Governor Mike Parson is going to have to do it again.
He’s going to have to appoint a new State Treasurer and a new Attorney General.
This time he has to appoint a new Attorney General to replace an elected Treasurer that he appointed Attorney General who now is off to Washington to become the second straight Attorney General Parson will replace. Let’s walk through our governor’s record of appointing more statewide elected officials than any other governor.
Mike Parson ascends to the governorship with the resignation in disgrace of Eric Greitens (by the way, does anybody know where he has landed after Missourians found him significantly unfit for the Senatorship?). Attorney General Josh Hawley, who eschewed any ambitions for immediate higher office when he became AG and then did exactly that, becomes a U. S. Senator. Former State Senator Eric Schmitt is elected State Treasurer. Not all of these things happened at once. They accumulated over time.
Governor Mike Parson appoints outgoing State Senator Mike Kehoe to the Lieutenant Governorship.
He appoints Treasurer Schmitt to the Attorney Generalship to replace Hawley when Hawley lights out for Washington.
He appoints former House Budget Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick as the Treasurer, replacing Schmitt.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft quietly watches what’s going on, preferring to wait until 2024 when he will decide where he wants to go.
Roy Blunt decides that being the second-oldest person to serve as a U. S. Senator from Missouri does not mean he should try to become the oldest coot in Missouri Senatorial history, and announces his retirement.*
Eric Schmitt, with nothing to lose because his term as AG doesn’t run out for two more years, sees a chance for greater glory, downs a big glass of Trump Kool-Aid, and wins a race to replace our truly senior senator.
Fitzpatrick, with nothing to lose because his term as Schmitt’s successor as Treasurer, claims the last Democratic statewide office by being elected State Auditor.
As of the morning after the election, Governor Mike Parson has to appoint a new Treasurer and a new Attorney General. Several ambitious people, knowing that incumbency will have advantages if 2024, think they could give up whatever they are doing now to fill those vacancies.
Governor Parson has until January to decide who will be the latest to get single-digit license plates and a leg up in the 2024 campaign for statewide office.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft continues to quietly watch, knowing that one of his potential opponents in the Republican Governor’s primary in 2024 is now otherwise occupied.
-0-
Eric Schmitt will be the fifth Missouri Attorney General to become a United States Senator. He’ll be the second in a row to move from AG to Senator. Using the Attorney General’s office as a stepping stone to federal office is a fairly recent circumstance in politics.
Tom Eagleton was the first former Attorney General to make the leap, but he did it from the Lieutenant Governor’s office where he served after being Attorney General.
John Danforth was the first to move directly from Attorney General to the Senate. He was elected in 1976, defeating former Governor Warren Hearnes. Hearnes was chosen by a Democratic Caucus after Congressman Jerry Litton was killed on election night on his way from his Chillicothe home to a victory party in Kansas City. He had upset former Governor Hearnes and Congressman Jim Symington, who had been favored by many people to succeed his father, Senator Stuart Symington.
Some time after that, Danforth’s top lieutenant, Alex Netchvolodoff, told me that Danforth wasn’t sure he could have beaten Litton. Danforth had voluntarily established campaign spending limits. Litton had no qualms about spending as much as necessary and although I heard he had spent 96% of his liquidity to win the primary, he was a charismatic figure with eyes on the White House who was capable of raising huge sums of money.
John Ashcroft was the next AG to become a U.S. Senator, but he did it after serving eight years as governor.
Josh Hawley, who took office as Attorney General and said he had no plans to immediately seek higher office, did just that in 2020, as we noted earlier.
And now Eric Schmitt becomes only the fifth Missouri Attorney General in our two centuries of history to make the leap, only the third to do it directly.
*Roy Blunt will be 72 years, 11 months, and 24 days old when the new Congress begins with Eric Schmitt as his replacement. Only Stuart Symington was older when he left the Senate. He was 75 years, six months and one day old when he departed.
He will become our seventh living former U.S. Senator. The others are John Danforth, Christopher Bond, John Ashcroft, Jean Carnahan, Jim Talent, and Claire McCaskill.
-0-
When Eric Schmitt celebrated his victory last week he said, “We want our country back.” Hmmm…..that’s the same thing a lot of voters thought they were doing when they reduced the Great Red Wave to a ripple.
Some of the people we elected yesterday will decide how we travel through time.
This weekend we fell back from daylight savings time to standard time. Officially the change comes at 2 a.m. yesterday. There always are some folks who don’t get the message or forget the message and find themselves arriving at the end of church services instead of at the beginning, or an hour late for tee time if they worship the putter instead.
There are a lot of folks who think we should have daylight savings time year-around. Going back to standard time will give us more daylight in the mornings but we’ll be in the dark an hour earlier in the evening. The Hill reported last week about the efforts in Congress to keep daylight time year around. It cites a poll that says, “Most Americans want to abandon the time change we endure twice a year, with polls showing as much as 63 to 75 percent of Americans supporting an end to the practice. But, even if the country does do away with the time change, the question still remains whether the U.S. should permanently adapt to Daylight Saving Time (DST) or Standard Time (ST).”
Most of the country is on daylight time eight months of the year and switches to standard time for four months. There are always some contrarians, of course. Hawaii and Arizona stay on standard time all year. Hawaii decided the Uniform Time Act of 1967 meant nothing to a state that is so close to the equator that sunrise and sunset are about the same time all year.
Arizona has a different reason. It doesn’t want to lose an hour of morning time when it’s cool enough for people to go outdoors in the summer.
