♪ ♪ ♪ support and as a public service. along with these other television providers. giving it a front row seat to democracy. as mentioned senate republican leader senate mcconnell when he announced his support for an electoral reform bill cosponsored by republican susan collins and democrat joe manchin. after his announcement the senate rules committee voted 14 -- one in favor of the bill. texas republican ted cruz the only dissenting votes. senator mcconnell's remarks followed by number of democratic senators talking about preserving social security and medicare. >> released a draft short-term funding bill bigger parts of the

draft are unobjectionable because they were negotiated across partyty lines. both sides of the s l1 to a government shutdown that no one wantss. both sides want to keep the resources flowing. to disaster stricken communities. both the democratic chairman of the appropriationsmmun committe, senator leahy and republican vice chair senator shelby. it stated publicly that this poison excuse me mr. president i've got a misplaced page here. as i was saying both sides want to continue time is sensitive support for ukraine. but unfortunately her democratic colleagues decided to put in

extraneous artisan language. in fact a poison pill. this extraneous poison pills not related related to keep the government open. it was not negotiated across the aisle. publican vice president this poison pill should not be much too difficult to build things in america. a huge part of our problem. our republicans are the leaders on the issue. that is on my colleague cap

first topic toe has introduced a strong, robust package that would actually move the ball forward. her democratic colleagues a have produced is a phony fig leaf that would actually set back the cause of real permitting reform. this is an issue or should be very easy to improve on the status quo. but amazingly our democratic colleagues have managed to write language that would actually, listen to this, make things even worse. senator mansions a bill goes out of its way to avoid actually amending the national environmental policy act or any other environmental law. hitler's new bureaucracy on top of existing bureaucracy. it's near requirements and deadlines paper tigers with no enforcement. the few partsgi of this

legislation would change the status quo i would things from bad to worse. for example yesterday a long list of state attorneys general wrote the senate a panic letter , eviscerate states' ability to chart chart their own land use and energy policies. eviscerate states' ability to chart their own land use and energy policies. mopping other problems -- among other problems, they explain how this legislation creates a backdoor to sneak through an electricity grid takeover much like the obama administration's unconstitutional so-called clean power plant. these state-level officials are also sounding the alarm about higher costs for their citizens. they write the manchin proposal could impose, quote, potentially back breaking costs on residents

who could see no true energy benefit whatsoever. benefit whatsoever. >> the policy really have electricity start running at the fastest rate in more than 40 ye, the last time the families in need a more democratic policies the raise the utility bills even higher still. this phony fig leaf, as permitting reform in name only and it was written to drink the political will for actual reform without creating any meaningful change that liberal specialmi interest might actually. [inaudible]. [background sounds]. >> if the democratic support

with us fig leaf, is all thatr her colleagues in west virginia got in return for approving yet another texan's ministry during an inflation crisis, the target matched for the senator or for the country. so mr. president, said about today on the bill that hasme partisan dallas and jammed into it and i would be voting no out urge my colleagues to do the same as well democratic government has a smooth and obvious path on government funding and it's obvious that this partisan language in the bipartisan cr move forward. and this afternoon, because of

us in the rules committee, mark of a bipartisan package and updates to the electoral count of 1887. strongly supporting the changes that are colleagues and working up a flush out after literally months of discussions. i'll probably support the legislation providing the nothing more changes are made to its current form. everything we want to think the sinners collins, and capitol and others, and young, for their intense work with the democratic colleagues to get this right. congress processed in the presidential electoral votes was written 135 years ago the cancer came to a head on january 6,

certainly -underscore the need for an update. so did 2001, 2005 in 2017, and each of which, democrats tried to challenge the level election over the republican presidents. obviously in every case, our system of government one out, and the electoral count ultimately produced right - and certainly analogy in the transfer of power to the one but is clear the country needs a more critical path to that outcome. this bipartisan bill does not rashly replace current law, something untested. it keeps what works well and modestly updates what is not. the bill sponsors debate every provision and found bipartisan

consensus in the advantages were left on the floor and resulting product in this bill has introduced is the only chance of the outcome actually make law. the legislation here's what it does, it raises the threshold electoral count reserve of the options is something incredibly unlikely were to happen but injury claims is hardly any support cannot paralyze the process. in a makes the already plain fact of theh 12th amendment even more clear that the vice president has never had and will never have discretionary powers over the county. in a project the states and pointing electives and ensures a

the election. and rejects unwise challenges by creating new cause of action that will election upou to the courts, and create uncertainty pretty and it makes modest technical updates to other pertinent laws such as the president transition time. sooner collinsville does all those modest and important things, tour democratic colleagues obsession with a sweeping federal takeover of all of our election laws as well in florida does bring legislation as introduced in committee. >> thank you and the majority leader for those comments and for your leadership and summa jobs including the subject the