| Aloha, Early Birds. We invite you to tune in to Washington Post Live today at 1 p.m., when Aquilino Gonell, Donell Harvin and others who were on the frontlines on Jan. 6 discuss the impact that the attack on the Capitol has had on their lives. Tips: earlytips@washpost.com. | | |  | On the Hill | | Democrats fight for path forward on voting rights |  (Washington Post illustration; iStock) | | | Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) vowed yesterday to try passing voting rights legislation in the coming weeks, even if it means changing the Senate's filibuster rules to do so. The chamber will "consider changes to Senate rules on or before January 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, to protect the foundation of our democracy: free and fair elections," Schumer wrote in a letter to colleagues. Democrats have rallied around the effort to pass two bills — the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act — leading up to the Jan. 6 anniversary as a way of safeguarding democracy. While all 50 Democratic senators support both bills, Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have refused to back changes to the filibuster supported by President Biden to allow the bill to pass the closely divided chamber, making it questionable whether the push will succeed. Nevertheless, a new report from a leading progressive think tank out this morning argues that passing both bills might not be enough. "The threats to democracy are very real," Alex Tausanovitch, the Center for American Progress's director of campaign finance and electoral reform and the report's author, told us. "We have to take them as seriously as possible and we have to do as much as we can to address them. The [two bills] both do a lot to address those threats. But there's even more than we can and should do." The report identifies three major hazards to fair elections: | - Partisan officials could refuse to certify the results of an election, as Michigan's most populous country nearly did after the 2020 election
- Election administrators, poll workers or poll watchers could prevent voters from casting ballots or keep votes from being counted
- Congress could refuse to certify the Electoral College results, as 147 Republicans voted to do last year
| | The John Lewis bill would help address the first threat by making it "explicitly unlawful for any official to 'willfully fail or refuse to certify' election results in favor of the candidate that gets the most votes," according to the report. But Tausanovitch urges Congress to create a broader set of rules governing how states certify elections, which neither of the two bills Democrats are hustling to pass would do. The Freedom to Vote Act, meanwhile, would place limits on poll watchers, prevent state officials from ousting election officials and make other changes to deal the second threat, though Tausanovich writes that "there's potentially even more that Congress can and should do." Neither bill would tackle the third threat Tausanovich outlines: the possibility that Congress could overturn the result of the next presidential election if enough lawmakers don't like it. | | Tausanovich suggests passing a clearer version of the "outdated" 19th-century law that governs Congress's certification of presidential elections, the Electoral Count Act — an idea that's also gained traction among lawmakers as well as some conservative-leaning pundits in recent weeks. Donald Trump and his allies argued after the 2020 election that the Electoral Count Act (ECA) gave then-Vice President Mike Pence the power to overturn the election results, and critics of the law say it's confusing and vague. Yuval Levin, the American Enterprise Institute's director of constitutional studies, called for "a narrower set of reforms" to elections, including changes to the ECA on Monday in a New York Times op-ed. Ben Ginsberg, the longtime Republican election lawyer, made a similar argument last month in National Review. And members of the House committee investigating Jan. 6 have begun reviewing the ECA as they contemplate the recommendation they'll issue, as Jackie and our colleague Tom Hamburger reported last week. | | The possibility that Democrats could ultimately settle for ECA changes and abandon the other two voting rights bills has infuriated the Democratic election superlawyer Marc Elias, who spent Monday feuding with critics about it on Twitter. "I have a suspicion that at some point soon a cynical Mitch McConnell will offer to pass Electoral Count Act reform if Democrats drop the rest of the Freedom to Vote Act," Elias tweeted. "Every Democrat should reject it. The ECA alone is not the problem. GOP suppression and subversion is." | | Still, it doesn't appear that Democrats are contemplating such a bargain. "We've spoken with many congressional offices interested in clarifying the [ECA], and none of those offices has suggested [ECA] legislation as a substitute for Congress passing voter-protection laws," said Adav Noti, the legal director for the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center. Tausanovitch is pressing lawmakers to pass the voting rights bills and update the ECA — even though he says none of these measures would truly heal the country's elections. "There is no silver bullet," Tausanovitch writes. "A large segment of the American public has decided they don't trust the electoral system, at least not when their favored candidate loses. Changing those hearts and minds is a long-term challenge that is going to require thoughtful, long-term solutions." | | Alex Tausanovitch of the Center for American Progress on voting rights | "The threats to democracy are very real … We have to take them as seriously as possible and we have to do as much as we can to address them." | | | | | | | The stakes, for Democrats, are high |  An early voting at a polling location in San Antonio, Texas on Oct. 22, 2021. (Callaghan O'Hare/Bloomberg) | | | Why Democrats are pushing voting rights bills: Nineteen states passed 34 restrictive voting laws in 2021, according to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice. Those states include Texas, Florida and Georgia, which passed multiple laws making it harder to vote. | - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, New York and Oklahoma shortened the window to apply for mail-in ballots.
- Georgia, Iowa, Kansas and Texas blocked election officials from sending mail-in ballot applications to voters who don't request them.
- Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Montana, New Hampshire, Texas and Wyoming imposed harsher voter ID requirements.
- Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Texas and Utah expanded efforts to remove voters from rolls.
- Alabama, Iowa and Texas increased barriers for voters with disabilities.
- Iowa, Florida, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire and Texas made voter registration more difficult.
- Iowa, Montana and Texas reduced polling place availability.
| | A new wave of restrictions is expected ahead of the 2022 midterms. Before the start of the 2022 legislative session, lawmakers in four states filed at least 13 bills making it harder to vote. Lawmakers in Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee pre-filed bills that would allow partisan reviews of the 2022 election results. | | |  | On K Street | | | New law firm: Roy Herrera and Daniel Arellano have left the law firm Ballard Spahr to start their own boutique firm specializing in election, campaign finance and nonprofit law, Herrera Arellano. The firm's clients include progressive groups such as the Latino Victory Project and Mi Familia Vota as well as the reelection campaign of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). | | |  | The Data | | Covid case rate in Congress hits 13 percent; Capitol physician says masks must be upgraded | | An increase in U.S. covid cases, visualized: "The seven-day coronavirus positivity rate within the U.S. Capitol has gone from less than 1 percent to greater than 13 percent, Brian P. Monahan, the attending physician of the U.S. Congress, wrote in a letter to lawmakers and congressional staff Monday," per our colleague Amy Wang. "He urged as many people as possible to work remotely to reduce in-person meetings and hearings as the Washington region sees a surge in coronavirus cases." | - "Monahan also said that while there has been no change to the indoor mask requirement at the Capitol, the types of masks worn must be upgraded — to a KN95 mask, N95 mask or better — to improve protection against the highly contagious omicron variant."
- "The daily case rates will increase even more substantially in the coming weeks," Monahan wrote. "These cases represent both a rising rate of 'breakthrough infections' among mostly previously vaccinated individuals and several unvaccinated individuals."
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