Sen. Amy KlobucharCertified

Election Legitimacy — 30/30

Klobuchar has repeatedly and unambiguously affirmed certified election outcomes, including as a top Rules Committee Democrat during the violent January 6, 2021 count. She was one of the four tellers responsible for counting the electoral votes during the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, and has not forgotten what it was like to take cover with fellow lawmakers and walk through broken glass and spray-painted pillars the next day to announce the certified results . When several Senate colleagues moved to object to the count that day, she publicly rejected the effort, stating flatly that “Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20th, and no publicity stunt will change that… Every single state in America has certified its election results and that includes by Republican Secretaries of State and Governors,” and noted that in Georgia, the state conducted a hand audit and two recounts and the results were certified by the Republican Secretary of State, and over 80 judges, including Trump-appointed judges, rejected lawsuits seeking to overturn the results .

She again played this constitutional role in January 2025, this time certifying a loss for her own party, and framed it in explicitly non-partisan terms: “The peaceful transfer of power is the bedrock of our democracy and we have taken critical action to protect it… No matter your party, we must uphold the right of all Americans to make their voices heard in our free and fair elections” . Ahead of the 2024 count, she also worked to reassure the public that legal safeguards existed, telling Newsweek that “Election officials from both parties have made clear that there are protections in law if local officials try to delay or stop the certification of election results, including by going to court to compel certification if necessary.” No search turned up any instance of Klobuchar disputing a legitimate outcome without evidence.

Voting Rights — 23/25

Klobuchar has been one of the Senate’s most active legislators on ballot access and election administration, serving as Chair (and previously Ranking Member) of the Rules Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal elections. She was a lead architect of the Freedom to Vote Act, part of the entire voting rights working group responding to what she called “unprecedented attacks on our democracy in states across the country” after the 2020 election, arguing these “attacks demand an immediate federal response.” She also co-led reintroduction of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act to restore protections gutted by the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision, and co-sponsored legislation for automatic voter registration, arguing it would “remove barriers that keep people from voting, and ensure that every American can have their voice heard at the ballot box.” The score is not a full 25 because these signature bills, while forcefully championed, did not become law due to the filibuster — reflecting the limits of what any single senator can achieve rather than a deduction for her own conduct.

Checks and Balances — 22/25

Klobuchar co-led the bipartisan Senate Rules/Homeland Security investigation into the security failures around January 6, and helped push the Electoral Count Reform Act into law in 2022 to close ambiguities in the 1887 Electoral Count Act, working with then-Ranking Member Roy Blunt (R-MO) to ensure “the electoral votes for President accurately reflect the results in each state and to ensure the will of the people prevails.” As Rules Chair she also pressed the Justice Department when it rescinded Trump-era memos that allowed election fraud allegations to be publicly announced before the 2020 election , and in 2025 she publicly criticized DOJ’s new guidance permitting subpoenas of journalists, warning it extends the department’s reach “far beyond disclosures of classified information.” She has also pushed back on reported White House interference with DOJ antitrust enforcement and joined colleagues asking a DOJ Inspector General to open an independent probe of the department’s merger-review conduct. These actions show a consistent posture of oversight over the executive branch regardless of which party holds the White House; the score is not higher only because most of this activity is oversight advocacy (letters, hearings, joint investigations) rather than binding legislative checks that were ultimately enacted.

Conduct in Office — 20/20

No nonpartisan body — the Senate Ethics Committee, an Inspector General, or the GAO — has issued a formal finding or sanction against Klobuchar. Broader reporting confirms the Ethics Committee rarely sanctions anyone at all: since 2007, the Senate Ethics Committee is 0-for-2,007 in issuing formal disciplinary sanctions stemming from complaints it has considered . There is substantial media reporting from 2019 (New York Times, BuzzFeed, and others) describing allegations that Klobuchar mistreated Senate staff, including an episode in which she reportedly berated an aide for failing to provide utensils and other claims she has been known to berate staff on an almost daily basis, send vitriolic early morning emails chastising the quality of their work, and even, on occasion, throw papers and objects . Per the rubric’s guardrails, these are press accounts and staff testimonials, not findings from a nonpartisan ethics or oversight body, so they are not scored as a deduction here — the same standard applied to every official reviewed for this feature.

Bipartisan Cooperation — 10/10

Klobuchar has an unusually deep record of cross-party work specifically on democracy-adjacent legislation. The Electoral Count Reform Act itself was a bipartisan product with Sen. Blunt; she partnered with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) on the bipartisan bill to provide AI guidelines for election offices , with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — the new Republican lead on the Honest Ads Act, carrying on the bill’s bipartisan legacy from the late Senator John McCain — to increase transparency in online political ads, and with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) on legislation to Protect Elections from Deceptive AI . Independent legislative tracking corroborates this pattern: GovTrack’s analysis found Klobuchar got bipartisan cosponsors on the most bills compared to All Senators in 2022. This consistent, substantive record of reaching across the aisle specifically on election-integrity and democracy-related bills merits the full bonus.