Back in January, every other statement from Democrats was on how we must respect the results of an election.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was the loudest of them all, especially after the Capitol riots on Jan. 6. An unwillingness to accept election results was one reason Democrats impeached former President Trump and tried to “cancel” Republican members of Congress who objected to the certification of the presidential election.
Keep in mind, members of Congress objecting to the certification of a presidential election is not a new thing, nor is it against the law. It was done by a number of House Democrats in 2001, 2005, and 2017 — all after a Republican president was elected.
But at the same time Democrats and the media were lecturing about the importance of accepting election results and moving on, behind the scenes, an Iowa Democrat who lost a House race by 6 votes was lobbying Pelosi and the House Administration Committee to overturn the results of an election that had been certified by the state back in November.
The battle for Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District was between Republican candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Democrat candidate Rita Hart. Because the election was so close, there was a recount. Miller-Meeks was certified as the winner of the race, but Hart did not concede. Instead of taking her case to the courts, she chose to take it directly to the Democrat-controlled House, where presumably she thought she’d have better luck.
To date, though Miller-Meeks was seated, Hart has been met with enthusiastic support from Pelosi and her fellow Democrats. When Pelosi was criticized for the optics of the House Administrative Committee “reviewing” the district’s election results, she cited the fact that only six votes separated the two nominees and said Hart exercised her legal right to start this process and that they were proceeding accordingly.
For those keeping score at home, in a relatively short time span, we went from it being legally justified for Democrats to object to certifying a presidential election, to it being an affront to democracy for Republicans to do so, to it being legally justified for a Democrat to object to election results in a House race where they lost.
The lawyer representing Hart in this case is Democrat super-lawyer Marc Elias. North Carolinians may remember him as the lawyer who colluded with Democrats behind closed doors last year to change election law without the bother of going through the Republican-controlled state legislature.
In response to lawsuits filed by Republican House and Senate leaders in N.C., multiple federal judges slammed the shady deal. Elias was also hit recently “with sanctions by a federal court for violating ethics rules in a suit against Texas over straight-ticket voting,” according to a Bloomberg report.
The crux of Elias’ legal argument in Hart’s case is in appealing to House Democrats to ignore Iowa law when determining whether to include 22 additional votes. Not all of the votes were for Hart, but enough reportedly were to give her the victory should she ultimately prevail in the House.
It’s true that the House is not bound by Iowa law. But if we’re to go by the example Democrats set just two months ago, having the legal right to do something doesn’t always make it right to do — right? We know if the parties here were reversed, there would not be a major media outlet here that wasn’t focused on telling us “What It All Means” about those evil Republicans who never respect election results except for all the times when they do.
Just add this to the long list of examples of Democrats not practicing what they preach on accepting election results. If Republicans must do so and forfeit any right to legal challenges, Democrats should be held to the same standards. Period.
Media analyst Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