Residents of or visitors to Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, the Virgin Islands and American Somoa don’t tinker with their clocks twice a year either.
And there’s the rub, as Hamlet says in his soliloquy. Some folks like permanent standard time because it’s more in line with our circadian rhythms and hels stave off disease. But in March, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would make DST permanent—the Sunshine Protection Act (who thinks up these insipid names for bills?)—because of its economic benefits because more Americans would go shopping if it remains lighter in the early evening hours.
The movement to protect the sunshine has been led by Senator Marco Rubio of the Sunshine State of Florida. He says the change would reduce the risk of seasonal depression. That strikes us as a little silly and reminds us of the time when Missouri decided to adopt DST in 1970 when some of the ladies who were regular listeners of “Missouri Party Line” on the local radio station where I worked were vitally concerned that their flowers would not get enough sunlight if we tried to “save” daylight.
The Senate has passed the bill, as we have noted. Final approval is iffy because the Lame Duck Congress has only seventeen working days left before it becomes history. But if the House approves it, permanent DST would go into effect a year from now.
—Except in states that now operate on Standard Time. They won’t have to switch. We recall the days before DST became more common when we had to change our watches when we crossed certain state lines. Our annual trips from Central DST Missouri to Eastern ST Indiana in May always left us uncertain about whether to change our watches until we stopped some place with a clock and learned that CDST was the same as EST.
At least, I think that’s how it went.
Polling has found no consensus on which time should be the permanent time.
If we eliminate switching back and forth, we could be endangering our safety. Various safety officials tell us that we should replace the batteries in our smoke and carbon monoxide detectors when we change our clocks. To keep some battery life from being wasted, it is suggested that they be changed either when clocks are adjusted for DST or when they’re adjusted for plain ST. That assumes the battery-changer remembers which time is the time to switch. We know of no one who marks their calendars for such events.
The article in The Hill’s series “Changing America” delves into the pros and the cons:
Sleep experts say the health benefits that could come from a permanent ST are crucial for a chronically sleep-deprived nation. In response to darkness, the body naturally produces melatonin, a hormone that helps promote sleep but is suppressed by light. Thus, having too much sunlight in the evening can actually work against a good night’s sleep.
The status quo leads to circadian misalignment, or “social jetlag,” says Beth Malow, a professor of neurology and pediatrics and director of the Vanderbilt sleep division. Malow also authored the Sleep Research Society’s position statement advocating for a permanent ST.
Under DST, our work and school schedules dictate our actions; while in an ideal scenario, environmental changes like lighter mornings and darker evenings would regulate sleep patterns, Malow explained in an interview with Changing America.
“There’s a disconnect when we have to wake up early for work or school and it’s still dark outside and we want to sleep,” she said.
Light in the morning wakes humans up, provides us with energy, and sets our mood for the day. “It actually aligns us so that our body clocks are in sync with what’s going on in our environment,” Malow said.
Having more energy in the morning can also make it easier to fall asleep at night when it’s darker outside.
Overall, ST “maximizes our morning light and minimizes light too late at night,” Malow said.
When the body doesn’t get enough sleep, risks of developing heart disease, diabetes, and weight gain all increase. Insufficient sleep is also linked to some forms of cancer.
Polls show younger individuals are less likely to support abolishing the clock change, largely because they’re more flexible than their older counterparts who support nixing the practice.
But teenagers and young adults are at a higher risk of negative impacts from permanent DST, partially because they’re already primed for sleep deprivation.
“What happens when you go through puberty and you become a teenager is…your natural melatonin levels shift by about two hours, so it takes you longer to fall asleep,” said Malow. “[Teenagers] end up going to bed or being tired at 11 o’clock at night, even midnight sometimes, but they have to wake up early for school.”
Students who wake up in darker mornings and drive to school could be at a greater risk of car accidents. The same is true for workers with early commutes and individuals in the north or on western edges of time zones who tend to experience more darkness overall.
“Sleep is really, really important to our health. And right now, what we’re doing is imposing mandatory social jetlag for eight months out of the year,” Malow said. “And we’d like to—rather than going to mandatory social jetlag for 12 months out of the year—to stop the clock and go back to Standard Time which is much more natural.”
Despite the myriad of health benefits that come from adopting ST year-round, having more sunlight in the evenings if DST were permanently adopted is a tempting prospect for many Americans, especially those who work or attend school indoors all day.
Who got us into this mess? The Washington Post says we can blame two guys. George Hudson, from New Zealand, wanted more daylight time in the late afternoon to collect bugs. Britisher William Willett wanted more time to play golf late in the day.
Their idea didn’t catch on until World War I when Germany, bogged down in trench warfare with the French and the British, adopted it to save coal. England soon followed suit. It didn’t catch on in this country until 1917 when stockbrokers and industries lobbied for it. The Post says they overcame opposition from railroads that feared the time change would confuse people and led to some bad crashes. And farmers opposed it because their day already was regulated by the sun and they saw no reasons to fiddle with the clocks. David Prerau, who wrote Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Savings Time, told the Post dairy farmers didn’t want it because they’d have to start their milking in the dark if they wanted to ship their product out on the trains. “Plus, the sun, besides giving light, gives heat, and it drives off the dew on a lot of things that have to be harvested. And you can’t harvest things when they’re wet.” Getting up an hour early didn’t solve that problem.
This country adopted DST in 1918 with the Standard Time Act. DST was repealed the next year and wasn’t seen again until FDR reinstated it during WWII for the same reason it was instituted in The Great War—to save fuel.
