Monthly Archives: January 2022

The following is an excerpt from The Steal: The Attempt to Overturn the 2020 Election and the People Who Stopped It by Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague which will be published by Atlantic Monthly Press on January 4. The book records the story of what happened in the six swing statesArizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsinbetween November 3 and January 6 through the eyes of participants on both sides, those who believed there was widespread voter fraud and those who, after investigating and finding no evidence of it, defended the election results. It is based on original interviews conducted by the authors and the team of researchers and reporters who worked on the book, as well as public records, court testimony, and open legislative hearings.

In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a small city that wraps around the lower edge of Lake Winnebago, Rohn Bishop hosted a celebration on Election Night at Republican Party headquarters.

Inside a big, low, square building just two blocks south of the lakefront, about 60 people watched as Fox News reported the election results. The windowless, fluorescent-lit room was decked with Trump banners, small American flags, and movable wall panels studded with campaign buttons. The mood was festive. All the local Republican candidates were winning, and so was Trump at first. Then when Fox called Arizona for Biden, a chorus of boos went up, and Bishop could see trouble ahead; he knew the Arizona result suggested danger for the president everywhere. Mail ballots, which would take longer to count, were going to swing heavily to BidenTrump had helped ensure it.

Bishop wasnt happy about it. Few had invested more in Trumps reelection or cared more.

Bishop was GOP chairman in Fond du Lac County, flat farm country that unrolls green and lake pocked to the west and south of Green Bay. He was leery of Trumps chances statewide and nationally, but he had done his job. Trump was going to carry his patch of Wisconsin handilyby about 26 percent, with about 62 percent of the vote.

Upbeat, popular, and garrulous, Bishop had a high-pitched nasal voice that was surprising from a man of his bulk. He was broad shouldered, big bellied, with a wide, florid face, big dark-rimmed glasses, a cleanly shaved dome, and a thick red-brown beard. He managed the detailing department of a GM dealership in his day job, but everybody in Fond du Lac knew his passion was politics. He was the face of the Republican Party here.

In at least one respect, Bishop may have been the most authentic Republican in America. Because it was in Fond du Lac County, according to local lore, that the party got its start. In 1854, a group of antislavery former Whigs and members of other parties had met in Ripon, inside a little white schoolhouse. They had formed a new political organization, adopting the name Republican. Other meetings in other states made similar claims, but the Ripon schoolhouse had been preserved as a historical shrine, and the county laid claim to being the GOPs taproot.

Bishop lived in nearby Waupun, a biggish town of clapboard houses on neatly manicured lots, where no one had ever questioned his party bona fides. His whole life was wrapped up in his Republican identity. One of his grandfathers volunteered for Robert Taft at the partys convention in 1952 because Dwight Eisenhower wasnt conservative enough. His other grandfather worked for the party in nearby DuPage County, Illinois. He proudly notes that the river that runs near his corner lot is the south branch of the Rock River, which, downstream in Illinois, Ronald Reagan once patrolled as a lifeguard. He named his two daughters after 80s conservative iconsReagan and Maggie, for Britains Maggie Thatcher. Beneath the stars and stripes that fly over his driveway is a red 2006 Pontiac with the license plate GOP 4ME. His family calls his favorite pastime, simply, Republican-ing, which includes riding on the party float in as many as nine annual county parades while waving, as his daughters put it, like a princess.

Bishop also holds baked-in Republican views. He watches Fox News and sees Democratic priorities as creeping socialism. But he has the personality to transcend differences of opinion, even in the darkest dens of Democratic orthodoxy. Invited in 2019 by a Columbia University professor to a series of interview sessions in New York via Skype, he likely failed to alter a single opinion on the liberal campus about abortion or gun rights, but according to the professor, they loved him.

Bishop had made his house Trump campaign central. On a patch of lawn between his house and his neighbors garage, hed set out Trump signs 100 at a time, inviting supporters to drive up and take as many as they liked. He registered new voters and trained campaign workers at the picnic table in his backyard, where volunteers downloaded the Trump campaigns canvassing app and used it to find fellow Republicans. As they learned how to address potential voters, Bishop served coffee and juice.

Despite the presidents popularity in Waupun, Bishop had seen signs that it was slipping in Wisconsin overall. The presidents victory over Hillary Clinton in the state had been narrow, less than 1 percent. More and more, Wisconsins people were concentrated in Green Bay, Milwaukee, and the state capital of Madison. When Bishop had driven an hour southwest to do door-to-door work in the reliably Republican suburb of Mequon, just north of Milwaukee, hed seen Biden and Black Lives Matter signs on front lawns, which shocked him. This was not his grandfathers Wisconsin anymore.

And as far as Bishop was concerned, Trump had hurt himself badly by discouraging people from voting by mail. When the president had suddenly inveighed against the practice, it came as a surprise to the states Republican leaders. Not long before, they had mailed pamphlets to every GOP voter in the state encouraging it, with a picture of Donald Trump on the front giving two thumbs up. Now he was telling Fox News, I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election, I really do, later tweeting that it would produce the most CORRUPT ELECTION in our Nations History!

Bishop countered by urging that the presidents comments be ignored. Its such a bad idea to scare our own voters away from a legit way to cast their ballot, he tweeted.

That discordant note from the presidents own party in Americas heartland drew some national press attention, which Bishop found both startling and troubling. A hail of criticism followed. Here he was, the nations most authentic Republican, a man who considered himself more pro-Trump than Trump, accused of being a Never Trumperall for trying to help get the guy reelected!

As local party chairman, your job is to help get our candidates elected, one critic wrote. I am not saying that you are wrong about some of Trumps tweets, but Joe Biden is a greater threat to our future. Focus.

Which, as far as Bishop was concerned, entirely missed the point. If the idea was to win, it was Trump who had lost focus.

A local Wisconsin news program invited Bishop on to explain himself.

I think the mail-in absentee voting can actually help Republicans in a state like Wisconsin, he said. We have early voting [by mail] for two weeks. So why give big metropolitan areas where the Democrats are more concentrated 14 days to vote while only giving the Republicans one day to vote? I think urging Republican voters who live in those more rural areas to get their ballot in the mail is a good way for us to reach voters. And any vote we can bring in, in what I thinks gonna be a high-turnout elections a good thing for us.

He defended the voting system in Wisconsin, which he had witnessed up close for years. As a young man, hed tended to believe stories of widespread voter fraud, but his familiarity with the process had taught him that it would actually be very hard to fix an election. Instances of fraud were rare, almost always insignificant, and committed by both sides. Whipping up fears among conservatives would just discourage them from voting.

Like the audiences at Columbia University, his listeners were unpersuaded. More criticism followed from his own people. Some passed word that the White House was not happy with him. Bishop was used to being criticized. Democrats were after him all the time. But here he was, trying to help Trump, lending his considerable local expertise, and getting vilified for it!

