Republicans are pointing to Vice President Kamala Harris shoring up Republican support for overhauling a 135-year-old law that many believe helped spur the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
They cite Ms. Harris as a top reason why the Electoral Count Act of 1887 should be rewritten to clear up questions about the vice president’s role in certifying the next White House election.
“For Republicans, the question is: Do you want Kamala Harris feeling she can decide who the next president is,” said Sen. Mitt Romney, Utah Republican who served as the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee. “It’s something we ought to be interested in.”
For months, the senators have been discussing how to rewrite the ECA’s guidelines for counting and certifying Electoral College votes after a presidential election. Democrats and Republicans say the law needs to be updated to remove ambiguity.
Under the law, the vice president presides over the Electoral College certification process. Exactly what that means was widely debated in the aftermath of the hotly contested 2020 election. Former President Donald Trump and his allies argued that the vice president could reject electors from states with election “irregularities.”
Then-Vice President Mike Pence and others took a different view. They said the ECA allowed the vice president only to preside over the count, not adjudicate its legitimacy. In making the argument, many noted that the ECA stipulates that only Electoral College tallies affirmed by governors can be accepted for certification.
“There are so many ambiguities and a law that is nearly 150 years old, we need to clarify what is the role of the vice president precisely, make it clear that it’s ministerial,” said Sen. Susan M. Collins, a Maine Republican leading a bipartisan push to rework the ECA.
Rewriting the law was beginning to garner significant bipartisan enthusiasm until Mr. Trump got involved. In a series of statements, Mr. Trump indicated that he opposed the effort and the “RINO Republicans” supporting it.
“If the vice president (Mike Pence) had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the presidential election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the vice president to change the results of the election,” Mr. Trump said. “Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away.”
Republicans are now antsy about supporting any change to the law. Many note that Mr. Trump is still the most popular figure in the GOP and the likely front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination.
“I think there are some political ramifications to doing it now, with the former president coming out forcefully and vocally,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia Republican.
Supporters of rewriting the ECA, including Mrs. Collins, say that Mr. Trump’s intervention is just another argument in favor.
“I think everybody knows this law needs to be clarified, except perhaps the former president,” said Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine who caucuses with Democrats. “I think his comments only underline the fact that it needs to be clarified.”
Few Republican lawmakers are willing to agree publicly. The reality has left Republican supporters scrambling for a solution.
Many, like Mr. Romney, say invoking the specter of Ms. Harris trying to overturn the next presidential election might be the answer. They note that Ms. Harris, who has extremely low approval ratings among Republicans, could very well be the Democratic White House nominee in 2024 if President Biden, 79, doesn’t run.
“In the current environment, no one wants a defeated presidential nominee trying something reckless when presiding over the certification of an election they may have just lost narrowly,” said one GOP supporter, who requested anonymity when discussing the topic. “With President Biden’s advancing age, this is a big selling point to fellow Republicans.”
It remains to be seen whether the argument will take hold.
Advocates of changing the ECA say it’s one of the reasons why a pro-Trump mob stormed the capitol on Jan. 6 to stop the certification of the 2020 election. At the time, protesters threatened Mr. Pence for refusing to reject Electoral College votes from states like Pennsylvania and Arizona where there were multiple irregularities due to mail-in balloting.
“Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power, he could have overturned the Election,” Mr. Trump said.
