After eight hearings, the basic outline of what took place in the run-up to and on Jan. 6 remains the same. But new details could serve to sharpen a case against the former president.聽聽
First the bad news: Evidence presented by the Jan. 6 committee has shown how former President Donald Trump and his allies tried to manipulate current laws to disrupt the presidential election process.
Now some good news: There鈥檚 a serious effort underway in Congress to fix holes in one crucial statute to try and deter such an attempt from happening again.
At issue is the Electoral Count Act, a rickety antique passed in 1887 that governs the official counting of Electoral College votes and the naming of the president-elect. It鈥檚 poorly written and vague in important spots.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of senators proposed to modernize the 135-year-old law.
The bills would tighten existing wording to help ensure that each state submits only one conclusive slate of Electoral College electors. No fake slates of self-designated 鈥渆lectors,鈥 as Trump allies produced following the 2020 vote.
They would state that the role of the vice president is 鈥渟olely ministerial鈥 when counting electoral votes. That would write into direct language the conclusion that many electoral scholars 鈥 and former Vice President Mike Pence 鈥 have already reached.
The legislation would also make it more difficult for members of Congress to object to a state鈥檚 electors 鈥 and more difficult for state legislators to override their state鈥檚 popular vote.
Some experts don鈥檛 agree with everything the package proposes. They worry the fixes might close some holes and open new ones. The Jan. 6 committee has notably said it is considering its own Electoral Count Act reforms.
A compromise might well emerge here. For now, the existing effort is at least a 鈥渕assive improvement鈥 over the status quo, according to Matthew Seligman, a Yale Law School fellow who鈥檚 studied the issue for years.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 our last best hope,鈥 he tweeted this week.