In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Law. In the 1970s we got permanent DST for a while, also an energy-saving issue because we were in the midst of an energy crisis caused by the Middle East Oil Embargo. That situation caused major inflation issues including in energy prices—at the gasoline pumps and in home heating and electric bills—to skyrocket. The great minds in Congress decided we needed permanent DST to reduce excess utility costs. But the public didn’t like it and the experiment ended after ten months.
Then George W. Bush got the Uniform Time Act amended to change the sates when clocks were to spring ahead from April to March and we’ve had our present system since then.
Does it really work or is it just something to politicians to fiddle around with from time to time?
A 2008 Department of Energy report said the Bush change cut the national use of electricity by one-half of one percent a day. Ten years or so later, someone analyzed more than forty papers assessing the impact of the change found that electricity use declined by about one-third of a percent because of the 2007 change.
More contemporary studies show similar small changes in behavior when DST kicks in.
One study supporting the economic advantage of permanent DST was done by JP Moran Chase six years ago. The study looked at credit card purchases in the month after the start of DST in Los Angeles and found it increased by 9/10th of a percent. It dropped 3.5% when DST ended. That was good enough to recommend fulltime DST.
Another report showed robberies dropped by 7% during DST daytimes. And in the hour that gained additional sunlight, there was a 27% drop in that extra evening hour. That’s in Los Angeles.
Rubio maintains that having more daylight in the evening could mean kids would be more inclined to get their noses out of their cell phones, tablets, and computers and go outside and run around playing sports.
Maybe they could take up golf. Or looking for bugs that proliferate in the twilight. Imagine a parent suggesting those ideas for their nimble-thumbed children.
So what’s better—having kids standing in the dark waiting for the morning school bus or riding the school bus into the darkening evening and arriving at home where the lights are all on?
The people we elected yesterday are likely to make this decision sooner or later. Let us hope they’re up to it.
A few days ago, your faithful scribe heard someone say something terrible about the future of our democracy. All of us should be threatened by her comment.
It was when Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker had his foot in his mouth for several says on abortion and other, issues. Conservative radio talker Dana Loesch said, “I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate.”
In other words, the character of someone seeking public office is not important. The candidate is seen only as a number in a game where power is the only issue.
Have we become so craven as citizens, as voters, that we don’t really care what kind of person we are putting in a position of authority over us that we will vote for someone whose only qualification seems to be that they will do whatever they are told to do regardless of what that action might mean to their constituents and to their country?
If the only thing that matters about a candidate is whether there is an R or a D after their name, we are selling ourselves out. We are putting our trust in people who owe US nothing but who will owe their handlers everything. And in today’s political climate, too many political handlers care nothing about service to anybody but themselves.
The key word in Loesch’s assertion is “control.” She and her ilk want to “control” you and me, not to serve us, not to look out for the best interests of the broad and diverse people of our country.
Be very afraid that the Loesch’s of this country will succeed.
But that doesn’t mean he will suddenly be stricken by a desire to tell the truth.
The January 6 Committee has issued a subpoena for Donald Trump to testify about his effort to stay in office, the opinion of the voters otherwise notwithstanding.
Shortly after the committee’s vote last Thursday, he asked on Truth Social, “Why didn’t the Unselect Committee ask me to testify months ago?”
Of course he had an answer to his own question: “Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our Country which, by the way, is doing very badly – A laughing stock all over the World?”
He has indicated that he’ll testify but only if it can be in a public session.
Actually, Trump has been testifying in public for months. His campaign rallies, ostensibly held to build support for candidates he favors, spend little time uplifting the candidates. He spends the largest amount of time playing the victim of a gigantic plot against his poor, abused self.
—Which is what he would try to do if the session with the committee were held in public. It’s pretty easy to contemplate what would happen. He expressed his attitude in a fourteen-page rambling response to the subpoena vote hours after it was taken. It began:
“This memo is being written to express our anger, disappointment, and complaint that with all of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider to be a Charade and Witch Hunt, and despite strong and powerful requests, you have not spent even a short moment on examining the massive Election Fraud that took place during the 2020 Presidential Election, and have targeted only those who were, as concerned American Citizens, protesting the Fraud itself,”
If the committee is a witch hunt, it pretty clearly has identified who is the keeper of the broom. And if these citizens were only “concerned,” what would they have been like if they’d been upset?
Trump still thinks he’s in control of things.
He’s not.
He’s not in control of proceedings against him in New York.
He’s not in control of proceedings against him in Georgia.
He will not dictate conditions to the January 6 Committee. He either testifies under its procedures or he faces a possible contempt of Congress charge, a criminal charge that carries a punishment of one to twelve months in jail and a fine of $100 to $100,000.
His greatest problem is, and has been, that in any formal investigation whether it is before a grand jury or will be before this committee he will have to take an oath to tell the truth. And truth, despite the name of his internet platform, has been a stranger to him.
As Trump sulked out of office on January 20, 2021, the Washington Post’s fact checker column tallied up its work for his four years in office:
When The Washington Post Fact Checker team first started cataloguing President Donald Trump’s false or misleading claims, we recorded 492 suspect claims in the first 100 days of his presidency. On Nov. 2 alone, the day before the 2020 vote, Trump made 503 false or misleading claims as he barnstormed across the country in a desperate effort to win reelection.
This astonishing jump in falsehoods is the story of Trump’s tumultuous reign. By the end of his term, Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency — averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.
