On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, U.S. Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina introduced Senate Bill S.13 in the 117th Congress. The bill has been captioned “A bill to establish an advisory committee to make recommendations on improvements to the security, integrity, and administration of Federal elections.”
On January 5, 2021, Senator Scott’s office posted this press release entitled “Scott to Introduce Bill Establishing Election Integrity Commission.”
According to the U.S. Senate webpage on Congress.gov, Senator Scott’s bill has been read the first time but, “As of 01/09/2021 text has not been received for S.13 – A bill to establish an advisory committee to make recommendations on improvements to the security, integrity, and administration of Federal elections.”
When the text of the bill appears as SB 13, OpenCdA hopes there will be a few changes or elaborations. For example:
The press release stated the Advisory Committee would be made up of 9 Republican and 9 Democrat members appointed by House and Senate leadership. From that we infer the 18 members will come exclusively from elected members of the House and Senate and will not include anyone without partisan affiliation from outside the Capital Beltway.
We remind Senator Scott that according to the website statista.com, “The most recent polling data from December 2020 puts the approval rating of the United States Congress at 15 percent, the lowest approval rating since December 2019.”
OpenCdA is certain that Senator Scott is intent and sincere when he says in his press release statement, “We cannot move forward without looking back and scrutinizing the issues that led to millions of Americans losing trust in our election system.” We agree completely, just as we agree with the general framework of inquiry suggested in his press release.
May we thus humbly suggest that instead of being composed entirely of members of Congress, his proposed Election Integrity Commission ought to include as full-fledged members several of the millions of Americans who have lost trust in their election system? Senator Scott might be very surprised to find that some of his and other members’ constituents are able offer ideas worthy of being allowed past the “Not Invented Here” berm of rejection that has been erected around Fantasyland-on-the-Potomac.
We sincerely hope Senator Tim Scott’s proposed legislation results in our fellow citizens’ trust in their election system being not only restored but dramatically improved beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Good for Senator Scott for taking this first step toward achieving that.