Call them out: These Missouri, Kansas lawmakers are part of craven Electoral College ploy

Your right to a free and fair presidential election will face a historic assault this week in Washington.

Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri began the sorry siege last week when he announced plans to challenge electoral votes when they’re counted Wednesday. Now, he’s been joined by other lawmakers in Kansas and Missouri.

Their plans make a mockery of self-government, misrepresent their constituents and disgrace themselves.

To no one’s surprise, perhaps, Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall is at the front of the parade. On Saturday, he signed a letter with 10 other GOP senators demanding an “audit” of certified election returns from “the disputed states” before Congress confirms their results.

The “disputed states” are only those that President Donald Trump lost, of course. Why are they disputed? Because Trump lost. There’s no other reason.

The president and his allies have spent months pursuing bizarre theories of ballot corruption in the states. Not one has survived the slightest scrutiny. Now, incredibly, Marshall and others claim their objections are only meant to reassure the public about secure elections.

It’s like burning down your neighbor’s house to reassure the public about the fire department. Despite recounts, court challenges — and the potentially illegal intervention of the president himself — the results in the states have been fully certified, and stand.

“I intend to vigorously defend our form of government by opposing this effort to disenfranchise millions of voters in my state and others,” Pennsylvania Sen. Patrick Toomey, a Republican, said over the weekend.

Exactly. There were no large-scale voting irregularities in Pennsylvania, or any state. Joe Biden won a majority of electoral votes. He will be the next president.

These facts are stubborn things. Yet Marshall just as stubbornly ignores them — which is particularly ominous for a senator who just took office. His time would be better spent defending self-government than in shredding the freely-cast votes of 20 million Americans.

His phone number in Washington is 202-224-4774. And Sen. Hawley’s is 202-224-6154.

The new senator isn’t alone in his foolishness. The three Republicans who represent Kansas in the U.S. House — Ron Estes, Jake LaTurner and Tracey Mann — said Sunday that they, too, will object when the electoral votes are opened Wednesday.

“This action is not taken lightly,” the trio said in a statement, “and comes after extensive study and research.” Try not to laugh.

Like Marshall, LaTurner and Mann are freshmen. It’s sad that one of their first official actions will be to try to throw away the results of a free election. History will remember, and it will not be kind.

You can call LaTurner at 202-225-6601. Call Mann at 202-225-2715. Estes is at 202-225-6216.

U.S. Reps. Sam Graves and Vicky Hartzler in Missouri are also on the objection list. “The reported results of this past November’s presidential election don’t even pass the most basic eye test,” they said in a statement last week.

Happily, we don’t elect presidents based on an “eye test” from Graves or Hartzler or anyone else. We count ballots, just as we have since 1788. Biden got more of them than Trump.

Graves: 202-225-7041. Hartzler: 202-225-2876.

It would be easy for voters in Missouri and Kansas to dismiss these disastrous last-minute announcements as the craven acts of politicians desperate to avoid primary challenges in two years. That’s part of their calculus, to be sure.

But taking a courageous stand is possible, and that’s desperately needed now. Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, who faces the voters in 2022, has said he won’t object to the results this week. When he is on the ballot, voters should remember his defense of democracy.

Hawley and his fellow travelers have taken a different road. In an extraordinary statement Monday, former Missouri Sen. Jack Danforth — a Republican who supported Hawley — condemned the challenges expected this week.

“Lending credence to Trump’s false claim that the election was stolen is a highly destructive attack on our constitutional government,” Danforth said. “It is the opposite of conservative; it is radical.”

Exactly.

This story was originally published January 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.