And there was no doubt that he was right. He didnt have to wait for the election results in Wisconsin to prove it, as they would. Bishop knew what he was talking about. People who knew and respected him, after hearing him out, would say, Okay, I get where you are coming from; that makes sense. But he couldnt have that kind of talk with all his new critics. And increasingly, he found, even those who would hear him out simply responded, But Trump says.

He had contradicted the Oracle. It didnt matter that he made sense. Heresy was heresy.

In early September, Bishop noticed his heart racing strangely. It worried him. Hed had an ear issue earlier in the summer, and when he went back for a checkup, the doctor noted that his blood pressure had shot up.

Hey, its the middle of an election year, Bishop said and laughed it off. But his mom told him that high blood pressure ran in the family. He started worrying about it.

Not that he didnt already have enough worries: the election stress, the criticism, planning for his wifes birthday and their anniversary in the same week. The final straw was a call from the state GOP chairman, who complained that internal polling showed weak numbers for Trump in Fond du Lac County. This made no sense to Bishop. His county was full of farmers, people who wouldnt vote for a Democrat if the GOP put up a dead man. But now the party questioned his performance as county chairman.

Thats when his heart started to flutter. Normally, he didnt notice his heart beating in his chest, but now it went so fast that he could hardly focus on anything else. It would stop and then start up again. The more he worried about it, the more it happened. Finally, sitting behind his desk at the dealership, there came an attack so strong that he drove to the emergency room on his lunch hour. Doctors hooked him up to an IV, gave him a calming drug, and ran some tests. Only when the results came back normal could he breathe easily again. He went home with anxiety medication, took a few days off, and resolved not to let things get to him so much.

So the clean sweep of local candidates on election night felt like vindication. But Trumps numbers continued to fall, just as he had feared.

Bishop had remained at campaign headquarters in Fond du Lac on Election Night long enough to watch Trump appear on TV to give a rambling, disconsolate victory speech. It was just before 2:30 in the morning in Washington, 1:30 in Wisconsin. Only a few of the Fond du Lac crowd remained. The president spoke from the White House with his wife, Melania, and Vice President Mike Pence at his side. He didnt look like a winner. He looked bewildered and disgusted. Before a wall of American flags, he saluted the millions who had voted for him and said, A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people, and we wont stand for it. We will not stand for it.

He meandered rhetorically through the various states where he said he had either won already or would soon win, soon transitioning to talk of voter fraud. Ive been saying this from the day I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots. This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We did win this election. So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner.

This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud on our nation. Rohn Bishop looked over at one of his colleagues and they rolled their eyes at each other. This was nonsense.

Wisconsins election had been run by Republicans. In fact, the election laws in that state had been overhauled just a few years earlier during the tenure of Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican. Bishop had been around for that, had cheered it, and ever since, he had felt especially good about the integrity of the vote in his state.

This election stolen? It wasnt just false; it was dangerous. Bishop thought, This could get ugly.

Whatever hopes he had that his election travails would ease after Election Day were quickly dashed. He slept for only about two hours after the party, then woke up bright and early Wednesday, running on coffee, playing teacher for his daughters pandemic in-home virtual schooling. He also did two radio interviews.

He sympathized with Trumps outburst at the White House early that morning but did not agree. He told one interviewer that they had to give the president a few days to accept his loss.

Theres enough states outstanding that were not going to concede anything yet, he said. But if I was running for president of the United States Id rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump at this moment.

Bishop regarded these interviews as a standard wrap-up, but he discovered as the week progressed that the contest remained far from settled for many of those he knew. Saying otherwise riled them up.

And he had become the local focus for election outrage. A truck driver called him and screamed at him for helping Democrats steal the election. Bishop wanted to know what had given him that idea. The driver was moving through northern Wisconsin and seeing Trump sign after Trump sign. He hadnt seen any Biden signs. So how could Trump lose Wisconsin?

Well, do you ever drive your semi in Dane County? Bishop asked. This encompassed Madison, the state capital, a city of about 270,000 and the second largest population center in Wisconsin, behind Milwaukee. It was also a Democratic stronghold.

No, said the driver.

Bishop suggested that his sample was flawed.

Strangers were one thing. What really got under his skin were his friends, even his coworkers. He engaged with his colleague Jeff Respalje on Facebook. A mechanic at the GM dealership who had been increasingly vocal about Trumps claims, Respalje had reposted a news report that generals would refuse to take orders from Biden as commander in chief. The first mutinous general quoted was Joe Barron, who had died in 1977.

Bishop pointed out this and other clear signs of the articles falsity, to which Respalje made the curious reply, Theres too many fact-checkers already, dont need another one.

Taking a stand on the principle that facts mattered, Bishop had tried to speak to Respalje about it in person at the back end of the workshop where vehicles were hoisted on lifts so mechanics could work underneath. He considered Respalje one of the best workers in the shop. Beneath a Chevy Silverado, Bishop told his friend, Im just trying to help because the stuff youre sharing is completely wrong.

Again, Respalje responded, I dont need a fact-checker. Then they got into it: Respalje, tall and lean with a long, thin beard and a baseball cap; Bishop, bald, burly, and thickly bearded.

Dude, I voted for the same guy you did, Bishop said. Im just telling you it wasnt stolen; these ballots werent illegally cast. Theyre not going to be thrown out. Theres nothing there.

You really think Joe Biden got 84 million votes? Respalje asked.

Yeah.

No f---ing way. He never left his basement.

Yeah, thats right, Bishop said. Trump was unpopular enough to drive Democrats to vote for a doormat. Yeah, I dont deny that; but he won and its legit.

Then another colleague joined inon Respaljes side. This was a man who had never evinced an interest in politics, but suddenly he was asking whether the state legislature could overturn Bidens win, or whether the states representatives to the Electoral College might ignore the popular vote, which he had seen reported, and simply cast their ballots for Trump.

Bishop answered the questions, but he could see that nothing he said connected. The fact that he had toiled for a year trying to get Trump electedhe hadnt seen these guys at his training sessions or door-to-door outingssimply didnt matter.

He felt increasingly troubled by the tactics of Trumps ardent followers. When state legislators called for partial recounts in Dane County and Milwaukee, seeking to throw out the votes of those who had voted early and in person, it offended him. The effort went nowhere. Its rationale was that election clerks, following procedures adopted informally years earlier, had used a single form instead of a two-form procedure that was still technically mandated. Bishop saw it as fundamentally unfair, a bald effort to toss out black ballots since both recounts were aimed where most of Wisconsins black voters lived. As it happened, he had used the single form, too. By this standard, his own early, in-person vote also deserved to be tossed.