Is there any expectation whatever that this leopard will change his spots when he goes before the committee?
Committee chairman Bennie Thompson believes Trump should have a chance to tell the truth. He said before the committee took its unanimous vote: “He is the one person at the center of the story of what happened on Jan. 6. So we want to hear from him. The committee needs to do everything in our power to tell the most complete story possible and provide recommendations to help ensure that nothing like Jan. 6 ever happens again. We need to be fair and thorough in getting the full context for the evidence we’ve obtained.”
This committee is in no mood to give Trump a podium. He has had a lot of them during the committee’s work and truth always has been in short supply on those occasions.
He can’t bully this committee. He can’t intimidate its members. His best choice might be to meet under the committee’s rules and take the Fifth Amendment instead of answering questions, thereby avoiding possible perjury charges, as he did more than 400 times a couple of months ago when giving a deposition in the New York Attorney General’s investigation into possible real estate frauds.
Isn’t it interesting that telling the committee he is exercising his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination might be the most truthful thing he can say—or has said about those events?
” All my life, I have said (as to myself, and at times, by way of sarcastic prescription for others) that I never . . . talk . . . any . . . faster . . . than . . . my . . . mind . . . can . . . think.”
—Judge Michael Luttig. June 16, 2022 before the January 6th Committee.
Nancy and I had the same reaction as we listened to Judge Luttig’s testimony. We both recalled a routine by the comedy duo of Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, Bob & Ray, in which Ray interviewed the President of the Slow Talkers of America.
Sometimes we talk too rapidly. We are so accustomed to talking rapidly, even before we have understood a question or a discussion point, ignoring the admonition from the Gospel of James: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires”
The most underrated part of speech is the pause.
—-because pauses give listeners the chance to process what we say.
As we watched, it became apparent to us that Judge Luttig realized the gravity of his appearance before the committee, and wanted to so carefully respond to questions that there could be no lack of clarity in his responses or misunderstandings of what he said. His pauses made us listen more closely.
We were drawn into his answers not only by the pauses but by the exactness of his words. And it was because his pauses caused us to listen so carefully that one line had an impact (at least to this listener) greater than all of the others. It came as the committee was discussing the erroneous advice given President Trump that history and law establish a precedent for the Vice-President to overturn a presidential election. Judge Luttig, after refuting that claim, told the committee: “I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the Vice President overturn the 2020 election on the basis of that historical precedent.”
He didn’t say that as the written transcript preserves it. Without raising his voice, the pacing of his statement carried an unmistakable power and a passion as he carefully formed his thoughts, pausing as he did so, knowing that his words became history a soon as he spoke them.*
Near the end, his carefully-delivered words carried a warning:
Today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.
In the days since his testimony an unusual thing has happened. The judge has explained why he spoke as he did. Several organizations have reported his explanation. It began with praise from a writer for Vanity Fair, Joe Hagan, who wrote on Twitter:
“I like how this guy treats every line of his testimony like he’s engraving it on a national monument. And frankly, he really *is* engraving it for history. And he seems to know it. I also respect, despite how halting he may sound, that Luttig is not setting himself up to be a mere soundbite maker. He’s speaking to history, not TV. His sobriety, his graveness, his hallowedness, is so foreign to our modern sensibilities — but that’s the point. That is the precise point.”
Judge Luttig saw what Hagan had written and responded that Hagan “almost presciently understood precisely what I was at least attempting to do…”
What you could not know, and did not know, but I will tell you now, is that I believed I had an obligation to the Select Committee and to the country, first to formulate . . . then to measure . . . and then . . . to meter out . . .every . . . single . . . word . . . that I spoke . . . , carefully . . . exactingly . . . and . . . deliberately, so that the words I spoke were pristine clear and would be heard, and therefore understood, as such.
I believed Thursday that I had that high responsibility and obligation — to myself, even if to no other. Also please bear in mind that Thursday was the first time in 68 years, to my knowledge, I had ever been on national television, let alone national television like that. And though not scared, I was concerned that I do my very best and not embarrass myself, as I think anyone who found themselves in that frightening circumstance would be.
I decided to respond to your at once astute and understanding tweet finally this afternoon, because I have been watching the tweets all day suggesting that I am recovering from a severe stroke, and my friends, out of their concern for me and my family, have been earnestly forwarding me these tweets, asking me if I am alright. Such is social media, I understand. But I profoundly believe in social media’s foundational, in fact revolutionary, value and contribution to Free Speech in our country, and for that reason I willingly accept the occasional bad that comes from social media, in return for the much more frequent good that comes from it — at least from the vastly more responsible, respectful speech on those media.
That is why, 16 years after my retirement from the Bench, even then as a very skeptical, curmudgeonly old federal judge, I created a Facebook account and then a Twitter account — slowly . . . very slowly . . . one account first . . . and then . . . followed . . . by the other. All of this said, I am not recovering from a stroke or any other malady, I promise…
I was more ready, prepared and intellectually focused (I had thought) during Thursday’s hearing than I have ever been for anything in my life. I gather my face appeared ‘too red’ for some on Twitter, betraying to them serious illness. The explanation was more innocent than that. At the last minute, I had been able during the weekend preceding my testimony to help my daughter get settled into her new home, where the temperatures were in the upper 90s, and where I was appreciatively, though unwittingly, to get just a little bit of needed suntan!
