House Democrats weigh ejecting GOP winner of contested Iowa race, dismissing
While Democrats say what’s happening in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District is nothing like Trump’s lies about widespread fraud and a stolen election that ultimately led to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, they are aware of the optics of potentially booting out a member of Congress from the opposing party who was declared the winner by bipartisan state election officials.
“The critical thing is when you go to a judicial forum, bring some proof, bring some evidence with you,” Raskin told CNN.
But Hart’s campaign has argued that if 22 other legally cast ballots are counted, she would win the race by nine votes rather than lose it by six. And since the Constitution makes the House the ultimate “judge” of its own elections, Hart has made an unusual petition to investigate her claims and seat her instead.
Republicans are outraged that she’s taken her case to a friendly audience in the Democratic-led House, rather than to the courts, and say it’s a brazen attempt by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pad her razor-thin majority with an extra seat.
“They were complaining because Republicans wouldn’t tell people that Biden won the election on November 4, the day after the election, and now they’re playing this game? It just doesn’t add up,” said Chuck Grassley, the state’s long-serving GOP senator.
But Democrats say there’s nothing untoward about Hart using a process laid out by federal law giving her a chance to make her case before Congress.
“We can’t be concerned about optics,” said North Carolina Rep. G.K. Butterfield, who sits on the House panel considering the challenge. “We’ve got to review the evidence and see where it leads us.”
Raskin, a member of the committee, downplayed how the public might view the matter if the House overturned the election. “We live in cynical, jaded time, but that doesn’t mean we all have to give into it,” he said. “We just have to do our jobs.”
The lawyers for the two sides have until Monday to send their initial briefs to a House panel, which voted on party lines last week to consider the case. The House, which Democrats control by a 219-211 margin, could ultimately decide the election. The chairwoman of the House Administration Committee, Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, said in an interview she hopes the case is resolved this spring.
Democrats could then face a controversial vote just months after defending the state officials who certified the 2020 presidential election. Some Democrats may be uneasy at the prospect.
California Rep. Lou Correa, a Blue Dog Democrat who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said he wanted to “look at the facts” about “what motivates Congress to look at something that should be a state issue.”
“I want to see what compelling reasons there are for the feds to get involved in this,” he said. “I think these are issues that right now are probably best left at the state level.”
The vote could be particularly tricky for Democrats like Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Cindy Axne of Iowa, who could face difficult reelection races in 2022.
Golden, who narrowly defeated a Republican incumbent in 2018 who challenged his loss in court, told CNN that he did not have a problem with the House Administration Committee’s actions so far.
“My instinct is that on these types of things, it’s always best to count every vote, look under every stone,” Golden said. “I think it’s best for either the incumbent or the challenger to allow the process to go as far as there are legal options to do so.”
But Republicans are eager to use any Democratic vote to unseat a lawmaker as a liability in the 2022 midterms.
Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst said in an interview that Hart’s challenge puts the only remaining Iowa Democrat in Congress — Axne — in “jeopardy.”
Ernst asked, “Where is Cindy Axne saying, ‘This is an outrage and the Iowa voters have spoken?’ ”
Axne’s spokesperson pointed CNN to a statement the congresswoman released in December. Axne said at the time that Hart has the “Constitutional and legal grounds to pursue” her case. “I support a transparent process that ensures every properly-cast vote in this contest is counted,” she added.
A rare House review of an electoral victory
It’s extremely rare for a congressional candidate to successfully challenge their loss in Congress. From 1933 to 2009, the House considered 107 contested election cases, according to the Congressional Research Service. In only three cases did it seat the candidate who contested the results; in one instance, it declared a vacancy.
But Miller-Meeks’ attorney Alan Ostergren told CNN “it is a worry” that the Democratic-controlled House will reprise its 1985 decision to seat the Democrat over the state-certified Republican. He said that Hart could’ve gone to court instead of Congress.
“Our focus is on the fact that we have a certificate of election, and that there was a process that Hart could have chosen that was based on law, administered by judges, that she bypassed in favor of one administered by her own…
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