WASHINGTON – Senators
Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas), Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), and
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to trade associations, firms, and
businesses who spoke out about Republicans objecting to the electoral college.
The letter asks these businesses to hold the Democrats attempting to
overturn the election results in Iowa’s second congressional district to the
same standard.
The
letter is available
here.
“Representative
Miller-Meeks won fair and square, as certified by Iowa’s bipartisan Election
Board. Now Democrats want to ignore the voices of Iowa voters and the state’s
own laws to reverse the election results. This failure to accept the certified
outcome of a free and fair election is an affront to democracy itself. If you
were outraged by threats of similar behavior a few months back, you cannot stay
silent about Democrats’ actions today. If anyone is curious about what a
Washington takeover of elections would look like, look no further than what
Speaker Pelosi is doing to voters in Iowa-02,” said Grassley.
“In
January, Democrats and their corporate sponsors attacked the Republicans who
questioned state-certified election results. Now, Democratic party leadership
is stealing a state-certified election in Iowa’s 2nd congressional district. If
the businesses who condemned Republicans in January don’t condemn Democrats for
doing the same, everyone will question whether these companies are truly
committed to free elections,” said Cotton.
“I
remember way back when Democrats and the elite establishment said it was
dead-wrong for Washington D.C. to overturn state-certified election results.
No, wait, that was two months ago,” said McConnell. “Iowans have spoken.
State officials did their jobs. But now Washington Democrats want to use brute
political power to overturn a democratic result because they lost. It’s absurd,
but not surprising from the same party that’s currently pushing legislation
that would turn the F.E.C. into a partisan body and let Washington Democrats
rewrite all 50 states’ election laws.”
McConnell
concluded: “There’s no excuse why anyone who was outraged in January
shouldn’t be sounding the same alarms right now.”
“D.C.
Democrats are working to unseat a duly-elected and certified winner of Iowa’s
second congressional district election: Congresswoman Miller-Meeks. Let’s get
the facts straight: Iowans elected Congresswoman Miller-Meeks; the votes were
recounted and every county in the district canvassed; and the results were
certified by a bipartisan board of Iowans. Rita Hart chose not to follow Iowa
law and rather appealed to Speaker Nancy Pelosi to overturn Iowans’ votes and
voices. This is a total power grab by Washington Democrats and a slap in the
face to Iowans and the nonpartisan elections process that is best kept at the
state level,” said Ernst.
In
part, the Senators wrote:
“Just
a few weeks ago, much of corporate America publicly condemned the actions of
members of Congress who voted to overturn a certified election, and even in
some cases promised to stop supporting those members. We write to ask if you
are taking the same position with respect to members of the House of
Representatives who are poised to overturn a state-certified election in the
second Congressional district in Iowa.”
“We
are asking you to apply the same standard to this attempt to overturn an
election that you applied to the Republicans who objected to certain states’
electoral votes, and publicly condemn the actions of the Democrats who are
seeking to overturn the state-certified election of Representative
Miller-Meeks. If you decide to not speak out about this brazen attempt to steal
an election, some may question the sincerity of your earlier statements and
draw the conclusion that your actions were partisan instead of principled.”
The
letter will be sent to Marriott, Hallmark, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Best Buy,
Amazon, Dell, AirBNB, The Chamber of Commerce, AT&T, Verizon, Dow Chemical,
Walt Disney, Intel, Cisco, Mastercard, Nike, and Edison.
Full
text of the letter follows:
To all
companies that support free and fair elections,
Just a
few weeks ago, much of corporate America publicly condemned the actions of
members of Congress who voted to overturn a certified election, and even in
some cases promised to stop supporting those members. We write to ask if you
are taking the same position with respect to members of the House of
Representatives who are poised to overturn a state-certified election in the
second Congressional district in Iowa.
Last
fall, Republican State Senator Mariannette Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Rita
Hart to represent Iowa’s second district in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Under Iowa law, this result was confirmed after multiple recounts by bipartisan
election officials. Iowa’s bipartisan Board of Canvass unanimously certified
Miller-Meeks as the winner.
Instead
of accepting this certified result, Democrat Rita Hart refused to go to the
Iowa courts to present evidence of legal irregularities before a panel of
impartial judges. Instead, she appealed directly to the only partisan actor
with the power to overturn the results of a certified election: Speaker of the
House, Nancy Pelosi, who is moving forward with a process in which the House
may “exercise its discretion to depart from Iowa law.”
Speaker
Pelosi should have declined to get involved and applied the same standard that
she stated just a few weeks ago: certified elections need to be honored.
Instead, Speaker Pelosi started the process to take the election away from the
people of Iowa to allow the House of Representatives to vote on a party-line basis
on who should fill the seat.
This
effort to overturn a free, fair, and certified election is an unacceptable
attempt to undermine a legitimate democratic process. The people—not
politicians—are responsible for electing their representatives. Our democracy
depends on this.
We are
asking you to apply the same standard to this attempt to overturn an election
that you applied to the Republicans who objected to certain states’ electoral
votes, and publicly condemn the actions of the Democrats who are seeking to
overturn the state-certified election of Representative Miller-Meeks. If you
decide to not speak out about this brazen attempt to steal an election, some
may question the sincerity of your earlier statements and draw the conclusion
that your actions were partisan instead of principled.
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