Bishop took down the Trump sign in his front yard on the Thursday after the election. When some of his neighbors complained, he told them simply, We lost.

In February, months after the state elections commission struggled over whether to certify the election results over the protests of Republican electors, Bishop was reelected to his party chairmanship. His neighbors came out in a blizzard to support him. After all the abuse he had taken for telling the truth, Bishop was touched.

Bishop had wavered about seeking the job again. He feared that Trump loyalists would challenge him. But the vote was unanimous. He would remain the most authentic Republican in America, at least as things are seen in Wisconsin. When he stood to accept and to offer thanks, one of his friends thought he might be about to cry.

He didnt, and proud as he was, he didnt plan to keep the position for long. He decided to run for mayor of Waupun. He had T-shirts that read, Rohn for Waupun.

His affection for the town gushed forth in one breath: Its a part-time mayor and its a nonpartisan position, but I like Waupun, and we have a lot of history in Waupun, and I was raised here, and I love the town, and the history of the town, and the people who live here and Im a good advocate for Waupun, and the best part about being the mayor is basically youre the cheerleader for the city, and Im kind of like, Well, who better than me? And plus, we have a cute little slogan, Rohn for Waupun.

In Wisconsin, Rohn (Raahn) is pronounced the same as the Waah in Waupun. He says, It helps people finally learn how to pronounce Waupun correctly.

Excerpted from The Steal. 2022 Mark Bowden and Matthew Teague. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Atlantic Monthly Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Inc. All rights reserved.

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The Most Authentic Republican in America - The Dispatch

As 2021 crashed to a close amid alarming new numbers of omicron cases in the US, we wanted to take a step back and ask, how healthy is Americas democracy? Now that the anniversary of the January 6 storming of the Capitol is close at hand, we wanted to take a look at the year in terms of how the Republican Party is living up to its own boastful moniker as the party of family values. This was, after all, the year when a Republican president urged his followers to march to the Capitol and fight like hell.

The oft-repeated phrase is that Republicans are pro-life only until birth. That accusation seemed justified when Republicans failed to vote in favour of the child tax credit and the child and dependent care tax credit in the stimulus package introduced by President Biden. This at a time when the United States ranks as one of the worst for child poverty among the worlds rich nations. American child poverty rates are worse than in Mexico and six times times those of Finland. Alas, Republicans seem more eager to act like children than to actually help them.

Family values, of course, have no real party affiliation and the majority of Americans believe that being good people, and treating people with dignity and kindness, still matters. Our children learn from our actions. So it has been particularly distressing to witness the many unseemly antics of many senior Republicans this year.

Representative Lauren Boebert, of Colorado, is a gun rights activist and adherent of Donald Trump. She has riffed on fellow Representative Ilhan Omars ethnicity she was born in Mogadishu and joked about a bomb in a backpack. For her part, Omar commented that Boebert thinks bigotry gets her clout.Boebert also refers to Covid vaccines as Fauci Ouchies, in a year where hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from Covid. Of course, the comment led to a whole line of Fauci Ouchie merchandise.

And can we ever forget Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia (pictured above), and the video of her shouting harassing comments through the letter box of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs Congressional office? Greene challenged her to a debate, shouting that Cortez should put her big girl diapers on.This was almost as dignified as Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, who posted a cartoon video of himself wielding a sword at President Joe Biden, and killing Ocasio-Cortez.

Then theres the blowhard Kevin McCarthy of California, who told a fundraising crowd that should he become Speaker of the House and be handed the gavel by Nancy Pelosi, itll be hard not to hit her with it.

In a year that started with Trumps fight like hell command, its become commonplace for Republican leaders to post-and-boast of their gun savvy at the shooting range. So its no surprise that The Vilest Award of the Year has got to be shared by the members of Congress (including, our multi-category winner Boebert) who posted holiday photos depicting themselves and their families bearing assault weapons in front of a Christmas tree. This came within a month of the latest school shooting that killed four and wounded many more.

Sometimes it feels like the leaders of the Republican party are in competition with each other to be the most outrageous and the result is the sort of behaviour you would expect to see in a school playground. If these were just private citizens, that would be one thing. But as the anniversary of the storming of the Capitol approaches, these are the elected officials who represent our nation and on whom we all depend and our children are watching.

We are the only publication thats committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one thats needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout the pandemic. So please, make a donation.

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The decline of the Republican Party - TheArticle

Rep. Mark Finchem, of Arizona, gestures as he speaks during an election rally in Richmond, Va., in October. Steve Helber/AP hide caption

Rep. Mark Finchem, of Arizona, gestures as he speaks during an election rally in Richmond, Va., in October.

Mark Finchem was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

He says he didn't go inside, but he snapped some photos of people who did.

"What happens when the People feel they have been ignored, and Congress refuses to acknowledge rampant fraud. #stopthesteal," he tweeted.

The Arizona state representative was there to share what he called "evidence" of an "irredeemably compromised" 2020 election with Republican lawmakers from his home state of Arizona. To be clear, Republican election officials in the state deemed the results "free, fair, and accurate" and even a discredited GOP-led "audit" run in the state's largest county agreed Biden won.

More recently, Finchem also appeared at a QAnon conference, and in speaking with NPR declined to describe what happened at the Capitol as a riot or an insurrection, instead making allusions to a sort of conspiracy involving law enforcement.

Now, he is running to oversee voting in Arizona in 2022.

And he's not alone.

An NPR analysis of 2022 secretary of state races across the country found at least 15 Republican candidates running who question the legitimacy of President Biden's 2020 win, even though no evidence of widespread fraud has been uncovered about the race over the last 14 months. In fact, claims of any sort of fraud that swung the election have been explicitly refuted in state after state, including those run by Republicans.

The duties of a state secretary of state vary, but in most cases, they are the state's top voting official and have a role in carrying out election laws.

Current and former election officials, as well as election experts worry what could become of democracy should some or many of them win.

"The reasons why Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 election failed is because there were state officials who refused to substantiate his claims of fraud," said Franita Tolson, an election law expert at the University of Southern California. "These folks really are gatekeepers."

In many cases, the races are setting up a deciding moment for Republican voters just how far down the election denial rabbit hole are they willing to follow former President Donald Trump?

In Georgia for instance, the Republican primary will pit incumbent Brad Raffensperger against two candidates, Rep. Jody Hice and former Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle, both of whom allege that Trump was the rightful winner of the state.

Raffensperger, however, became one of the leading Republican voices in 2020 cutting against Trump's misinformation about the election, culminating in a phone call where he told the then-president directly that he was wrong.

"I think [Trump] knows in his heart that he lost this election," Raffensperger told NPR recently.

The 2022 secretary of state race in Kansas is shaping up similarly.

Incumbent Scott Schwab corrected Trump's false claims about mail voting security in 2020, and at least one Republican challenger, Mike Brown, is seizing on those comments to call for audits and defend Trump.

