The House of Representatives approved a firearm and mental health bill hatched in the Senate intended to reduce the growing number of mass shootings in the country.

The bill passed the House with mainly Democratic support. The bill passed by a 234-193 margin with 14 Republicans joining all 220 Democrats in passage.

"While it isn't everything we would have liked to see in legislation, it takes us down the road, the path to more safety, saving lives. Let us not judge the legislation for what it does not do, but respect it for what it does," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

The Senate approved the bill late Thursday by a 65-34 margin. While the bill had the support of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and 14 other GOP members, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy encouraged House Republicans to vote against it.

The bill had opposition from the National Rifle Association.

The legislation will include the following:

• Funds for states to implement red flag laws
• Family mental health spending
• Getting rid of the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by including those convicted of domestic abuse in background checks
• Funding for school-based mental health programs
• Funding for school safety resources
• Clarifying the language of a federally licensed firearm dealer
• Investments in telehealth programs
• Implementing a waiting period on gun purchases for those under age 21
• Penalties for straw purchases of firearms

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, spent the last week finalizing details on the bill. One concern he noted was on the boyfriend loophole and clarifying the language on domestic relationships.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, explained why he was among Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the bill.

"This legislation accomplishes these goals without infringing upon a law-abiding citizen's second amendment right," he said. "And let me repeat that because there's been confusion in speeches from this floor, there's been internet exploding, there's rumors, afloat that somehow this infringes upon the law abiding citizen's right to keep and bear arms. That is absolutely false. And if anyone says, so they are misleading, the American people."

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican adversary in Congress, was defeated in a GOP primary Tuesday, falling to a rival backed by the former president in a contest that reinforced his grip on the party’s base.

The third-term congresswoman and her allies entered the day downbeat about her prospects, aware that Trump’s backing gave Harriet Hageman considerable lift in the state where he won by the largest margin during the 2020 campaign. Cheney was already looking ahead to a political future beyond Capitol Hill that could include a 2024 presidential run, potentially putting her on another collision course with Trump.

Cheney described her loss as the beginning of a new chapter in her political career as she addressed a small collection of supporters, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, on the edge of a vast field flanked by mountains and bales of hay.

“Our work is far from over,” she said Tuesday evening. Hinting at a presidential bid of her own, she later added, “I have said since Jan. 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office — and I mean it.”

The results — and the roughly 30-point margin — were a powerful reminder of the GOP’s rapid shift to the right. A party once dominated by national security-oriented, business-friendly conservatives like her father now belongs to Trump, animated by his populist appeal and, above all, his denial of defeat in the 2020 election.

Such lies, which have been roundly rejected by federal and state election officials along with Trump’s own attorney general and judges he appointed, transformed Cheney from an occasional critic of the former president to the clearest voice inside the GOP warning that he represents a threat to democratic norms. She's the top Republican on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, an attack she referenced in nodding to her political future.

“I have said since Jan. 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office — and I mean it," she said.

Four hundred miles to the east of Cheney’s concession speech, festive Hageman supporters gathered at a sprawling outdoor rodeo and Western culture festival in Cheyenne, many wearing cowboy boots, hats and blue jeans.

“Obviously we’re all very grateful to President Trump, who recognizes that Wyoming has only one congressional representative and we have to make it count,” said Hageman, a ranching industry attorney who had finished third in a previous bid for governor.

Echoing Trump’s conspiracy theories, she falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” as she courted his loyalists in the runup to the election.

Trump and his team celebrated Cheney’s loss, which may represent his biggest political victory in a primary season full of them. The former president called the results “a complete rebuke” of the Jan. 6 committee.

“Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,” he wrote on his social media platform. “Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now. Thank you WYOMING!”

The news offered a welcome break from Trump's focus on his growing legal entanglements. Just eight days earlier, federal agents executing a search warrant recovered 11 sets of classified records from the former president’s Florida estate.

Cheney’s defeat would have been unthinkable just two years ago. The daughter of a former vice president, she hails from one of the most prominent political families in Wyoming. And in Washington, she was the No. 3 House Republican, an influential voice in GOP politics and policy with a sterling conservative voting record.

Cheney will now be forced from Congress at the end of her third and final term in January. She is not expected to leave Capitol Hill quietly.

She will continue in her leadership role on the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack until it dissolves at the end of the year. And she is actively considering a 2024 White House bid — as a Republican or independent — having vowed to do everything in her power to fight Trump’s influence in her party.

