Are Sen. Josh Hawley, Republicans really a threat to democracy for questioning election?
Republicans appear to be tilting at windmills in challenging some Electoral College results in Congress.
But some windmills need tilting at. And it doesn’t mean democracy will come tumbling down.
Moreover, the last time some Democrats in Congress didn’t officially contest a Republican presidential victory was way back in 1988. That would be three Republican presidential wins in a row now that have been objected to in Congress (George W. Bush’s two wins, and Trump’s). We’ve somehow managed to make it this far without having our democracy toppled.
And is 2016 such a distant memory? Where was the left’s angst about destroying democracy when there was open talk in their ranks and in the media hoping that electors would switch their votes from Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton — despite no legitimate concerns about voter fraud? In contrast to the hyperventilating going on today about Republicans not voting to certify some states’ electoral results, USA Today ran an objective and dispassionate look at calls to deny Trump his 2016 win. It’s not so academic a question now, for some reason.
In lobbying electors to break their oaths and suggesting that state laws should allow a switch to Clinton in 2016, some on the left saw undermining the constitutionally prescribed Electoral College as just a happy byproduct of their attempts to steal that election. Now that’s undermining an institution.
By contrast, the long-shot electoral challenges by Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and the three Kansas Republican congressmen — Jake LaTurner, Ron Estes and Tracey Mann — are strikingly mild. And, with recent Democratic precedent, apparently the new normal.
“Kansans deserve to know that all legal, and only legal, votes were counted,” the three Kansas congressmen said in a joint statement.
It must be said that the evidence of voting fraud hasn’t been convincing to any court that’s looked at it. And certainly I’ve seen far from enough evidence of fraud to have stolen the election for Joe Biden. But I’ve seen enough smoke to at least wonder whether there’s a fire.
In Pennsylvania, there are questions about whether state election laws were followed. I don’t know why the U.S. Supreme Court wouldn’t be as curious as I am about that.
So, I don’t begrudge Republican members of Congress taking questions about this election seriously. Millions of their constituents sure do: Poll after poll after poll shows some 70% or more of Republicans don’t believe there was a legitimate outcome in this presidential election. How can that be good for democracy?
There may be some preening and posturing in some of the GOP congressional members’ objections to the Electoral College results. That always happens in politics. But that doesn’t diminish the principle involved — which, in this case, is election integrity.
“I’ve pored through data from multiple states to determine whether Congress should count certain electors,” Estes, the Republican congressman from Wichita, told me in an email. “The evidence of states ignoring their own laws, and allegations of fraud, warrant action from the legislative branch as defined in the Constitution and subsequent acts. These objections are more about upholding the Constitution and defending voter integrity than about a specific candidate, and it is abundantly clear that pursuing these objections is what 4th District Kansans want.”
Employing the legal levers of the Constitution to do so is hardly undermining democracy. It’s using the very tools provided by our democratic republic to ensure its health. Making sure of the election result, in the face of all the disbelief in it, would only strengthen the republic.
If the 2020 presidential election results simply aren’t believed in, then the country has a much bigger problem than a few members of Congress saying what’s on the minds of tens of millions of Americans.
