Texas Republicans unanimously oppose House electoral reform bill co-authored by Rep. Liz Cheney

The U.S. House on Wednesday passed a slate of electoral reforms aimed at preventing presidents from overturning election results and making it harder for members of Congress to object to those results, as most Texas Republicans did after the election of President Joe Biden. The legislation — co-authored by U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican who is among the most vocal critics of former President Donald Trump — was a direct response to Trump’s attempts to prevent Biden from taking office after he won the 2020 election, an effort in which Texas Republicans played key roles.

"This bill is a very important and crucial bill to ensure that what happened on Jan. 6 never happens again," Cheney said, castigating her fellow GOP members — all but nine of whom opposed the legislation — for "defending the indefensible." "If your aim is to prevent future efforts to steal elections, I would respectfully suggest that conservatives should support this bill," she said. "If instead your aim is to leave open the door for elections to be stolen in the future, you might decide not to." The bill passed on a 229-203 vote. All Texas Democrats supported the bill, and every Texas Republican opposed it. Republicans argued they were not consulted in the drafting of the bill, which they said would federalize elections. They argued that the Electoral Count Act, which the bill would reform, has been in place for more than a century and worked as it should on Jan. 6, when Biden's election was certified over the objections of GOP members. “The Democrats’ ongoing fixation to inject the federal government into elections threatens the preservation of liberty, and it is just another excuse to obsess about President Trump and the January 6th Committee,” said U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, a Friendswood Republican. “We must protect the integrity of our elections, but this bill does nothing to accomplish that key objective. At a time we should be addressing inflation, the runaway spending that is fueling it, and the assault on domestic energy, not to mention the invasion along our southern border, House Democrats chose to put on yet another partisan sideshow."