With Cheney’s loss, Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are going extinct.

In all, seven Republican senators and 10 Republican House members backed Trump’s impeachment in the days after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress tried to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. Just two of those 10 House members have won their primaries this year. After two Senate retirements, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is the only such Senate Republican on this year’s ballot.

Cheney was forced to seek assistance from the state’s tiny Democratic minority in her bid to pull off a victory. But Democrats across America, major donors among them, took notice. She raised at least $15 million for her election, a stunning figure for a Wyoming political contest.

Voters responded to the interest in the race. With a little more than half of the vote counted, turnout ran about 50% higher than in the 2018 Republican primary for governor.

If Cheney does ultimately run for president — either as a Republican or an independent — don’t expect her to win Wyoming’s three electoral votes.

“We like Trump. She tried to impeach Trump,” Cheyenne voter Chester Barkell said of Cheney on Tuesday. “I don’t trust Liz Cheney.”

And in Jackson, Republican voter Dan Winder said he felt betrayed by his congresswoman.

“Over 70% of the state of Wyoming voted Republican in the last presidential election and she turned right around and voted against us,” said Winder, a hotel manager. “She was our representative, not her own.”

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AP writers Thomas Peipert and Jill Colvin contributed.

For more updates on outstanding races across the country, click here.Control of the Senate hinged on a series of tight races Wednesday after a midterm election that defied expectations of sweeping conservative victories driven by frustration over inflation and President Joe Biden’s leadership.Either party could secure a Senate majority with wins in both Nevada and Arizona — where the races were too early to call. But there was a strong possibility that, for the second time in two years, the Senate majority could come down to a runoff in Georgia next month, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker failing to earn enough votes to win outright.In Pennsylvania, Democrats won the governorship and Senate in the key battleground state. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke five months ago, flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat, topping Trump-endorsed Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. In the governor’s race Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro beat Republican Doug Mastriano, an election denier who some feared would not certify a Democratic presidential win in the state in 2024.Georgia, meanwhile, was set for yet another runoff on Dec. 6. In 2021, Warnock used a runoff to win his seat as did Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff — which gave Democrats control of the Senate. Both Warnock and Walker were already fundraising off the race stretching into a second round.Both Republicans and Democratic incumbents maintained key Senate seats. In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson prevailed over Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, while in New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassen beat Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who had initially promoted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election but tried to shift away those views closer to Election Day.

CNN —

A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit from Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and several Arizona Republicans seeking to force Vice President Mike Pence to help throw the election to President Donald Trump next week when Congress meets to count the Electoral College votes.

Judge Jeremy Kernodle of the Eastern District of Texas said on Friday that Gohmert and the others lacked standing to sue. In a filing late Friday, Gohmert and other plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal to the Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Gohmert's suit was part of the GOP's attempt to overturn the presidential election using unproven allegations of mass voter fraud and charging that multiple states that President-elect Joe Biden won illegally changed their voting rules due to the pandemic.

Those arguments have failed dozens of times in state and federal courts over the past two months.

Gohmert and a slate of would-be Trump electors from Arizona had said only Pence could decide what electoral votes count — a remarkable argument suggesting vice presidents can directly determine who wins a presidential election, regardless of the results.

Kernodle, who was nominated by Trump and confirmed in the Senate by voice vote in 2018, wrote that Gohmert "alleges at most an institutional injury to the House of Representatives. Under well-settled Supreme Court authority, that is insufficient to support standing."

As for the group of Arizona Republicans, who claimed that Biden's electors in the state were unlawfully certified, Kernodle wrote that they "allege an injury that is not fairly traceable to the Defendant, the Vice President of the United States, and is unlikely to be redressed by the requested relief."

Kernodle does not get into the constitutionality of the Electoral Count Act or Pence's ceremonial role overseeing the certification process in his 13-page opinion.

Pence on Thursday asked Kernodle to reject the case, arguing that the legal issues from Gohmert should be directed to the House and Senate, rather than the vice president. Pence's filing did not say if he would entertain the possibility of interfering in the Electoral College count, but there is no public indication that he will.

"(A) suit to establish that the Vice President has discretion over the count, filed against the Vice President, is a walking legal contradiction," Pence said.

"Ironically, Representative Gohmert's position, if adopted by the Court, would actually deprive him of his opportunity as a Member of the House under the Electoral Count Act to raise objections to the counting of electoral votes, and then to debate and vote on them," Pence's filing added.

