{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-king-urges-passage-of-most-important-bill-this-congress-protections-for-the-peaceful-transfer-of-power", "Senator King Urges Passage of \u201cMost Important\u201d Bill this Congress: Protections for the Peaceful Transfer of Power", "2022-12-21", "2022", "2022-12", "Independent", "Senate", "ME", "Angus S. King, Jr.", "K000383", "www.king.senate.gov", "angusking", "https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/table", "scraper", "Watch Senator King\u2019s full floor speech HERE.\n\nWASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014 U.S. Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration with oversight over federal elections, gave a speech on the Senate floor to highlight what he considers the most important bill under Senate consideration: the Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act which provides democratic protections for the peaceful transfer of power. During his speech, King explained why his top priority for the remainder of this Congress is this bill and why it is needed to clarify the ambiguous 19th century law that spurred the January 6th insurrection.\n\nSenator King underscored that while other policies are important, all of them are negligible without serious protections for our democratic system.\n\n\u201cThe bill that we have before us now is, I believe, one of the most important pieces of legislation in this Congress. Because it deals with the structure of democracy itself. All of our policy issues, whether it's the Defense Department, Ukraine, all of the policy issues, health care, all of those things are critically important, but the infrastructure that underlies the system is even more important. We can't do good policy if we don't have a solid underpinning of a structure of our democracy,\u201d Senator King said.\n\nSenator King also highlighted the bipartisan nature of the bill and of the desire for electoral protections.\n\n\u201cAnd that's why the bill that is now part of the budget bill, the omnibus bill, is so important. The bill is bipartisan. I think that's critically important. I sat in the Rules Committee. It passed 14-1. Supported by Leader McConnell, supported by Leader Schumer. 14-1. I rarely see votes like that in that committee,\u201d Senator King continued, \u201cBut because there was universal realization that we needed to do something about this, we had a hearing on it and I remember Senator Blunt speaking at the end of that hearing and saying this is something we need to take care of before the end of this Congress. And that was a very important announcement and it led us to this moment.\u201d\n\nThe Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act includes many provisions proposed by Senator King in an initial discussion draft for reform released in February. The legislation updates the outdated and vague 1887 Electoral Count Act to ensure that electoral votes tallied by Congress accurately reflect the will of the voters in each state. The bill replaces ambiguous provisions with clear procedures to ensure the counting of electoral votes can\u2019t be exploited. Key provisions in the bill include:\n\nClarifying the Role of the Vice President.\n\nAffirmatively states that the constitutional role of the Vice President in the counting of electoral votes is ceremonial, with no power to adjudicate conflicts that might arise.\n\nRaising the Objection Threshold.\n\nRaises the threshold to object to a state\u2019s electors to at least one-fifth of the duly chosen and sworn members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate \u2013 up from one member of each chamber.\n\nEnsuring a Single, Accurate Slate of Electors.\n\nDesignates each state\u2019s governor as responsible for submitting a single slate of electors to Congress.\n\nEnsures a state\u2019s executive can\u2019t submit a slate of electors over the objections of the judiciary or in violation of state and federal law.\n\nExpediting Judicial Review.\n\nProvides an expedited review process, including a three-judge panel with appeal to the Supreme Court, of certain claims related to a state\u2019s slate of electors.\n\nPreventing Moving or Canceling of Elections.\n\nRequires \u201cextraordinary and catastrophic\u201d events for a state to move their election, and removes a provision that allows states to declare failed elections.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T03:32:05Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.king.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-king-urges-passage-of-most-important-bill-this-congress-protections-for-the-peaceful-transfer-of-power"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7385960780084133, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}