leaving for the vacations. “It isn’t going to be all the pieces anybody wanted,” he said.
But Schumer said that one other stopgap bill would “leave the country high and dry,” and that a government shutdown can be worse.
The discharge of the bill was delayed by hours over a snag involving language concerning the location of the FBI’s future headquarters, a matter of contention between Maryland and Virginia. Other items that Democrats were pushing for — equivalent to immigration provisions, cannabis banking measures and a baby tax credit expansion — were excluded from the deal.
Stopping future coup attempts
The election laws attached to the funding bill would close loopholes in federal law that Trump and his allies sought to take advantage of on Jan. 6, 2021, to remain in power despite his election loss to President Joe Biden.
It will revise the 1887 Electoral Count Act to make clear that the vice chairman’s role is solely to count votes, and it might raise the edge to force a vote to object to a state’s electoral votes from one member of the House and Senate to one-fifth of every chamber. It will also beef up laws involving state certification of elections, in an try and avoid future competing slates of electors, and smooth the presidential transition process.
The election measure was announced in July by a bipartisan group led by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. It has 38 sponsors within the Senate, including 16 Republicans. It’s backed by McConnell, who said in September that the “chaos that got here to a head on Jan. 6 of last yr actually underscored the necessity for an update” to the 1887 law. It passed committee with some revisions by a vote of 14-1 this fall, opposed only by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
“It’s good. It’s progress,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said of the election overhaul measure, before warning that protecting American democracy would require greater than only a recent law.
“We just need to grasp that there’s a movement of individuals, and so they’re well-financed, and they’ll not be troubled by a recent statute,” Schatz said. “So we just need to remain vigilant, even when we pass the Electoral Count Act because these people were already attempting to work out the best way to circumvent the Structure and federal law. And in order that they’ll keep doing that.”
‘A priority of mine’
For Democrats, the laws concludes their era of trifecta government control with an in depth funding package and resolves the must-pass issue until late 2023, stopping a round of brinkmanship early in the brand new yr with a GOP-run House.
Two key negotiators of the package — Senate Appropriations Chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Vice Chair Richard Shelby, R-Ala. — are retiring at the top of the yr after serving for many years and were highly motivated to shut the deal.
For Republicans, one incentive to pass the bill now’s that it funds the military at a better level than the nondefense budget. “It is a strong end result for Republicans,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, arguing that the GOP persuaded Democrats to back down on their long-standing demand for “parity” between the 2 pots of cash.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, called the imbalance between military and nonmilitary money “a priority of mine,” and said there are “others who feel the way in which I do.” But she said the bill could also be preferable to coping with a Republican-controlled House next yr.
