House Democrats Inch Closer to Overturning Iowa House Race and Unseating Republican Who Won
“Republicans are fighting for Miller-Meeks. Even Mitch McConnell addressed the situation from the Senate floor.”
A handful of votes decided the race for Iowa’s second district, and Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks won. Her Democrat opponent Rita Hart appealed directly to the Democrat-controlled House to ignore the results.
Pelosi seated Miller-Meeks provisionally, and Democrats are now actually considering unseating her.
Guy Benson writes at Townhall:
When Pelosi seated Miller-Meeks, and the new Congresswoman was sworn in, it seemed like the misadventure might finally be over. Not so. A Democrat-controlled House committee recently took an affirmative step in the direction of overturning the result in a partisan power grab, and Republicans are now on high alert. They’ve launched a petition at PelosiSteal.com, and major players within the party are sounding the alarm.
If Democrats are going to try to rob the GOP of a legitimately-won election in order to pad their razor-thin majority, they cannot go through the process without intense, painful scrutiny.
Benson interviewed Miller-Meeks, and she commented:
“I was ahead on election night. I was ahead at the official county canvass of all 24 counties. All of these ballots were examined. And then in the recount, [there] is a three person bipartisan board, eyeballs on these ballots that were considered illegitimate under Iowa law — and she could have appealed to the Iowa courts, but did not, because under Iowa law, these ballots would have been tossed out. She knew that she would lose. So, yes, strategically, they felt better to appeal to the House Committee on Administration and Congress, which is a majority of Democrats. So it changes it from an election process.”
She also recently appeared on FOX News and offered this response:
Iowa GOP rep blasts Democrat’s election challenge: ‘They want to go against the laws of our state’
MILLER-MEEKS: There is no doubt in my mind, and there is no doubt in the bipartisan executive council who certified me the winner. It was not only the secretary of state, it was the bipartisan executive council.
Let me elucidate the facts. I won by a very large margin on election night. Then per Iowa law, all the counties in the 2nd Congressional District have their official county canvas. After that country canvas, I was still ahead in votes. Then my opponent requested a recount. Throughout the recount process, which is a bipartisan recount board of three members of each county having to recount, I was still ahead through all of that process. I was then sworn in on January 3rd. Interestingly enough, during the swearing-in ceremony, there was a vote taken [on whether] all of the members from every state should be seated. Every Democrat voted that every member should be seated, and no one contested, no one stood up on the House floor and contested my being sworn in as the congresswoman from the 2nd Congressional District.
Republicans are fighting for Miller-Meeks. Even Mitch McConnell addressed the situation from the Senate floor:
House Republicans are speaking up too:
Speaker Pelosi says she’s open to unseating Republican Congresswoman Miller-Meeks.
Translation: You’re only allowed to object to an election if you’re a Democrat. https://t.co/TOOgIvEroL
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) March 12, 2021
This entire exercise is an outrage.
Democrats must not be allowed to get away with it.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Let the Democrats set the precedent. Once established and once the Georgia system realizes that they were duped (or the judicial system actually does their job), then Ossoff and Warlock can be easily unseated as well. It will be so nice knowing that Pelosi herself will have set those wheels in motion!
You start with the false assumption that Republicans have the balls to actually try something like that
With the dinosaur media, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democrat party, is providing cover and encouragement, Pelosi and her toadies can get away with nearly anything. Do not be surprised!
What has “the Georgia system” got to do with it? Any dispute over their election would have to be judged by the senate, not by anyone in Georgia. But there was no doubt about their election, no room for the senate to dispute it.
Interesting. So the popular elections of Representatives are only meant to provide a veneer of legitimacy. The majority party in the House actually decides who represents each state? In this case the majority could barely be thinner, so if true, I don’t see why we bother casting ballots for Representatives.
Don’t worry. If H.R.1. passes and survives a SCOTUS challenge you won’t need to – Democrats will be more than happy to mail your vote, and those of all your dearly departed. Being patriotic citizens you will all naturally support the Democrat party.
No, James, nobody suggested “the popular elections of Representatives are only meant to provide a veneer of legitimacy”. That’s your own paranoia. The popular election decides who represents each district, and if there is no doubt what the popular election decided, then that is that. But if there is doubt about the result, who is supposed to decide it? The constitution could not be clearer on that point: the judge of election results is the House. Not the state courts, or any other state body. If a majority of the House believes the Democrat won it has the right to seat her, despite what anyone in Iowa thinks. If you don’t like it, amend the constitution.
So the precedent will be a ceritified sworn in winner can have their seat taken away if fraud or more votes are found later on. Great..now what reporter will ask Biden if he will leave peacefully if its determined he did not win. We all know thats all they would ask Trump if the situation was reversed.
Not at all comparable.
1. She was only provisionally sworn in.
2. The constitution explicitly makes the house the judge of its own members’ elections. It does not make congress, or anyone else, the judge of presidential electors’ qualifications.
“Democrats must not be allowed to get away with it.”
There’s your answer. It should not be “must” it should be “will not”.
Must means there is wiggle room. We know what Dems do with wiggle room.
Except that IS EXACTLY what they are attempting to do with Taylor Greene….but im sure you will somehow find a way to “legally” justify that too
All that is left to round out our transition to a banana republic is to declare pan-American Spanish our official language.
How you gonna stop them?
Remember Ashli Babbitt!
This outrage is an example of what angers me about the GOP. The do not fight. While they are opposing the Democrat move in this instance, they are merely opposing, not fighting. They don’t fight whether they’re in power or out. Fighting is what the Democrats do. And it’s street fighting where there are no rules. This is a war that only one side is fighting. The GOP sees it as business as usual and what they deem to be fighting is actually a slow defensive retreat performed while civilly and collegially playing by “the rules”. For the left – and that is what the Democrat Part is – there are no rules. They are not simply the political opposition; they are the domestic enemy of the United States. It is long past time the GOP realizes that and acts accordingly.