What I will say, though, is this. And I think it explains it all. All my life, I have said (as to myself, and at times, by way of sarcastic prescription for others) that I never . . . talk . . . any . . . faster . . . than . . . my . . . mind . . . can . . . think. I will proudly assure everyone on Twitter that I was riveted, laser-like as never before, on that promise to myself… beginning promptly at the hour of 1:00 pm Thursday afternoon.
What is more, as consciously as one can be aware of something subconsciously, I was…supremely conscious that, if I were chiseling words in stone that day, it was imperative that I chisel the exact words that I would want to be chiseled in stone, were I chiseling words in stone for history.
He concluded, “I can assure you that on last Thursday, June 16, I had never felt, or been, better in my life.”
Judge Luttig, in addition to contacting Politico to explain his careful presentation, shared with the political news site a reflection he wrote in February about those who were heroes on January 6. He called the piece “the most important words to him that he has ever written” and said they are the words “that he wants remembered.” You can find it at:
Writing has no pauses. We, and many others, will remember Judge Luttig not for those words he wrote in February but the words and the pauses that he gave us on June 16, 2022.
-0-
*National Public Radio (and others, probably) has been publishing transcripts of each day’s hearings. We have edited the NPR transcript for that hearing to highlight Judge Luttig’s testimony. For the full transcript, please go to https://www.npr.org/2022/06/16/1105683634/transcript-jan-6-committee
The transcript (excerpted)
LIZ CHENEY:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Judge Luttig, thank you as well for being here with us today. You issued a very important statement earlier today, which I urge all Americans to read. And I’d like to ask you, Judge, about one of the sentences in your statement and ask if you could explain to us the significance of it. You say, had the Vice President of the United States obeyed the President of the United States America would immediately have been plunged into what would have been tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis.
Could you elaborate on that for us, Judge?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Thank you, Madam Vice Chairman. That — that passage in my statement this morning referenced the — the most foundational concept in America, which is the rule of law. Thus, as I interpret your question, you are asking about that foundational truth of these United States, which we call America. The foundational truth is the rule of law.
That foundational truth is, for the United States of America, the profound truth, but it’s not merely the profound truth for the United States, it’s also the simple truth, the simple foundational truth of the American republic. Thus, in my view, the hearings being conducted by this select committee are examining that profound truth, namely the rule of law, in the United States of America.
The specific question of course before you and before the nation, not before me, is whether that foundational rule of law was supremely violated on January 6, 2021. Now, to the question specifically that you asked, Madam Vice Chair, I believe that had Vice President Pence obeyed the orders from his President and the President of the United States of America during the joint session of the Congress of the United States on January 6, 2021 and declared Donald Trump the next President of the United States, notwithstanding that then President Trump had lost the Electoral College vote as well as the popular vote in the 2020 Presidential election, that declaration of Donald Trump as the next President would have plunged America into what I believe would have been tantamount to a revolution within a constitutional crisis in America, which in my view, and I’m only one man, would have been the first constitutional crisis since the founding of the republic.
LIZ CHENEY:
Judge Luttig, did the Trump electors in those seven states who were not certified by any state authority have any legal significance?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Congresswoman, there — there was no support whatsoever and either the Constitution of the United States nor the laws of the United States for the Vice President frankly ever to count alternative electoral slates from the states that had not been officially certified by the designated state official in the Electoral Count Act of 1887. I did notice in the passage from Mr. Eastman’s memorandum and I took a note on it, and correct me if I’m wrong, but he said in that passage that there was both legal authority as well as historical precedent.
I do know what Mr. Eastman was referring to when he said that there was historical precedent for doing so. He was incorrect. There was no historical precedent from the beginning of the founding in 1789 that even as mere historical precedent as distinguished from legal precedent would support the possibility of the Vice President of the United States quote, “Counting alternative electoral slates that had not been officially certified to the Congress pursuant to the Electoral Count Act of 1887.” I would be glad to explain that historical precedent if the committee wanted, but it — it would be a digression.
JOHN WOOD:
Judge Luttig, I had the incredible honor of serving as one of your law clerks. Another person who did was John Eastman. And you’ve written that Dr. Eastman’s theory that the Vice President could determine who the next President of the United States is in your words incorrect at every turn.
Could you please explain briefly your analysis?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
It was my honor, Mr. Wood, to have you serve as my law clerk. I — I could answer that question perfectly if I had at my disposal either Mr. Eastman’s tweet or my own analytical tweet of September 21st. But I don’t. But that said, let me try to remember the analysis of — of Mr. Eastman’s analysis.
JOHN WOOD:
And — and Judge, I can read to you and to the audience I think what was a really key passage from your very insightful analysis when you wrote, “I believed that Professor Eastman was incorrect at every turn of the analysis in his January 2nd memorandum beginning with his claim that there were legitimate competing slate of electors presented from seven states.”
You’ve already addressed that issue. But your next sentence said, “Continuing to his conclusion that the Vice President could unilaterally decide not to count the votes from the seven states from which competing slates were allegedly presented.” So what was your basis for concluding that Dr. Eastman was incorrect in his conclusion that the Vice President could unilaterally decide not to count the votes from these disputed states?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
I understand. As I previously stated in response to Congresswoman Cheney, the — there was no basis in the Constitution or laws of the United States at all for the theory espoused by Mr. Eastman at all. None. With all respect to my co-panelist, he said I believe in partial response to one of the select committee questions that the single sentence in the 12th Amendment was he thought [unartfully] written.