At least 140 House Republicans are expected to vote against counting the electoral votes on Jan. 6, CNN reported Thursday. Gohmert has said he will be one of them.

There have been no credible allegations of any issues with voting that would have impacted the election, as affirmed by dozens of state and federal courts, governors, state election officials and the departments of Homeland Security and Justice.

Both a House member and senator are required to mount an objection when Congress counts the votes. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said Wednesday he will object, which will force lawmakers in both the House and Senate to vote on whether to accept the results of Biden's victory.

The Justice Department gave the White House a heads-up earlier this week that the Pence filing was coming, according to a person familiar with the matter. Word was sent to chief of staff Mark Meadows that the department would be asking the judge to reject the lawsuit. White House counsel Pat Cipollone was also aware it was coming.

It's not clear whether Trump, who remains furious at the Justice Department for its perceived inaction on voter fraud, was informed himself. He has taken an interest in Pence's role during the Jan. 6 proceedings, though Pence and others at the White House have tried to explain to him that it's merely a ceremonial post.

House General Counsel Doug Letter filed an amicus brief with the court on Thursday, asking for the Gohmert case to be dismissed, calling it a "radical departure from our constitutional procedures and consistent legislative practices."

"At bottom, this litigation seeks to enlist the federal courts in a belated and meritless assault on longstanding constitutional processes for confirming the results of a national election for President," the House attorney wrote.

The Trump campaign is also continuing its quest at the Supreme Court with the same baseless and unproven voter fraud claims. It twice this week asked the court to overturn Biden's win in Wisconsin. Other cases from the President and his allies looking to throw out Biden's victories in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona are pending on the court's docket.

Even amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 election marked the highest voter turnout in U.S. history. More than 158 million ballots were cast, representing an estimated 66% of eligible voters, according to Pew Research Center.

And even with the logistical challenges presented by expanding mail-in voting, the Department of Justice in December said it found no evidence of widespread fraud, and then-President Donald Trump’s cybersecurity director called the 2020 election the “most secure in American history.”

While expanded voting access did not compromise the security of the 2020 election, Republican-run statehouses are creating more impediments for voters in upcoming elections, possibly reacting to unfounded claims of fraud.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice — a nonpartisan law and policy institute — state lawmakers have introduced 253 bills that would restrict voting access in 43 states, as of last month.

The bills, backed largely by Republicans, would take actions ranging from purging names from voter registration rolls to restricting absentee balloting — generally making it more difficult for Americans to cast a ballot.

Of those 253 bills, 50 of them (about 20%) come from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania — all of which went for Biden in 2020 after going for Trump In 2016.

But as the New York Times reports, Republicans’ push to institute stricter voting laws goes across the board and is likely fueled by Trump’s refusal to concede the election. Even in states like Iowa, where expanded access ran smoothly and still resulted in Republican wins, the GOP is curtailing voting rights.

Last month, Republicans voted along party lines to tighten absentee voting and impose other restrictions. In passing the vote State Sen. Jim Carlin, a Republican echoed lies from President Donald Trump about a “stolen” election.

“Most of us in my caucus and the Republican caucus believe the election was stolen,” Carlin said, according to the New York Times.

Trump, still widely popular among Republicans, began a campaign against expanded voting access in the months leading up to the 2020 election. Despite evidence that points to mail-in voting being a secure and bipartisan option to expand access, Trump claimed — often without evidence — that absentee ballots would lead to fraud.

After his loss to Biden, Trump continued to spread misinformation. He filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the results of the 2020 election, nearly all of which were thrown out of court. None had a significant impact on any state’s elections results.

Trump’s claims came to a head on Jan. 6, when thousands of his supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol in an effort to halt the certification of Biden’s electoral college win. They were gathered in D.C. for a "stop the steal" rally, named after a rallying cry of Trump's supporters.

Five people died as a direct result of the riots, including a Capitol police officer.

While Trump was acquitted of inciting a riot, some prominent Republicans — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — continued to blame Trump for sparking the riot, citing his numerous false claims about the election.

Trump’s rhetoric continues to have an impact on Republicans’ faith in elections. In January, 72% of Republican respondents to a Vox poll said they question the results of the election.

Democratic lawmakers in the House have already passed a sweeping voting rights bill that would counteract the GOP efforts at state levels. However, the bill will likely face a tough road to passage in the Senate, where it would need the support of at least 10 Republicans to pass.