This nation owes a debt of gratitude to Congress for passing the Electoral Count Reform Act as part of the $1.7 trillion year-end funding bill in one of the last acts of the lame-duck session.
The process was relatively swift, by congressional standards. Introduced in July, the bill was drafted by a working group of bipartisan senators. By September, Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who also advised the group, shepherded it through to a remarkable 14-1 vote.
Just before Christmas, the Senate passed the bill on a strong bipartisan vote. The House passed the bill the following day. President Joe Biden later signed it and the funding bill into law, thanking the electoral reform bill's bipartisan authors, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., along with Klobuchar and Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., "for finding compromise to strengthen our democracy in the face of election denialism and assaults on our bedrock constitutional values."