That single sentence is not [unartfully] written. It was pristine clear that the President of the Senate on January 6th, the incumbent Vice President of the United States, had little substantive constitutional authority if any at all. The 12th Amendment, the single sentence that Mr. Jacob refers to, says in substance that following the transmission of the certificates to the Congress of the United States and under the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the archivist of the United States that the presiding officer shall open the certificates in the presence of the Congress of the United States in joint session.
It then says unmistakably not even that the Vice President himself shall count the electoral votes. It clearly says merely that the electoral count votes shall then be counted. It was the Electoral Count Act of — of 1887 that — that filled in, if you will, the simple words of — of the 12th Amendment in order to construct for the country a process for the counting of the — the — the sacred process for the counting of the electoral votes from the states that neither our original Constitution nor even the 12th Amendment had done.
The irony, if you will, is that, from its founding until 1887 in — when Congress passed the Electoral Count Act, the nation had been in considerable turmoil during at least five of its presidential elections, beginning as soon thereafter from the founding as 1800. So, it wasn’t for — almost 100 years later until the Electoral Count Act was passed.
So, that’s why, in my view, that piece of legislation is not only a work in progress for the country, but at this moment in history an important work in progress that needs to take place. That was long winded. I understand.
JOHN WOOD:
Well, Judge Luttig, at the risk of oversimplifying for the non-lawyers who are watching, is it fair to say that the 12th Amendment basically says two things happen, the vice president opens the — the certificates and the electoral votes are counted. Is it that straightforward?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
I would not want that to be my testimony before the Congress of the United States. The language of the 12th Amendment is that simple.
JOHN WOOD:
Thank you, Judge.
PETE AGUILAR:
I appreciate that. In our investigation, the select committee has obtained evidence suggesting that Dr. Eastman never really believed his own theory. Let me explain. On the screen, you can see a draft letter to the President from October 2020. In this letter, an idea was proposed that the Vice President could determine which electors to count at the joint session of Congress.
But the person writing in blue eviscerates that argument. The person who wrote the comments in blue wrote, quote, “The 12th Amendment only says that the President of the Senate opens the ballots in the joint session. And then in the passive voice that the votes shall then be counted”. The comments in blue further state, “nowhere does it suggest that the President of the Senate gets to make the determination on his own”. Judge Luttig, does it surprise you that the author of those comments in blue was in fact John Eastman?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Yes, it does Congressman. But let me — watching this unfold, let me try to unpack what was at the root of what I have called the blueprint to overturn the 2020 election. And it is this.
And I had foreshadowed this answer in my earlier testimony to Congresswoman Cheney.
Mr. Eastman, from the beginning, said to the President that there was both legal as well as historical precedent for the Vice President to overturn the election.
And what we’ve heard today, I believe is — is what happened within the White House and elsewhere as all of the players, led by Mr. Eastman, got wrapped around the axle by the historical evidence claim by Mr. Eastman. Let me explain very simply, this is what I said would require a digression, that I would be glad to undertake if you wished, in short, if I had been advising the Vice President of the United States on January 6th, and even if then Vice President Jefferson, and even then Vice President John Adams, and even then Vice President Richard Nixon had done exactly what the President of the United States wanted his Vice President to do, I would have laid my body across the road before I would have let the Vice President overturn the 2020 election on the basis of that historical precedent.
But what this body needs to know, and now America needs to know, is that that was the centerpiece of the plan to overturn the 2020 election. It was the historical precedent in the years — and with the Vice Presidents that I named, as Congressman Raskin understands well, and the — the effort by Mr. Eastman and others was to — to drive that historical precedent up to and under that single sentence — single pristine sentence in the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Taking advantage of, if you will, what many have said is the inartful wording of that sentence in the 12th Amendment. Scholars before 2020 would have used that historical precedent to argue, not that Vice President Pence could overturn the 2020 election by accepting non-certified state electoral votes, but they would have made arguments as to some substantive, not merely procedural, authority possessed by the Vice President of the United States on — on the statutorily prescribed day for counting the Electoral College votes.
This is — this is constitutional mischief.
BENNIE THOMPSON:
The gentlelady yields back…
Judge Luttig, I want to give you an opportunity to share your thoughts on the ongoing threat. You’ve written the clear and present danger to our democracy now is that former President Donald Trump and other political allies appear prepared to seize the presidency in 2024 if Mr. Trump or one of his anointed candidates is not elected by the American people.
What do you mean by this?
MICHAEL LUTTIG:
Mr. Chairman, I’m honored beyond words by your words. I was honored on January 6th, 2021, and also honored beyond words to have been able to come to the aid of Vice President Mike Pence. I prayed that day just like the vice president prayed that day. I believe we may have prayed the — the same prayer to the same God. I prayed that same prayer with my wife this morning before I came into these hearings.
I have written, as you said, Chairman Thompson, that today, almost two years after that fateful day in January 2021, that still Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy. That’s not because of what happened on January 6th. It’s because, to this very day, the former president, his allies, and supporters pledge that, in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican Party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020. I don’t speak those words lightly.
I would have never spoken those words ever in my life, except that that’s what the former president and his allies are telling us. As I said in that New York Times op-ed, wherein I was speaking about the Electoral Count Act of 1887, the former president and his allies are executing that blueprint for 2024 in open, in plain view of the American public.
I repeat, I would have never uttered one single one of those words unless the former president and his allies were candidly and proudly speaking those exact words to America. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear here today for these proceedings.
