Jan. 6 hearings start tonight. Will they make a difference to Kansas, Missouri voters?
It is hard to forget about January 6 in the U.S. Capitol.
Some are reminded of the day when they hear protesters chanting outside. Others are reminded when they walk past the metal detectors that were installed at all of the entrances into the House of Representatives.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver is standing in the Speakers Lobby, a few feet from where a Capitol police officer fired the shot that killed a rioter trying to break into the House of Representatives that day.
“We can forget it if we want and walk around and say it’s all over, we’re moving on to some new issue,” Cleaver said. “And our children, and their children, will still be feeling the impacts of this for generations. No matter what happens we’re going to feel it for generations.”
On Thursday evening, a special committee in the House of Representatives will attempt to remind voters by presenting its findings about a coordinated attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and prevent the peaceful transition of power.
In a series of prime time, made-for-television hearings aired on the broadcast networks, the committee is trying to show just how close American democracy came to failing. They’ll be working against a polarized political environment, one where opinions of the January 6 insurrection are galvanized, regardless of new evidence the committee may present.
Outside of Washington, D.C., the insurrection may have already lost its salience. People have turned their political attention to things like gun violence, abortion rights, high gas prices and inflation. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, who was once scorned for being the first senator to say he would object to the 2020 results, more than quadrupled his fundraising total and is selling camouflage beer koozies with a photograph of him raising his fist to protesters that day.
“Voters don’t care,” Hawley said at the Capitol Tuesday. “It’s total political theater, that’s what I think it is.”
In Washington, Democrats appear to be walking a fine line between emphasizing the importance of the hearing — both its historical nature and its investigation of the unprecedented ease with which the mob was able to disrupt the certification of a presidential election — and speculating about how it may affect the election in November.
Republicans are favored to take back the House of Representatives and the Senate this fall. But some Democrats believe that if the hearings make a clear case of a Republican effort to overturn the U.S. Presidential election, it will re-energize the Democratic base and influence Independent voters who may be concerned with the direction of the Republican Party.
It may be difficult for the hearings to shift opinion. More than a year after the insurrection many have already formed an opinion on the significance of the day.
“I think this is a very important issue,” said Kenneth Warren, a political science professor at St. Louis University. “I don’t think the average voter would see it as an important issue. It also is an issue that has been well covered, and people have made up their minds on it. We don’t know what new will come out of this. I don’t know if it makes a difference whether much new comes out of it.”
In Missouri and Kansas even Democrats have downplayed the significance of the January 6 hearing. On Twitter this week, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas expressed a nonchalance about the report and hearings.
“Can’t we stay focused on gun violence solutions, reproductive rights, and the like?” Lucas wrote on Twitter. “People in KC walk up to me concerned about their kids getting shot at school, not a Mike Pence timeline.”
Lucas faced some criticism for the statement, but retired Marine Lucas Kunce, who is running in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, said he understood where the mayor was coming from. While Kunce said he believed the hearings were important, he said he didn’t hear too much about January 6 on the campaign trail.
“People come to me every day with what’s important to them and generally it’s, ‘I feel like I have no power, I feel like the people in charge ain’t doing anything for me, they’re bought off, they don’t care about what I’m going through,’” Kunce said. “And this is on both sides.”
Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas is one of the Democratic incumbents who may be vulnerable in November. After congressional redistricting this year, her district went from one that leaned Democratic to one that is considered a toss-up by most of the major election analysts.
When asked whether voters were talking about January 6 or whether the campaign felt the hearing might help its messaging in November, Ellie Turner, Davids’ spokeswoman, sent back a statement that didn’t even mention January 6.
“Rep. Davids is focused on the issues that are top of mind for Kansans: lowering the cost of living, protecting their health care, and keeping their families safe,” Turner said. “That’s what she’s been talking to folks about all across the Kansas Third, and that’s what she will continue to do.”
Amanda Adkins, Davids’ likely Republican opponent in November, did not say whether she would have voted to overturn the 2020 election results or weigh in on the hearing.
Republicans have been downplaying the significance of the committee since it was formed in July last year. After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blocked two Republicans who are close allies to Trump from serving on the committee, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy withdrew all of the Republicans he picked.
The only Republicans still on the committee are Rep. Liz Cheney, who lost her Republican leadership position for criticizing Trump’s role in the insurrection, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger. Both of them voted to impeach Trump in 2020.
Hawley said he has not been called to testify in front of the committee, which is looking at the connections between Trump’s inner circle and the events that happened on January 6. Hawley missed a phone call from Trump the morning of January 6 and said he was unable to reach the president when he tried to call him back.
In the Capitol, he’s among the large group of Republicans who have criticized the committee, painting it as a political effort to go after Trump. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, who also voted to overturn the presidential results, dismissed the idea that the hearings would have any impact.
“No one back home is talking about this event,” Marshall said.
Cleaver said the hearings are significant regardless of whether they change the minds of voters. He said Congress has to keep attention on January 6 in order to preserve American democracy.
“I think there are a lot of people who are preoccupied with their congressional races and that’s good, I am too,” Cleaver said. “But I just think that we will fail the generations to come if we start dimming the light on what happened on January 6. My hope is that the light will come back in with new search lights.”
This story was originally published June 9, 2022 at 10:27 AM.
