Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Tuesday announced his support for a bipartisan Senate bill to reform the Electoral Count Act, giving a boost to the legislation as lawmakers seek to prevent another January 6 riot.
“I strongly support the modest changes that our colleagues in a working group have fleshed out after literally months of detailed discussions,” McConnell, R-Ky., said on the Senate floor.
Spearheaded by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and a group of moderate Democrats and Republicans, the bill picked 22 total sponsors – an even number from each party – before McConnell voiced his support.
With McConnell behind the effort, and likely near-unanimous support from Senate Democrats, the legislation has a clear path to passing the upper chamber before the end of the year.
The House last week passed a rival bill to change the Electoral Count Act, though it received scant support from Republicans – just nine total GOP votes, including Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. It’s unlikely that bill could make it through the Senate.
McConnell lauded Collins’ bill Tuesday for not “capitulating to our Democratic colleagues’ obsession with a sweeping takeover of all our election laws.”
“It raises the threshold of objecting to the electoral count, preserving options if something incredibly unlikely were to happen, but ensuring claims with hardly any support can’s paralyze the process,” McConnell also said of the Senate’s bill.