Our ex-President has been raging on his personal social media platform about the January 6th Committee hearings and their discoveries. Last Thursday, after the third hearing explored the physical danger faced by the Vice-President during the Trump-inspired riot, Trump took to his own personal platform to complain, “It is a one-sided, highly partisan Witch Hunt, the likes of which has never been seen in Congress before. Therefore, I am demanding EQUAL TIME to spell out the massive Voter Fraud & Dem Security Breach!”
Your faithful correspondent suggests the ex-President make a minor change in his characterizations of the committee. It’s a small thing but precision in language is important in times of great personal and national stress. The committee hearings do not constitute a witch hunt. Witches are females. Males are Warlocks. It would improve his credibility as an intelligent individual if he referred to the perceived attacks on him with the proper term.
It’s a Warlock Hunt.
Your faithful correspondent also agrees with the ex-President that he should be allowed equal time to respond to statements made by numerous associates and advisers and played back during the hearings.
We believe his most equal time should be spent under oath.
Before the committee.
And the committee should extend to him the privilege of speaking in an open, public, widely-broadcast hearing in which he could explain at great length his thoughts, actions, and words—unlike the way the committee has handled his associates, with closed hearings and excerpts of their testimony played in the public hearings. After all he WAS the President of the United States and he deserves that special courtesy.
He’s correct in observing that these hearings are something “which has never been seen in Congress before.” It would REALLY be something that has never been seen before if he would explain to the committee under penalty of perjury—-as so many of his associates have done—his justifications for his words and his actions or his lack of actions.
But maybe his request should be refused because—
actually, the hearings are Democracy’s equal time to lies he told at all of the rallies he held before and after the 2020 elections.
-0-
There’s another observation we have, uh, observed in the months since those events.
Some members of Congress deny the events constituted a violent uprising or insurrection or riot or whatever. The people who came into the Capitol that day, they say, were just peaceful tourists.
We were peaceful tourists at the Capitol once when we took our children to Washington, D.C. So we know about these things.
We didn’t see any of the Congressmen who say the people on January 6 were like our family greet us at their offices, as ours did. (Our Congressman even took the children down on the House floor with him during debate that day; our son wanted to go back the next day but we told him the only way he could ever do that would be to get elected).
One of our previous Congressmen once invited us to visit him in Washington and even told us he’d take us to the House cafeteria for some of the famous bean soup that’s served there.
We didn’t see any of those Congressmen go out on the front steps of the Capitol and get their pictures taken with their peaceful constituents that day. Ours did. He even signed the picture.
We’re sure the peaceful visitors would have enjoyed seeing their representatives and senators. They probably had worked up a pretty good appetite by then, too, and might have enjoyed some bean soup.
What a bummer of a day that was for those visitors. They go to all the trouble they went to to travel to Washington, to gather at the Capitol, to make a special effort to get in to see their Congress people only to find there would be no family picture and no bean soup.
This year is the thirtieth anniversary of two major decisions made by Missouri voters. One has proven itself to be a disaster for Missouri’s political system and the other has led to proof of the fallibility of the first.
Missouri voters hypocritically approved legislative term limits with a 75 percent favorable vote on November 3, 1992.
On the same day, Missourians went 62 percent in favor of what was then called “riverboat gambling.”
These two events have become a toxic political brew in our system of government.
In today’s discussion we are going to look at term limits. Later we will discuss casino gambling.
The Old Testament minor prophet Hosea, a contemporary of more important prophets Isaiah and Micah, warned metaphorically of the downfall of Israel for its various sins—lying, murder, idolatry, and covetousness, along with spiritual and physical adultery, these latter two characteristics personally experienced by Hosea and his wife Gomer. Gomer carried on with another man. The faithful Hosea accused Israel of spiritual adultery.
He warned that Israel and Judah would fall:
“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour.”
Term limits was the wind. We are reaping the whirlwind in the Missouri General Assembly—most particularly in the Missouri Senate. But the term limits whirlwind is not just blowing in the Senate which heads towards its spring break at the end of this week with only one bill approved in weeks of division, derision and disrespect. It is felt less in the House where its impact is less visible because it is more controlled.
It rages in the Senate where unlimited debate among the 34 members is still considered a virtue—as it should be if members respected it more than they abuse it. The House has rules that are necessary in a chamber of 163 members to limit the time a member may speak on an issue.
The public, which has little interest in the more subtle or arcane factors of lawmaking, bought the idea that politicians should be limited to a maximum of eight years in the House and eight in the Senate because politicians are basically—
Crooked.
—Except for their own representative or senator. While voting to limit House members to four terms and Senate members to two terms, many of those 1992 voters were electing their Representatives and Senators to terms five or three in many districts.
The voters voted to restrict their own right to vote when they for term limits. This year, voters in will be prohibited from considering whether five of their Senators deserve a third term. In most of those cases, those Senators will never again have the privilege of representing their citizens on the floors of the House or the Senate. Voters in 1992, most of whom do not live in those senatorial districts, decided these five are no longer fit to serve regardless of how distinguished their work might have been.
But terms limits is more dangerous than that.
Those of us who voted in that election were warned that term limits would destroy the institutional memory that is vital to lawmaking. Senior lawmakers who knew the value of respecting the other side of the aisle, of knowing that today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend, who understood that collegiality benefitted the people of Missouri more than hostility, disappeared. With no one to teach newcomers the importance of legislative control of the lawmaking process, that control passed to outsiders.
I watched the first crumbling of the legislative process. The first piece fell the first time I heard the sponsor of a bill ask a colleague offering an amendment, “Have you run this past so-and-so in the hall?,” clearly an indication that a blessing from a lobbyist (lobbyists are not allowed within the floor of the chambers during debate) was necessary for acceptance of the amendment.