Trump has endorsed three secretary of state candidates so far Finchem in Arizona, Hice in Georgia and Kristina Karamo, a community college professor in Michigan who has pushed conspiracy theories about the election and the attack on the Capitol.

Trey Grayson, a Republican former secretary of state from Kentucky, said the trend is worrisome but that it also makes sense since polling shows a majority of Republican voters feel similarly. A recent NPR/Ipsos poll, for example, found that two-thirds of Republicans nationally feel like fraud helped Biden win.

"There's a lot of crazy going around," Grayson said. "You have people running for these offices where the most important duty is counting the votes and accepting the results even if you don't like the outcome, and these folks don't appear to be well-positioned to do that."

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Here's where election-denying candidates are running to control voting - NPR

Republicans in the Missouri House are set to enter the 2022 legislative session without the veto-proof majority they have wielded for nearly a decade.

Through resignations, death and appointments to other state jobs, the GOP caucus will have 108 members, which is not enough votes to override a veto by the governor or approve a special emergency clause in legislation that makes laws go into effect immediately after theyve been signed.

The loss of members could be alleviated if Gov. Mike Parson were to schedule special elections in those particular districts, but the governor has not signaled he plans to order any.

At this time, the Governors Office has not gotten a request for a special election, spokesperson Kelli Jones said following a meeting of Parsons staff Monday.

The Missouri House has 163 districts. Of those, 114 had been represented by Republicans and 49 were represented by Democrats. Republicans have held their super-majority status since 2012, using their grip on power to loosen gun laws, tighten restrictions on abortion and cut taxes.

But in order to override a veto or pass an emergency clause, 109 votes are needed.

Officially, there are four House vacancies following the resignations of Republicans Rick Roeber of Lees Summit, Becky Ruth of Festus and Wayne Wallingford of Cape Girardeau, and the October death of Rep. Tom Hannegan, R-St. Charles.

Rep. Justin Hill stoked controversy last year for attending the Jan. 6 rally at the U.S. Capitol instead of his own swearing-in ceremony.

In addition, Reps. Aaron Griesheimer of Washington and Justin Hill of Lake Saint Louis are expected to turn in their resignations as early as this week after they took new private sector jobs.

Hill, who has been a lightning rod in the chamber after he skipped his swearing in last year to attend the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol by loyalists to former President Donald Trump, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The implications of the six-member decrease in GOP headcount may surface later this month when lawmakers will be asked to approve new congressional maps as part of the once-per-decade redistricting process.

If the GOP cant muster the votes for an emergency clause for the maps to go into effect immediately and Democrats dont provide any yes votes, the new map wouldnt become effective until Aug. 28, which is the normal time for new laws to go into effect.

Under that timeline, the Aug. 2 primary would be in question because candidates cannot run in districts that dont exist.

Governors in Missouri have the power to schedule special elections, but Parson has been largely silent on the issue over the past year.

And even if he does schedule one, the winner of such a race might not be seated in the House until April, which is less than a month before the scheduled end of the legislative session on May 13.

Rep. Dan Shaul, R-Imperial, the point person on the congressional map-making process, acknowledged the number of Republicans will likely affect the passage of the maps.

The math will tell you that if we want to pass the map, we will need Democratic votes, Shaul said. I believe we will get bipartisan support.

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On eve of 2022 session, resignations, death taking toll on Republican majority - Columbia Missourian

In a growing number of 2022 Republican primaries, former President Donald Trump has stepped in to endorse a candidate other than the incumbent, putting him at odds with some in the party establishment. Its one of several story lines creating a showdown that could help shape the the outcome of the midterms and the future direction of the party.

Trump has so far endorsed nine candidates challenging incumbents, including a Senate candidate in Alaska, a gubernatorial candidate in Idaho and a House candidate in Wyoming.

Trumps endorsements put him on a collision course with his former Vice President Mike Pence, who told incumbent Republican governors in November he would support them, as well as the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, which will back Senate incumbents and intervene in cases where a candidate is a clear threat to lose a seat in a general election, the group told Axios. In other races, Trump will face off with other conservative kingmakers, like Arizonas gubernatorial race, where he and former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin endorsed competing candidates.

The suburbs could determine which side prevails, said Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University.

I think there is a big divide between elite GOP members and their core Trump-supporting rank-and file voters, but the key group that will decide the 2022 elections are the suburban GOP voters who are conservative but also want less uncertainty and chaos in their government, Schiller wrote in an email. The problem for the GOP is that these Trump endorsements will push candidates so far to the right that suburban GOP voters and independents could be repelled by them.

In Virginia, a commonwealth Biden won just one year before, Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin showed his party a path to victory after keeping Trump at a distance. Youngkin placated the Trump wing early in the campaign before tacking more to the center for the general election and winning the race.

Trump-endorsed candidates, however, dont seem likely to follow that playbook. Despite no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020 an Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in six states Trump has challenged found just 475 disputed ballots out of 25.5 million ballots cast, a number too small to change the results Trump-endorsed candidates like Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake said she would not have certified the election, while Idaho gubernatorial candidate Janice McGeachin has called for a 50-state audit.

As the party out of power, Republicans are likely to take back Congress, and Bidens falling approval rating plus redistricting add to their advantage. Relitigating the 2020 election, though, could threaten Republicans chances in tightly contested states, like Arizona or Georgia.

In a state like Georgia, where Stacy Abrams and (Sen. Raphael) Warnock will mobilize the base of the Democratic Party, any drop-off in suburban GOP voters will cost them both the governors race and the Senate race, even in the face of voter suppression laws, Schiller said.

Republican strategist Karl Rove believes Trumps endorsements, based on how vocally a candidate is willing to support his claim that the 2020 election was stolen through widespread fraud, and not so much on a candidates viability, could be a recipe for disaster.

This leaves Mr. Trump backing candidates who will likely falter in the general election, Rove wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial.

In his business career, Mr. Trump put his name on everything from steaks to menswear to vodka, with mixed results, Rove wrote. Now he risks more than diluting his personal brand. Mr. Trump could help some Democrats hang on in an otherwise devastating election cycle in 2022 by forcing their opponents to harangue voters about an unpopular topic. If the GOP cant learn to shake the Trump obsession with alleged election fraud, the former president could even hand Democrats the White House again.

Endorsing nonincumbents is risky, since theyre less likely to win, but should Trumps picks prevail at the ballot box, it would further cement his hold over the party.

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Who is Trump endorsing in the 2022 mid-term elections? - Deseret News

All Mary Miller has to show for her time in Congress is quoting Hitler and voting with Democrats like AOC and the far-left squad to defund our military and block a pay raise for our troops. Thats shameful, DeGroot said. Its clear that Mary Miller is all talk, no action.

