A bipartisan group of senators pushing legislation designed to prevent a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol say a vote on the package isn’t likely until after election day.
“We’ve talked about it as recently as [Wednesday] to try to find a window when we can take it up,” Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) said in an interview. “There are still some open issues that need to be resolved, so we’re not quite ready to make that decision. But every day we wait makes it more likely it’s [going to happen in the] lame duck [session].”
The Senate returned from a summer recess this week, but is focusing largely on judicial nominations.
Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday that the chamber would vote on a marriage equality bill in the coming weeks. The Senate must also work with the House, which returns from its recess next week, to fund the government by Sept. 30.
And it’s possible Schumer could scrap the chamber’s two-week session in October to allow members who are up for reelection to campaign as the party hopes to expand its majority.
“I think the prevailing thought is that we will wait, that maybe we would wait until after the election,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said. “I don’t know if we have time to deal with that before the election.”…
On Aug. 3, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) signaled his support for the bipartisan proposal, providing the needed 10th GOP vote to avoid a filibuster. His office confirmed Grassley is now a co-sponsor of the electoral count proposal.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of the GOP co-sponsors of the scaled-down bipartisan version, said it’s unclear whether the legislation would be voted on as a package or two bills. He said the electoral count provisions have broader support than the election security measures.
The House is reportedly drafting its own legislation, but no policy has been introduced yet. On Sunday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the select committee investigating Jan. 6, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the Senate measure was “a good first start.”
“We want to take a much broader view,” Raskin told host Major Garrett.
Raskin said Congress should address “Donald Trump’s attack on the entire electoral college process and the entire democratic process, from the counties and the towns and the cities, through the states, all the way up to the federal government.”