Cotton, McConnell, Ernst, Grassley Send Letter to Businesses Regarding Democrats’ Theft of Iowa House Seat

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.