Just days after being sworn into office, Miller positivelyquoted Adolf Hitlerin apreparedspeech outside of the U.S. Capitol, saying Hitler was right on one thing.

On Jan. 5, 2021, two days into her House term, Miller issued a speech to the conservative group Moms for America.She quotedAdolf Hitler, saying: Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation. You know, if we win a few elections, were still going to be losing unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: he said, Whoever has the youth has the future.

Rodney Davis is a conservative who gets things done, DeGroot said. Hes already been hard at work highlighting his conservative accomplishments and work with President Trump during his time in office. Thats why hes earned support from countless grassroots Republican leaders in the district. Our campaign looks forward to educating voters on how Rodney is an effective conservative member of Congress and Mary is not.

Do members of Congress have to live in their district?

Mary Miller lives in the 12thCongressional District, not the 15thDistrict, though House members are not required to reside in the district they represent. Anyone can run for Congress as long as they are at least 25 years old, have been a U.S. citizen at least seven years and live in the state they will represent.

Miller has endorsed Darren Bailey for Illinois Governor, who has selected Never Trumper Stephanie Trussell as his running mate, and voted Noon the FY22 defense budget, referred to as the NDAA, the Davis campaign noted. The NDAA funds the military and provides a pay raise for the troops. Alsovoting nowere Democrat Reps. Alexandra Ocasio Cortez and other members of the far left Democrat Squad.

DeGroot described Davis as pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, and is a leading voice against Nancy Pelosis partisan 1/6 Select Committee and Congressional Democrats attempts to push a federal takeover of our election system.

Davis, 51, has beenendorsedby 32 of the 35 Republican county chairmen in the 15thDistrict, Congressmen Darin LaHood and Mike Bost, former Congressman John Shimkus, and over a dozen state lawmakers who represent the 15thDistrict in the Illinois General Assembly.

In 2020, Davis served as an Illinois Co-Chair of President Donald Trumps re-election campaign. He opposed both attempts by Democrats in Congress to impeach President Trump and voted with Trumpnearly 90%of the time when he was in office.

This past Aug. 27, following withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Miller called for the impeachment of President Biden.

President Joe Biden has shown a reckless disregard for the safety and security of our troops stationed overseas and Americans here at home, she said then. Congress must act and begin immediate impeachment hearings to hold the President responsible for the decisions he made that cost service members their lives.

Prior to being elected to the U.S. House in 2012, Davis served as Projects Director for Congressman John Shimkus (who had represented the old 15thDistrict) for 16 years. Miller, 62, won the 2020 election with 70% of the vote, becoming the first Republican woman elected to represent Illinois in Congress sinceJudy Biggertleft office in 2013.

Her bio notes she is a wife, mother, grandmother (seven kids and 17 grandchildren), and local farmer who serves as a voice for families and farmers ignored by D.C. insiders in the swamp. On the House Agriculture Committee, Miller worked with both parties to pass rural broadband legislation, fund vital crop insurance programs, and allow milk back into the school lunch program. She has also introduced legislation to stop the Biden EPA from infringing on farmers and ranchers with burdensome Waters of the United States (WOTUS) regulations, her bio says.

The 2022 primary will be held June 28.

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The mud is already flying in bitter battle to be Republican candidate in the Illinois 15th Congressional District - WHBF - OurQuadCities.com

What does it mean to be a Republican in the year 2022? Being hated. Yes, by the leftbut more importantly, also by members of your own party.

Here in the bad, red place, hardly anyone gets along. Especially after January 6th. Why? Consider this a simple question: Whom does Donald Trump actually like?

In the old days, all a Republican had to do to make Trump happy was kiss his ass with some cheap flattery. Say hes the biggest, strongest, handsomest, smartest, richest dude in history and that would be enough. But today, being on Trumps good side requires accepting his 2020 election lie and endorsing his various schemes to overturn the results.

And if youre not gonna do that? Then GTFO. Trump doesnt want you around. As long as Trump is in charge, your future in the GOP is dead.

Just ask Mike Pence.

Pence spent four years as vice president gazing adoringly into Trumps profile and swooning over his broad shoulders only to be cast out when he refused to block Joe Bidens certification as president. Trump told Pence, I dont want to be your friend anymore if you dont do this. When Pence didnt, he was promptly sentenced to death, political and otherwise, by Trumps troops who chanted Hang Mike Pence as they marauded the halls of Congress. Trump told ABCs Jonathan Karl that his supporters wanted to hang Mike Pence because its common sense, Jon. Trump recently described Pence as mortally wounded.

Podcast January 04 2022

What's sustaining the belief that the election was stolen from Trump? It's rage-makers like Dan Bongino, who feed existe...

Likewise, after Attorney General William Barr told a reporter there was no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, Trump fumed at him: You must really hate Trump. Similarly, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger lost any goodwill they might have felt from the former president when they informed him they could not find enough votes for him to win that state. Ditto Arizona Governor Doug Ducey.

Heck, the number of Trumps own cabinet officials whom the former president cant standand who cant stand him in returnis remarkable.

Because heres the rub: To the former president, being Trumps friend means never saying no to him. Even when it comes to acting on lies that caused an insurrection.

Its the friendship of the mob boss: Do what he tells you and there wont be any trouble. Which explains a lot of the behind-the-scenes grumbling in Republican politics. The guys paying protection money never actually like the mob boss.

Then there is the handful of Republicans who decided to openly buck Trump.

Ten Republicans in the House and seven Republicans in the Senate voted to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6th insurrection. Mitt Romney was among them. Generally known as a mild-mannered Mormon, he reportedly yelled, You have caused this! at the Electoral College-objecting Josh Hawley as Trumps mob breached the Capitol.

Another objector, Jim Jordan, attempted to escort Liz Cheney away from danger during that time. She slapped his hand away, telling him, Get away from me. You fucking did this.

Today its the Romneys and the Cheneys who are getting yelled at.

Theyre harangued by the hard-core Trumpists and lukewarm anti-anti Trumpists who want to pretend that January 6th never happened. The two wings align to make the lives of pro-impeachment Republicans as miserable as possible through ridicule, seizure of positions, censure, and primaries.

And its working. Cheney and Adam Kinzinger now stand pretty much alone when it comes to taking concrete action to hold anyone from Trump World accountable for the attack.

Republican leadershipwho are functionally MAGA sheeple with taxpayer-funded Washington office suiteshave stood aside, unwilling or incapable of holding Trump accountable. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy initially stated that Trump had responsibility for the mob attack, but then declined to make him face any consequences.

Both still support him as party leader and both have said that they will back him as the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, and in the midterms, will support his endorsed candidates.

If McConnell and McCarthy hate anyone more than Trump, it might be themselves for licking the boots of the man they know was responsible for an attack on their own house.

