“As the [Capitol riot] committee bears down on the truth, Republicans will be even more obliged to treat Jan. 6 as a nonevent being hyped by Trump’s enemies. It will grow even harder to acknowledge that it was a grave national event with profound long-term implications, one requiring a serious national reckoning and response. The push for ECA reform should derive its energy in part from that latter notion. But if this cause gets associated with Enemies of Trump – with the idea that Jan. 6 portends an enduring threat to democratic stability, and that we should act on this – it may grow harder for even non-Trumpy Republicans to associate themselves with it. Things are moving: Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) is talking to other House Democrats about introducing an ECA reform bill soon. In a letter circulating among Democrats, Lofgren notes that Jan. 6 reveals ‘serious flaws’ in the ECA, and frames reform as central to ensuring future ‘orderly and peaceful transfers of power.’ This legislation would seek to fix some deep ECA ambiguities that Trump tried to exploit.”

“The very belief that overturning the election in Congress was possible gave life to the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally and led Trump to incite the mob to intimidate his vice president and lawmakers to carry that out. Republicans of such good intentions should be eager to support reforming the ECA. That’s not only because it will make stolen-election schemes less likely to succeed. It’s also because, by rendering such schemes more implausible, it will make it less likely that Republicans themselves face pressure to execute them in the future” – Greg Sargent, Washington Post.