Really? How exactly will you stop them? If the House votes to un-horse her, that’s final. The courts will not intervene (per Article I). And no one stops Nancy Pelosi when Nan really, really wants to do something.
The outrage is political, not legal. The constitution explicitly authorizes the House to do exactly what Pelosi is doing here. It does not authorize the congress, or anyone else, to judge the credentials of presidential electors. (Unlike Prof J, I believe the vice president does have such authority, but it’s not explicitly in the constitution. I simply think the duty to count votes must implicitly include the authority to determine what is a valid vote.)
Miller-Meeks was only sworn in provisionally. That was Pelosi’s decision, which was a favor to her and the Republicans. She didn’t have to do that, and if the fact that she did it is now held to stop the House from reversing it then no future speaker will ever do it again. Is that what Republicans want?! Is that what commenters here want?!
The fact that the Democrat could have gone to the Ohio courts and chose not to is politically useful but legally irrelevant. The constitution doesn’t say anything about state courts having a role. It explicitly provides a way to challenge a congressional election result, by applying directly to the house in question, so that is what she chose to do.
The main thing is making sure the House process is honest. The House can’t unseat a member just because it feels like it. It have to be honestly convinced that she wasn’t properly elected. (It can expel a member just because it feels like it, but that needs a 2/3 vote, and it must explicitly be a vote to expel the member, not a vote not to seat her. The supreme court said those are two different things, and can’t be interchanged, even by a 2/3 majority.)
Well the Dems ARE trying to unseat another GOP “just cause they feel like it”…the Dems will ALWAYS do whatever they they damn well please and you constantly twisting yourself into a pretzel to justify their actions as somehow legal or right is just getting to be pathetic.
No, they are not trying to unseat her because they feel like it. If they wanted to do that they would’t have seated her in the first place. If they end up unseating her it will be because they conclude their person won the election; and if they conclude that, why shouldn’t they unseat her?
You are pathetic. How can you doubt their actions are legal, when the constitution explicitly authorizes them to do exactly this?
“The main thing is making sure the House process is honest. The House can’t unseat a member just because it feels like it. It have to be honestly convinced that she wasn’t properly elected.”
Either Miller-Meeks got more votes than her opponent or she didn’t. I don’t see what “honestly convinced” has to do with it. Stacey Abrams is honestly convinced she is governor of Georgia, but that does not make it so.
I disagree with the notion that Pelosi and her party can seat a Member “provisionally”. What exactly does that mean? I don’t see a hint of that in the Constitution. The Constitution say that the House consists of 435 Members, not “Members and Provisional Members”. Pelosi may claim that House rules allow her to seat someone provisionally, but the fact that it is a House rule does not make it constitutional. I am aware that courts have traditionally taken a “hands off” approach to interfering in how the House runs itself, but at some point the plain wording of the Constitution has to have the final say in the matter.
Well, yes, that’s the whole point here. Did she or didn’t she? Nobody knows for sure. Hart claims she got more votes, and she has therefore appealed the result to the only body that has the authority to decide it. It’s now the House’s duty to conduct its own investigation and honestly determine who got more votes.
Will it do that, or will it just vote the way it likes, and damn the evidence? Neither of us can possibly know. All we can say is what its duty is. The law is clear: if the house is honestly convinced Hart won, it will have the right and the duty to seat her, and if not not. It is unconstitutional for the house to refuse to seat someone of whose election it has no doubt, just because it doesn’t like them.
So you would rather they had seated Hart to begin with, or left the seat empty? And you honestly think that is what they should have done?
Exactly what it says. Is this a word you have difficulty with? Is it not in your working vocabulary? I’m not trying to be snarky here, I just don’t understand how the term is unclear.
No, it doesn’t say 435 members. And a provisional member is someone who is provisionally a member. What definition of “member” do you have that would exclude provisional members? On what do you base such a peculiar definition?
Yes, it does. The constitution explicitly makes the house the judge of its own membership. House rules are how the house does that.
That is backwards. The courts haven’t “traditionally taken a hands off approach”; the courts have no authority to do anything else. The internal affairs of congress are not justiciable.
This is absolutely ridiculous.
The dems aren’t happy with a 6 vote republican win. BUT! If they could nullify 7 votes for the republican, they’d be content with a 1 vote democrat win. And they’d say “the people have spoken” or they’d call it a “mandate”.
It’s not a matter of being unhappy with a 6-vote win. If Miller-Meeks could prove that’s all it was she could force the house to seat her, as Adam Clayton Powell forced the house to seat him. It’s a matter of the house not being convinced (or at least claiming not to be convinced) that she did win by 6 votes. Hart claims to have won, so the house has to look into it and decide. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
Democrats adopted, with cause, the jackass as their party symbol.
Translation: You’re only allowed to object to an election if you’re a Democrat.
That’s the point. They see their end in sight – total domination of our country until it becomes their utopia – and they will go to great lengths to convince all of the rest of us that our votes don’t and won’t matter, so we should just suck it up and go along like good little sheep. And the crazier they make their fraud and dishonesty, the better, as they think it pushes us down even more.
We should be focused on winning 2022 and retaliate very severely afterwards for example by refusing any committee assignment to anyone who doesn’t support Miller-Meeks but first we actually have to win.
Memo for House GOP: If you realize you’re playing a rigged poker game, there’s only one thing to do: kick over the table and shoot out the lights