Even in Super-Duper Trump World, things are tense. In the media, people like Alex Jones are on permanent offense to push Newsmax, which pushes OANN, which pushes radio hosts and assorted conservative media websites, which push Fox News further and further out onto the fringe.

Because of the gravitational pull of these internet loons, Republicans in Congress have to answer to trolls-turned-member of Congress such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, who relishes her role as Trumps elected enforcer.

Although Greene regularly harasses people of all political stripes, her Twitter beef with fellow Republican Nancy Mace stands out. Greene went after Mace because Mace criticized another troll-turned-member, Lauren Boebert, for her bigoted remarks about a colleague.

Former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw, a self-styled live-action dynamo of the Trump era, attempted to push back against the Greene gang. Upset over being unfairly targeted with a vote to fund vaccine systems, he issued a warning that Trump-aligned grifters were lying to voters about the existence of a vaccine database to track and punish the unvaccinated. Crenshaw said people needed to see the difference between performance artists and legislators and mentioned that Kinzinger, considered a traitor for his work on the January 6th committee, had voted with Trump 99 percent of the time.

For this, Crenshaw was put on blast by right-wing radio talkers who declared him a false prophet and said they were embarrassed to have helped him win his seat.

These fights were, on the surface, about vaccine politics and speech, but the reason someone like Greene gets away with it, and someone like Cheney gets booted by leadership, goes back to January 6th: Greene insists Trump is the one true president and that the rioters are political prisoners. Cheney doesnt. Mace and Crenshaw waver. They stepped out of line.

And thats what this is really all about.

It goes like this: Trumps election deniers hate anyone who doesnt go along completely with the lie. Meanwhile, the people who believe that Trump is responsible for January 6th and hate what he didas well as the people who cant bring themselves to take a firm positionboth hate the situation theyre in.

For now, the election deniers are in charge because its impossible to be a Republican in good standing (with Trump) unless you attest to the lie and approve of its subsequent actions: sham audits, smears against election workers and voting machine companies, and new laws designed to make overturning the 2024 election possible.

The Trump wing isnt interested in building a big-tent party; it wants to maintain and expand the political army that showed up for him on January 6th. And not just the randos in camo and sweatpants, but the famous people in Congress and the media, too. Those are the kind of Republicans Trump wants to elevate.

Think yes to Patriot Purge with Tucker Carlson. No to Sunday soup with Chris Wallace. Think about the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial field where, in a recent debate, not a single candidate would say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Think about the Senate candidates endorsed by Trump with a record of violence and a willingness to do Trumps bidding.

What a telling combination.

As always, thats the message of the mob boss. Do what he wants and youll be left alone. But say no? Thats when you get violence. Happy now?

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What It Means to Be a Republican in 2022 - The Bulwark

Representative Madison Cawthorn, the bombastic North Carolina Republican, doesnt care that the states conservative establishment is uniting against him. As the youngest member of Congress, at twenty-six, and one of the most headline-grabbing, Cawthorn contends that weak Republican leaders are responsible for leaving the United States nearly thirty trillion dollars in debt. He told me, Thats thanks to people who have been kind of ignorant and slow, not realizing that the Democratic Party is filled with socialists who are so organized, so vicious, and so strong that we have got to start fighting back.

It might come as a surprise that increasingly radical Republicanswho control twenty-six governorships and a Supreme Court majority, and are favored to take back both the Senate and the Houseare not putting up a fight against Democrats, or that the national debt is the legacy of Democrats alone. But that is Cawthorns story, and he is harnessing it to challenge entrenched Republican authority in North Carolina and around the country. After a leader of the conservative John Locke Foundation called him a callow and appallingly ignorant young man who regularly embarrasses conservatives and Republicans, whether they admit it or not, Cawthorn was unmoved. He told me, If I have to call somebody out, and call the Republican Party of old spineless and capitulatory, then Im more than happy to do that. Youve destroyed my country.

An enthusiastic promoter of a second Donald Trump Presidency, with his own sights set on becoming governor, Cawthorn said that he aims to help set the agenda for the moment when Republicans return to power in Congressand to wrench the Party further to the right. He has the backing of Trump, and he is building alliances with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and insurgents in North Carolina. Last month, he poked another stick at North Carolinas Republican establishment when he darted into a freshly drawn congressional district, widely believed to have been carved out for the states influential House speaker, Tim Moore. Rather than face Cawthorn, who has raised more than two million dollars this campaign cycle, Moore announced that he would be running for relection instead.

Three weeks later, Cawthorn visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago, where he shared a list of endorsements called Congressman Cawthorns Plan for North Carolina. When I asked him about the list, which included incumbents and unorthodox contenders for Democratic and open seats, he said that they are great America First candidates. The Republican targets of his rhetoric, he told me, are the ones whove got the pleated pants and the tassel loafers, and they just want to see their name in the paper every other week. And thats exactly what seventy per cent of Congress people are.

Cawthorns rise has been swift. Raised in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where he was homeschooled by his family, he was involved in a severe car crash when he was eighteen, which left him reliant on a wheelchair. He enrolled in Patrick Henry College, but dropped out after one semester. In early 2020, he was just twenty-four, not yet old enough to take a seat in Congress but unafraid to challenge older and more experienced candidates. He worked his way through a crowded field, competing for the Eleventh District seat vacated by Mark Meadows, a Freedom Caucus founder who resigned to become Trumps chief of staff. Cawthorn finished in second place in the primary, beating a seasoned state senator by barely a thousand votes and earning a spot in a June runoff against Lynda Bennett, a Meadows family friend who trumpeted her endorsement by Trump and otherwise kept a low profile.

A few days before the runoff, I drove to Cawthorns final rally, held in a showroom connected to a gun store in his home town of Hendersonville. There, over a barbecue dinner, he shared his vision of a country facing multiplying threats. He criticized the mainstream media and the far-left lefties, who, he said, were trying to sow discord. He worried that the children he hopes to have one day will grow up in a country with an eighty-per-cent tax rate, so they can give free stuff to all kinds of people all over the world. He lamented an American welfare system that is basically incentivizing young women, especially minority women, to not get married, and have more children, because they get more welfare checks because of that. In the runoff, he trounced Bennett, and he went on to a comfortable win over Moe Davis, an Asheville-based Democrat, in the November election. His first tweet on the night of his victory: Cry more, lib.

Cawthorn made news days after being sworn in by speaking at Trumps January 6th Stop the Steal rally, where Cawthorn spread unfounded allegations of election fraud and called Republican colleagues cowards. He later falsely blamed the days violence not on Trump supporters but on agitators from the left. In August, he called the Trump supporters who targeted police officers and invaded the Capitol political prisoners. Recently, Cawthorn accused Joe Biden of intentionally trying to destroy this country. I asked whether he really believes that. He answered that the President is a tyrant, but also senile. Perhaps I did misspeak, he said. I dont believe that Joe Biden is actually in command of anything. I mean, we all see his cognitive decline on full display. He added, as if to settle the question, At the end of the day, its the Joe Biden regime, so whoevers behind the curtain.

