Donald Trump blasted Congress on Christmas over the recently approved $1.7 trillion omnibus bill that averts a government shutdown and seeks changes to the Electoral Count Act.
“Donald Trump decried the language included in the roughly 4,000-page omnibus bill while adding that former Vice President Mike Pence, following the 2020 presidential election, ‘did indeed have the power to send electoral votes back to state legislatures’.
‘The Vice President did indeed have the power to send Electoral Votes back to State Legislatures for reapproval despite the constant drum from Democrats and RINOS that he ABSOLUTELY DID NOT’, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
‘BUT, they just put CLARIFYING language in the disgraceful OMINOUS BILL, making sure that A V.P. DOESN'T DO WHAT THEY ALL SAID COULD NOT BE DONE’.
According to The Hill, the Electoral Count Reform Act, which was written into the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, was drafted in response to the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
‘The measure’, The Hill notes, ‘reforms the 1887 Electoral Count Act to clarify the vice president cannot overturn election results when Congress counts Electoral College votes and raises the number of members necessary to raise objections to a state's electors’". -Jack Gournell, Newsmax
According to the Constitution, the vice president has the legal right to throw out electors from state legislatures with split electors.
And, once the dual slates get sent back to the legislatures if any of the states don’t like it, then they can cry about it to the Supreme Court, where, apparently, they no longer have standing.
For Congress to reject the electors from disputed states as not ‘regularly given’ and ‘lawfully certified’ (the statutory requisite) unless and until an emergency audit of election returns is completed, is found entirely in legal precedent.
In 1877, following serious allegations of fraud and illegal conduct in the Hayes-Tilden presidential race, Congress appointed an Electoral Commission consisting of five Senators, five House Members, and five Supreme Court Justices to consider and resolve the disputed returns.
Likewise, Congress, by law, should be able to appoint an Electoral Commission with full investigatory authority in order to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in disputed states when it is necessary.