After four years of divisiveness in the White House, many Americans are calling on President-elect Joe Biden to govern in a bipartisan manner. They claim it will promote healing from the open wounds President Donald Trump has inflicted on the United States of America. But a wound cannot heal if the patient keeps picking the scab away.
In an unprecedented move, 126 Republican Members of the House of Representatives have joined Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s motion for the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn the election (PDF). Never mind that Trump’s own administration announced that “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history” and that “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” Even his attorney general Bill Barr said “we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
Everyone who joined Paxton’s motion is guilty of sedition. How can the United States make them accountable? It can look to the 14th amendment, which says that:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress … who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress … to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution
The congressmen’s attempt to subvert a free and fair election for the president of the United States is a clear act of rebellion against the United States Constitution.
Accordingly, Representative Bill Pascrell called on “House leaders to refuse to seat any Members trying to overturn the election” yesterday.
Some would say it’s a rash action and that congress should try to foster bipartisanship instead. Forget about trying to foster bipartisanship. The Senate Leader Mitch McConnell has not changed a bit in the four years since he opposed everything President Barack Obama did. And these 126 congressmen comprise 65% of the GOP in the House. They have made it abundantly clear that they will do everything in their power to cheat the Democrats and thwart President Joe Biden at every turn. That will defy the will of the American people who spoke clearly what we want in the election last month. It’s time for Democrats to fight fire with fire.
That said, I would support one concession to Representative Pascrell’s demand. If one of the seditious Members made a formal statement on the floor of the House under oath, they could be seated in the House. The statement must affirm Trump’s own administration’s position that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure in American history and that there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised. Absent such a statement, those Members can sit out the next congress.
Seating those Members who tried to overturn last month’s free and fair election would send the signal that they can get away with sedition in congress. Not only would that encourage them to do it again, the Republican track record indicates that they would try something even worse next time. And if Democrats don’t fight back hard now while they have a majority, Republicans will overrun them at their next possible opportunity. We already know what that would lead to. The GOP has demonstrated that it fully supports an autocracy in the USA — as long as the autocrat has an R behind his name.
The Progressive Zone 