Senate’s Electoral Count Reform Act included in omnibus

The text of the omnibus bill has been released, and the bill includes the long-anticipated amendments to the Electoral Count Act. The text is almost identical to the Electoral Count Reform Act, the bill drafted and negotiated by Senators Susan Collins and Joe Manchin in a bipartisan group, then amended lightly in a thoroughly bipartisan Senate Rules Committee hearing led by Senators Amy Klobuchar and Roy Blunt. The text in the omnibus is the same as the text of the Electoral Count Reform Act as it came out of committee, with quite minor technical and parliamentary changes.

Election law scholars (myself included) were supportive of the specific details of this effort. Over at The Conversation, I highlight the major points of this bill. And the bill continues to attract broad bipartisan support (formally in the Senate, 21 Democrats and 16 Republicans have cosponsored, but others have expressed support in other ways, too). Just yesterday, Senator Rand Paul published an op-ed in support of the ECRA. It’s crucial for a bill to have broad, deep, and genuine bipartisan consensus, not token or minimal bipartisanship: in future political disputes, regardless of the partisan valence, the parties have the buy-in to adhere to the rules that they’ve agreed to well before any disputes arise.

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