{"id":35775,"date":"2022-09-17T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-17T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/17\/jan-6-panel-races-to-put-together-legislative-proposal\/"},"modified":"2022-09-17T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-09-17T16:00:00","slug":"jan-6-panel-races-to-put-together-legislative-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/17\/jan-6-panel-races-to-put-together-legislative-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Jan. 6 panel races to put together legislative proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is eyeing a laundry list of tasks as it seeks to pull together a legislative package to prevent future insurrections.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The committee for months has touted the legislative purpose to its investigation \u2014 a key detail as various subpoena recipients have sought to skirt compliance with the panel.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr1_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>But with the panel staring down a tight end-of-the-year deadline to complete its work, time is\u00a0dwindling to introduce a package that could range from electoral reforms to enhanced criminal penalties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have some minor factual loose ends to wrap up, but then really what we need to do is to make our sweeping legislative recommendations about what needs to be done to fortify America against coups and insurrections and political violence in the future,\u201d said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.).\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to strengthen and fortify the electoral system and the right to vote. We want to do what we can to secure the situation of election workers and keep them safe from violence. We want to solidify the states in their determination that private armed militias not operate in the name of the state. You know, we don\u2019t have any kind of federal law or policy about private armed militias,\u201d Raskin added, saying the last point was a personal interest of his. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Vice Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) alluded to the wide range of legislative options <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?515413-4\/house-debates-steve-bannon-contempt-congress-resolution\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">as far back as October <\/a>when the House was considering a contempt of Congress vote against onetime Trump strategist Stephen Bannon.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>She cited Trump\u2019s dereliction of duty in watching the riot unfold while doing little if anything to stop it, saying, \u201cWe are evaluating whether our criminal laws should be enhanced to apply more consequences to this type of behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She also pointed to Trump\u2019s call to pressure Georgia\u2019s secretary of state to \u201cfind\u201d more votes, saying the panel was contemplating enhanced penalties for such actions in general.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr2_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Cheney also floated that legislation could address Trump\u2019s alleged pressure campaign at the Department of Justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trump\u2019s attempt to reverse President Biden\u2019s victory has also prompted the most publicly discussed efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Senate lawmakers introduced legislation that would reform the Electoral Count Act in July. A companion bill was introduced in the House this week by two lawmakers who do not serve on the Jan. 6 committee.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr3_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>The\u00a0bill seeks to clarify the role the vice president plays in certifying the results, specifically stating that it is purely ceremonial. The legislation also would raise the bar to successfully challenge a state\u2019s Electoral College result, from just one House member and one senator from a state to 20 percent of a state\u2019s congressional delegation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It also directly targets Trump\u2019s fake elector scheme by largely leaving each state\u2019s governor in charge of submitting electoral certificates to end the risk of any competing electors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) has her own Electoral Reform Act bill in the works \u2014 one she said would go beyond the measures outlined in the Senate legislation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"ad-unit ad-unit--mr4_ab\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>While she says work on it is being\u00a0\u201cbuttoned up,\u201d\u00a0it\u2019s not clear when it will drop \u2014 though it\u2019s scheduled to go to the House floor next week.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers have been more secretive about what legislative measures they might consider beyond reforming the Electoral Count Act.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ve got to wait on the recommendations and the findings,\u201d Chair Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in response to a question from The Hill.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But they have offered some hints.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Quinta Jurecic, a fellow at the Brooking Institution and a senior editor at Lawfare, said she\u2019s seen ties between Cheney\u2019s comments on the floor over a year ago and the structure of the hearings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re definitely really looking at the sort of the criminal law aspect and this question of whether or not Trump personally could be held accountable which I think is consistent with the hearings so far where you saw they were really leaning in on Trump\u2019s personal, moral and potentially legal culpability for the insurrection,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania specializing in ethics, said there are already laws on the books that could be used to cover some of Trump\u2019s behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA call to [Georgia Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger and anything like that is already illegal. So the idea that we should strengthen laws against interfering with elections on the part of a sitting president \u2014 we have all the laws we need. Or, for example, putting executive branch employees under political pressure to support his political campaign. That is a criminal violation of the Hatch Act,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Hatch Act, which bars coercing federal employees into political activity, has a little-known criminal provision, but it carries just a possible three-year prison sentence.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But the committee could also look at placing more specific limitations of the office of the presidency or clarifying that its occupant is subject to certain criminal penalties.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is very much an ongoing discussion about whether or not the presidency as a whole really sort of needs to be rethought in wake of the experience with Trump \u2014 that he sort of showed how much a bad faith executive can get away with,\u201d Jurecic said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Finkelstein would like to see the panel specifically counter various memos from the Justice Department\u2019s Office of Legal Counsel setting a policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat policy \u2014 which is grounded in nothing in the Constitution, and dictated by nothing in existing law, and in fact, in our view, contradicts existing law \u2014 is policy only. It\u2019s not itself law,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Any such legislation could face a difficult path forward in Congress, but the multiple bipartisan efforts to change the Electoral College Act suggest the more modest reforms stand the best chance for passage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But Raskin has said he would see such limited action as a failure.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDonald Trump didn\u2019t set out to overthrow the Electoral Count Act, he set out to overthrow the election. And the election is far broader than just the Electoral Count Act,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"thehill-promo-link\">\n\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/international\/3647748-ukraines-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plants-main-power-line-restored-iaea-says\/\" class=\"thehill-promo-link__link\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\tUkraine\u2019s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant\u2019s main power line restored, IAEA says\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/blogs\/blog-briefing-room\/3647550-brittney-griners-wife-thanks-biden-for-meeting-over-wnba-stars-detainment-in-russia\/\" class=\"thehill-promo-link__link\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n\t\tBrittney Griner\u2019s wife thanks Biden for meeting over WNBA star\u2019s detainment in Russia\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWe need to develop a comprehensive approach to guaranteeing voting rights and solidifying the electoral apparatus against coups and insurrections, political violence and electoral sabotage in the future,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf all we did was to say that the vice president does not have the authority to nullify Electoral College votes, then we will not have lived up to this moment,\u201d Raskin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Mychael Schnell contributed.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/national-security\/3646575-jan-6-panel-races-to-put-together-legislative-proposal\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol is eyeing a&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35776,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}