Last week, 35 Senate Republicans killed a bipartisan effort to create an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol ― arguably the greatest attack on American democracy since the Civil War.
A week earlier, 175 House Republicans opposed creating the commission, too.
Why would any U.S. senator or member of Congress oppose an independent commission to investigate what led to a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol ― one aimed squarely at undermining American democracy and the peaceful transfer of power?
The reasons are as cynical as they are obvious: Most of these Republicans lied about the presidential election being stolen from Donald Trump. That lie helped motivate a white supremacist mob of Trump’s supporters to smash their way into the Capitol ― some with plans to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Vice President Mike Pence and others ― to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s electoral win. Republicans don’t want a respected panel of experts publicly connecting these dots heading into the 2022 elections.
They also don’t want to get on Trump’s bad side by supporting a commission that would show, in detail, how his lie incited an attack on democracy that left five people dead, hundreds of police officers injured and countless others traumatized.
It gets uglier. Their party is counting on people to keep believing the lie. GOP-led state legislatures all over the country are using the lie to justify quickly passing bills to significantly restrict voting in ways that would disproportionately hurt communities of color. Just this year, state lawmakers have already introduced at least 389 restrictive bills in 49 states and passed 22 restrictive laws in 14 states.
It’s no coincidence that the four states where Republicans have filed the most bills aimed at restricting voting — Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania — were some of the closest states in the 2020 presidential election. As FiveThirtyEight notes, all four of those states went for Biden and have GOP-controlled legislatures, which makes them especially ripe for new voting restrictions.
It’s also no coincidence that of the 147 House and Senate Republicans who voted in January to overturn the election, 139 of them also just voted to stop an independent commission from investigating the insurrection. It’s all connected. They attacked democracy in January and capped it off last week with a second attack on democracy, all in plain sight and with the intention of preserving the lie.
Here are the names of all 139 Republicans in Congress who sided with Trump and his lie instead of protecting American democracy. Twice.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.)
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.)
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.)
HellaTroi on June 2nd, 2021 at 21:29 UTC »
The insurrection is still in progress.
Just_another_dude_09 on June 2nd, 2021 at 21:06 UTC »
I'm sorry but only 139? Sounds a bit low to me.
Limp_Distribution on June 2nd, 2021 at 21:02 UTC »
They are continuing to lie.