Cawthorn is a skilled dispenser of acid comments, but his longer statements can be harder to follow, as he roams through disconnected talking points. I asked him to name a few conservative values. He started by saying the ability to be a free thinker. Another is not being addicted to the serotonin high that you get when youre outraged and letting those cooler heads prevail. He then spoke of honoring the nuclear family and taking care of every American. Young men and women, he said, need to be surrounded with beauty and things that inspire them to be the greatest they can possibly be, instead of saying, Hey, youre so mitigated and youre so attacked. And the patriarchy is destroying you. And its because of white supremacy. And its because, well, you know, Asians always score higher, so we need to make it more difficult for them to be able to get into college, with affirmative action. Thats just all bullshit. I mean, Im telling you, if you turn off your news and you turn off your social media for a few days, and you go outside, youll look around and, hey, everythings actually pretty O.K. Thats inherently a conservative value.

So far, Cawthorns pontification has outshone his legislative activity. He has said, in fact, that he built his congressional staff for communications, not legislation. Beyond several efforts to improve benefits and opportunities for military veterans, he introduced a small-bore measure, grounded in the free market, to expand rural broadband, but he voted against the Democratic-led infrastructure bill that includes sixty-five billion dollars for broadband. He asked his staff to send me a sheet labelled Congressman Cawthorn Legislative Accomplishments. The list includes a proposal to block enforcement of federal vaccine mandates and a bill to prevent the U.S. Department of Education from spending taxpayer dollars to fund its radical, anti-American critical-race-theory priorities.

I had noticed how much more assertive Cawthorn has become since taking officeand how much more vitriolic, telling a Faith and Freedom Coalition event, for example, about looking Nancy Pelosi in her eye, every single day at work, and seeing how much she hates this nation. But I hadnt seen him in person since last years Hendersonville rally. And so, in October, I made my way to Cullowhee, where he was giving a speech to the Turning Point USA chapter at Western Carolina University. Cawthorn sat in his wheelchair near a tall sign that read Big Government Sucks, and railed against Pelosi, Biden, and critical race theory. He mimicked Kamala Harriss laugh and said that journalists are literally coming just shy of spitting on me in the halls of Congress. I look around and I see, O.K., youre socialists and you work for a fake-news company thats trying to profiteer off creating division and hatred. As dozens of young people lined up to take selfies with Cawthorn, Tristin Goode, an eighteen-year-old student, said that he was thrilled by the performance. He and his friends find many politicians dull, but he admires how Cawthorn really brings out the passion in people, really ignites people.

Despite Cawthorns national profile and connections to Trump, some prominent North Carolina Republicans are trying to defeat him this fall, based on concerns about his character and his role in the uprising on January 6th. In last years Republican primary, Cawthorn owed a significant debt to George H. Erwin, Jr., a retired Hendersonville sheriff who commended him to sheriffs and politicians scattered across the districts seventeen counties. Erwin considered him an amazing young man, eloquent on the stump and inspiring. Then came January 6th. When I saw his speech to the crowd in Washington, I thought this is not good. I saw no calming words and people died and were injured, Erwin wrote on Facebook, offering an apology for having misled law officers, politicians, friends, and family. Man, I spent forty years in law enforcement. I shouldve known better, he told me. This hate and vitriol, thats not me. Last year, three political newcomers announced that they would challenge Cawthorn in the Republican primary. He cant buy maturity, experience, and knowledge, Rod Honeycutt, a retired Army colonel and one of the three candidates, told me when we met in Asheville. He spoke of his own military leadership, his international-affairs experience, and his church connections, and pledged to pay closer attention to voters in the district. On policy issues, Honeycutt believes that they are closely aligned, but he does not pretend that Trump won the election. Other challenges have emerged from Wendy Nevarez, a Navy veteran, and Bruce OConnell, a businessman, plus a raft of Democrats, one of whom, Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, has raised nearly a million dollars in a district that leans Republican.

Cawthorns opponents have been aided by questions about his personal history that emerged during the 2020 campaign. Two assertions, central to his political profile and later shown to be false, are connected to the car crash that left him partially paralyzed. He was asleep in the passenger seat of a BMW X3, his feet on the dashboard, when the driver, Bradley Ledford, dozed off. The car sped off the road and smashed into a concrete barrier. Cawthorn told fellow-students at Patrick Henry that Ledford had left him to die in a fiery tomb. He runs to safety deep in the woods and just leaves me in a burning car as the flames start to lick my legs. But Cawthorns father and Ledford himself have said that it was Ledford who pulled Cawthorn from the wreckage. When questioned during a deposition related to the accident, Cawthorn admitted that he had no recollection of the crash or its immediate aftermath. Cawthorn has also claimed that the crash spoiled his plans to enroll at the Naval Academy. But in the deposition, taken more than two years before he began his campaign, he acknowledged that he had been rejected by the Naval Academy before the crash.

As Cawthorn runs for relection, one opposition group, run by Democrats, is pushing local authorities to file charges against him for trying to carry a gun onto a commercial flight at Ashevilles airport, and for repeatedly carrying a hunting knife onto school and educational property, in defiance of state law. Another group, the conservative Sentinel PAC, is striking closer to Cawthorns image as a churchgoing, homeschooled Christian. Multiple women have delivered credible allegations that Cawthorn forcibly kissed or touched them, which the congressman denies. In the fall of 2020, more than a hundred and seventy alumni of Patrick Henry College, which markets itself as having an Unwavering Biblical Worldview, signed an open letter that called him a wolf in sheeps clothing who made our small, close-knit community his personal playground of debauchery. The alumni accused Cawthorn of sexually predatory behavior and said that he misrepresented his past. We should have better people than Madison, people who are honest, people who arent sexual predators, people who are who they say they are, Rachael Warf, a Sentinel PAC spokesperson, told me.

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Madison Cawthorns Insurrection - The New Yorker

None of that, however, was sufficient to persuade tens of millions of Trump voters that their candidate actually lost. On the contrary: When forced to choose between President Trumps baseless assertions and the conclusions of those Republicans duly charged with overseeing the election, these voters chose Mr. Trump over members of their own party who acted with integrity. The rioters on Jan. 6 turned to violence because they believed that the election was stolen, and they believed that despite all the authorities, Democrats and Republicans, actually responsible for running it saying otherwise.

Thats not a problem that can be solved by tinkering with the mechanics of elections oversight. Its entirely possible that worthwhile reforms to limit political grandstanding could fuel distrust by Democrats in the legitimacy of elections.

