Sneaking broad language into a bill that would dramatically alter the way the Electoral College functions when accepting or contesting slates of Electors from the states, a group of Democrat-voting senators appear to be constructing a “backdoor” for the co-opting of federal elections from the purview of the states.
Democrat-aligned Sens. Angus King (I-ME), Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL), unveiled a bill that would make significant changes to the 1887 Electoral Count Act (ECA).
If adopted and signed into law, the updated ECA would change federal law to lessen the vice president’s role over Electoral College balloting to that of a ceremonial role. Additionally, it would significantly raise the requirements for Electoral College members to object to certifying election results.
Under the law, as it stands, one member of each the House and Senate need to object before an objection is moved to a floor vote. Under the new proposal, the requirements for satisfying a threshold for objection would be raised to one-third of the Senate before it could be moved to a floor vote.
King’s office called the proposal a “discussion draft,” saying it would also prohibit state legislatures from appointing electors after Election Day in what he described as an effort to overturn their own election results. Instead, the proposal would give state legislatures additional time to conduct “legitimate recounts and litigation.” The proposal would also significantly narrow the grounds for objections to electors and electoral votes.
“As leaders on the Senate Rules Committee with jurisdiction over federal elections and members of Senate Democratic leadership, we have been working with legal experts and election law scholars to develop legislation that would modernize the framework of the Electoral Count Act of 1887,” wrote King, Klobuchar, and Durbin in a statement.
A separate group of Senators, including frequent GOP defectors Mitt Romney (R-UT), and Susan Collins (R-ME), along with moderate Democrat Joe Manchin (D-WV), have been working on their own draft of an ECA revision.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has suggested that he may be open to proposed ECA reform.
If passed, either of the proposed revisions to the ECA would exist as one of the most drastic revisions to US election law since the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
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Why This Is Important
It is no secret that far-Left Democrats in Congress are salivating at the prospect of co-opting the purview of federal elections from the states to the federal government. But while King, Klobuchar, and Durbin’s proposed revision of the 1887 Electoral Count Act is cloaked in rhetoric that would play on the emotionalism of the 2020 General Election, it is a dangerous and clandestine move to rob the states of election authority.
The idea of reforming any aspect of the process of executing the duties of the Electoral College must err on the side of caution; must serve to make it easier to challenge malfeasance and corruption in elections, not make it harder to object to political gerrymandering and backroom deals that seat questionable electors.
The bill proposed by King, Klobuchar, and Durbin does the exact opposite of this while establishing a more vested authority over the process to Congress.
Two provisions in the proposed legislation are problematic: the raising of the threshold to execute a challenge and the usurpation of the authority of state legislatures to certify Electors to the Electoral College.
The proposed legislation’s challenge criteria threshold not only excludes any input requirement from members of the US House of Representatives – the closest representation to the people, it dramatically raises the number of people signing on to an objection from two to at least 34, even as it narrows the subject matter that would serve as grounds for an objection.
This also makes it harder to level an objection in the Electoral College by mandating the “federalization” of objecting individuals through its requirement that Senators from states that may not be affected by the cause for the objection “sign on.”
Additionally, the proposed prohibition of the state legislatures’ ability to appoint Electors after Election Day directly inserts the US federal government into the purview of the states and the sovereign process of a state engaging in the federal election process.
Article I, Section 4, states clearly:
“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators…”
As an aside, the provision in Article I, Section 4, relating to congressional authority to alter “such Regulations,” refers to the scheduling of elections. It does not enable a usurpation of state purview over the federal election process.
And according to the US House’s own website regarding the 1887 Electoral Count Act and “faithless actors”:
“The Electoral Count Act left it to the states to settle front-end Electoral College issues, including the selection of electors and the methods used to bind them to pledged candidates. But once the process reached Congress, the law gave Members the power to object to a vote if they believed it had not been ‘regularly given,’ parliamentary speak for votes with particular discrepancies, those cast on a wrong day, or for an ineligible candidate, or for votes suspected of being part of a bribery scheme.”
The King, Klobuchar, and Durbin proposal seeks to directly install federal authority over a state election process exclusive – under both the US Constitution and the 1887 Electoral Count Act – to the state legislatures.
It is important that we view what Democrats are trying to do – through this piece of legislation and the two overreaching “voting rights” bills – in context.
The United States Constitution is a compact between the states to establish a federal government; a contract amongst the states to create a federal government that would execute limited powers seen as both redundant in the states and necessary for a cohesive relationship between the states.
So, the purview for electing representatives from the states – be they US Representatives, Senators, or the President and Vice President of the United States – begins and ends with the states. This is because the states are the mother and father (the Alpha and the Omega, if you will) of the federal government.
It is because the states are the Alpha and Omega to the federal government that the federal government was created to be subservient to the states in its authority over the American people. And it is because of
this fact, the federal government cannot be afforded purview over itself where elections are concerned.
Today, the child is ruling the parents and that was never meant to be.
This is why this specific verbiage included in the statement issued by King, Klobuchar, and Durbin should make us all very concerned:
“As leaders on the Senate Rules Committee with jurisdiction over federal elections and members of Senate Democrat leadership…”
Just because they keep insisting they have the authority doesn’t mean they actually have it. Make your voices heard.
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