US House Jan 6 panel recommends steps to safeguard electoral integrity

In its final report issued Thursday, the committee called for closing loopholes and boosting security for the congressional count of presidential electors, while also strengthening the Capitol Police

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol offered 11 brief recommendations for preventing future attempts to overturn a US election, but most are unlikely to pass until at least after the 2024 presidential race.
 

In its final report issued Thursday, the committee called for closing loopholes and boosting security for the congressional count of presidential electors, while also strengthening oversight of the Capitol Police. It also recommended barring Jan. 6 attackers from holding public office and toughening the penalties for threatening the electoral system.

“Driven by our investigative findings, these recommendations will help strengthen the guardrails of our democracy,” Representative Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chaired the panel, wrote in a forward to the 814-page report.

In contrast to the detailed narratives of actions taken by Trump and others, the four-page section of the report listing recommendations is broad and thinly sketched out. With Republicans preparing to take control of the House next month following the November midterm election, most of the panel’s proposals are dead on arrival, except for one.

Just hours before the report was posted, the Senate voted to update the Electoral Count Act of 1887, creating a fast-track legal process if a state refuses to certify the results. The measure also clarifies that the vice president has no authority to throw out electors — as Donald Trump pressured Mike Pence to do — and raises the number of lawmakers required to vote on an objection to electors.

The legislation, backed by lawmakers from both parties, was included in must-pass government spending legislation passed by the Senate earlier Thursday and awaiting House passage on Friday. The Senate changes did not go as far as a bill that passed the House in September, co-sponsored by Jan. 6 committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney, but voting rights groups have said it addresses their main concerns.

The report also calls for lawyers who worked on some parts of Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss to face disciplinary action from their state bars, which is already happening in some cases, and for Congress to determine if any officials involved should be barred from holding future office.

The committee additionally recommended that the joint session of Congress when electors are counted be designated as a “special security” event requiring extra attention, on par with the inauguration or a State of the Union address.

Noting that Trump allies considered using the Insurrection Act as part of their bid to overturn the election, the report said that Congress should “consider risks posed for future elections,” though the panel stopped short of making a specific recommendation.

The committee also called on Congress to stiffen federal criminal penalties for making threats against election workers and expanding protection of their personal information. Part of the report chronicles harassment in 2020 of election officials and politicians in battleground states, some of whom were specifically targeted by Trump and his allies.

The report recounted the emotional testimony from former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss and listed numerous other examples of death threats and racist, antisemitic, and sexualized attacks on other people across the country.

House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, currently running for Speaker, is unlikely to follow up on the proposals, however, and has signaled that he would potentially even investigate the Jan. 6 committee itself, so any of the proposals would be unlikely to get very far until Democrats retake the majority in the lower chamber.

(Updates with more detail from report starting in fourth paragraph)
 

--With assistance from Zoe Tillman.