Take the Electoral Count Act, a particular focus of concern because of John Eastmans memo suggesting, absurdly, that it granted Vice President Mike Pence the authority to unilaterally set aside certified electoral votes. The act was originally passed to prevent a repeat of the disputed election of 1876, during which Congress previously responsible for resolving such disputes deadlocked over which electors to approve from three states that submitted dueling slates. The act reduced Congresss role and aimed to provide clear rules for how and when states must approve their slates to avoid disputes.

Those provisions can and should be clarified, to eliminate the possibility that a future vice president might do what Mike Pence refused to, or that future representatives and senators could baselessly undermine popular confidence in election integrity as numerous Republicans have done in the wake of the last election.

But what any such reform would do is push more authority back down to the state level or over to the judicial branch. What happens if those actors behave in a corruptly partisan manner? With key state legislatures in Republican hands and with the Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees inclined to give latitude to those same state legislatures in setting electoral rules, its not hard to imagine many Democrats in 2024 concluding that by reforming the act they had disarmed themselves.

Some Democrats, therefore, have called for federalizing Americas unusually decentralized national elections, to override the possibility of partisan state legislature interference in either the conduct of the election or the vote count and certification of the winners. Because the Constitution vests a great deal of authority at the state level, some of these proposals might well face constitutional challenges but even if they passed muster, what would they achieve? They would invest more power in Congress, which might well be in Republican hands. How confident would Democrats be in an election in 2024 ultimately overseen by Kevin McCarthy in the House and Mitch McConnell in the Senate?

Nor would investing that power in another state-level authority be assured to fare better. After the 2020 election, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, was a hero for refusing to compromise his integrity. But in the 2000 election, the independent authority responsible for running the election in Florida was Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican who was widely distrusted by Democrats for what they saw as favoritism to George W. Bush. This distrust was a mirror of Republicans own distrust of the recount process as conducted in a number of Democratically controlled counties in South Florida. It was distrust all the way up and all the way down. It ended only because Al Gore accepted the authority of the Supreme Court.

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Opinion | Imagine Its 2024, and Republicans Are Declaring Trump President - The New York Times

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthyKevin McCarthyCheney: Republicans who stuck by Trump 'will not be judged well by history' Twitter's Marjorie Taylor Greene ban fuels GOP attackson 'Big Tech' Democrats' loose talk of 'disqualification' still dangerous MORE (R-Calif.) will most likely be nominated and elected Speaker of the House a year from now when Congress convenes in January of 2023.

Here are ten things he should start promising that he will do when he takes the gavel from House Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiHillicon Valley Twitter's Greene ban boosts GOP attacks Cheney: Republicans who stuck by Trump 'will not be judged well by history' Capitol Police chief says he doesn't expect security threats on Jan. 6 anniversary MORE (D-Calif.).

First, he should insist on regular order.Doing things procedurally correct wont exactly light a fire under the GOP base, but voters instinctively understand that things have gone seriously off kilter during the reign of Pelosi.Do a real budget, devolve power back to the committees, pass the appropriations bills on time, go to real conferences with the Senate.Allow members to do their jobs and represent their constituents.

Second, he should end proxy voting.Both Democrats and Republicans have made use of this device that allows members to give their voting cards to other members while they sit at home and do who knows what.Members of Congress are paid to do their jobs by the taxpayers and they need to show up to do those jobs.

Third, he should immediately open the House buildings and the Capitol back to visitors and those who want to petition their government, as protected under the Constitution.The fact that members have been allowed to retreat behind the walls of Congress and keep the American people largely on the outside looking in is an embarrassment to this country.

Fourth, he should promise the Democrats that they can put whatever members from their caucus on whatever committees they want.He should make clear that what Nancy Pelosi did in kicking off members of the Republican Conference from committees was an outrageous abuse of power that had no precedent in House history and will not be replicated as long as Republicans are in power.There is no need to make a martyr out of Rep. Ilhan OmarIlhan OmarFeehery: What House Republicans should promise when they take over The 9 politicians who had the most impact in 2021 Democrats'selective hearingonlaw and orderissuesputs everyone at risk MORE (D-Minn.). Let her serve on whatever committee Rep. Hakeem JeffriesHakeem Sekou JeffriesFeehery: What House Republicans should promise when they take over House clears bill to raise debt limit House votes to hold defiant Meadows in criminal contempt MORE (D-N.Y.) deems appropriate.

Fifth, he should immediately launch a special committee to find out what the hell happened with our response to the COVID-19. Why has America done substantially worse than just about any other country?Why dont hospitals still have the capacity they need and still dont any good treatment protocols?What kind of propaganda campaign was launched by the Chinese communists?Why were voices of those who raised real questions about the strategic direction silenced?

Sixth, he should promise to pay the fines of those who broke autocratic rules of Nancy Pelosi, including those who refused to wear masks on the House floor and those members who refused to go through metal detectors.

Seventh, he should have the Judiciary Committee investigate what exactly happened with the violent protests of 2020, who funded those protests, how George Soros paid for the elections of prosecutors who refused to prosecute violent offenders, and how that led to the murders of the thousands of innocent civilians.

Eight, he should promise to hold Big Tech to account for stifling free speech.He should work with Democrats to find legislative solutions to break their monopoly power.He should launch an investigation into the fact-checking operations of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.What conflicts of interest were present that compelled these companies to create narratives that led to more panic and less reasoned debate when it came to our COVID-19 response?Why did Twitter ban Alex Berenson and Donald TrumpDonald TrumpMissouri state GOP lawmaker resigns for Florida consulting job Trump to attend fundraiser for midterm candidates Biden meatpacking reforms lack punch, say critics MORE?

Ninth, he should have the Budget Committee and the Appropriations Committee launch a join investigation into what happened with all the money that was shoveled out the door in 2021. How much money was lost through fraud?How much money has been left unspent?How much did the states waste because they didnt know what to do with it? I betcha we will find that the federal government under the Biden administration wasted hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Finally, the Speaker should launch a task force, led by the Education and Labor Committee, to find out what exactly has gone wrong with our public school system.While much of this should be done at the state and local levels, the fact is that the National Education Association has an outsized influence in education policy and that influence has proven to be destructive to hopes and dreams of many young children.

Feehery is a partner at EFB Advocacy and blogs atwww.thefeeherytheory.com. He served as spokesman to former House SpeakerDennis HastertJohn (Dennis) Dennis HastertFeehery: What House Republicans should promise when they take over Democrats mull hardball tactics to leapfrog parliamentarian on immigration Feehery: A better than even shot of flipping a Texas district MORE(R-Ill.), as communications director to former House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas), and as a speechwriter to former House Minority Leader Bob Michel (R-Ill.).

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Feehery: What House Republicans should promise when they take over | TheHill - The Hill