Later as cell phones became more ubiquitous, I watched debaters with their cellphone in their hands checking for text messages that influenced the debate. Technology has put the lobbyists in the chambers.
There also have been other indications that much of the power of lawmaking has shifted from the bests interests of constituents being argued on the floors of the House and Senate to the best interests of those in the hallways being transmitted into the discussion from outside.
I watched the disappearance of lawmakers capable of amendments written by hand during the debate, replaced by pauses in debate so a legislative staff member could write what he or she was asked to write—the origin of the amendment sometimes in a text message from outside.
In the entire first half of this legislative session, only one bill has been approved by both chambers and sent to the governor. Just one.
The wind the voters sowed in 1992 is the whirlwind of 2022 and in the splintered and often dedlocked Missouri Senate, at least, (and in the Congress as well) “The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour.”
And legislative bodies—Congress and state assemblies alike—seem unwilling to prove they serve above the low regard the public has for them.
I was talking to one of our state senators a few days ago in one of the side galleries when he said, “I think I’m witnessing the death of the senate.”
If so, it has been a long and agonizing death.
If this is what the Missouri Senate is to be, he’s correct. And it hasn’t been just a death. It’s been a slow suicide. The life-blood of the body has slowly seeped away, leaving a once-deliberative and respectful lawmaking chamber splintered and dominated by a self-centered, small but power-hungry, group that has brought the place to near anarchy.
Make no mistake: the senate has been the scene of some fierce battles, even wars perhaps. But respect for its customs, traditions, and its famous unwritten rules has imposed an inner discipline that has served it well.
The increasingly painful decline and drift away from those characteristics seem to have two points of origin.
The sacrifice of public responsibility represented by the adoption of term limits is one of the points. The rise of those I call Gingrich Republicans is the other.
Term limits is the disaster its opponents warned us it would be. Voters willingly but hypocritically gave up their rights to vote for someone who had earned their confidence and in doing so laid the groundwork for the sad spectacle we have seen in the senate for the past three weeks, a situation that is a tyranny imposed by a minority.
A small group of senators demanding a new congressional district map that serves the purpose of political power more than it serves the purpose of fair political representation has stopped almost everything else from moving with actions that disrespect the very thing in which they are engaged—the filibuster.
The filibuster historically has been a tool that forces two disagreeing sides eventually to find some acceptable middle ground, assuming the two sides have a modicum of good will. Sometimes no agreement is possible. The losing side, while not getting some or any of its wishes, nonetheless recognizes that it has at least aired its grievances and allows the process to move ahead despite the differences so the process can serve the people’s needs on other issues.
That has not been the case in the senate this year. A small group has decided it must have a map drawn its way to expand the power of one party or the people at large who are expecting the makers of law to take actions that protect and serve them are out of luck.
The attitude has irritated colleagues of both parties, has aggravated a bipartisan group of women senators, and has gotten on the nerves of the senate leadership. When one of the contentious crowd violated one of the unwritten decorum rules by wearing bib overalls on the floor (even with a coat and tie) and was called on it by the President Pro Tem, he instead of quickly leaving and returning properly dressed argued about it. For elevating what should have been a small issue into a larger public one, he was penalized with the loss of most of his committee assignments—which led to another extended period of reading from a book instead of publicly apologizing to the Senate.
Parents sometimes have to deal with a defiant child by taking away some privileges. The same holds true in a public body of government.
How does term limits fit this situation?
A deliberative body such as the Senate must have within its being a deep traditional sense of respect for the chamber, the processes, and the members. The saying, “Everybody is a Senator” is more than a statement recognizing an elected title. It is a proclamation that all participants in the senate process are equal and will be respected as equals, that the title is greater than the individual. Respect for the title and the mutual recognition of shared courtesies required for progress are essential and those who disregard those responsibilities and therefore disrupt the work of the senate for their own purposes are subject to discipline.
These are qualities of service in the Senate that once were taught to new members by those who had served for years, perhaps decades, and knew from life experience that respect for individuals and the system were the keys to responsible lawmaking.
But term limits have robbed our legislative bodies of that valuable institutional knowledge and have left them liable for disruptive actions that undermine responsible lawmaking. And the situation has deteriorated so badly that some wonder if the Senate can ever recover enough of those values to be the effective body it once was.
The second factor that has led to the present debacle was the advent of the Gingrich Republicans in the early 1990s. The take-no-prisoners style of politics was almost immediately disruptive of the deliberative process that was the culture of the Senate. The early small and disruptive element increased as years went by. Increasingly, filibusters increased and a small dissident group learned how it could hold the floor for hours and passed along that knowledge so that the filibuster became less of a tool of compromise and more of a sledgehammer of force.
Distressingly, what we are seeing in Missouri is not uncommon in other states and is on flagrant display in our national politics. Some have suggested term limits are needed for Congress.
Congressional disarray is already frightening enough. What has been happening in Missouri should be a warning of the danger to democracy that term limits in Washington would bring.
Where we are in the state senate has been a long time coming. Those who have watched the deterioration of the chamber and who cannot see an end to this distressing set of events wonder if deliberative and respectful government can be returned to our capitol—and to our nation.
You and I, dear readers, are the ones who hold that future in our hands.
The Hill, a Washington D. C. political newsletter, put out a story last Sunday that, “Republicans are struggling to coalesce around a single alternative candidate to former Gov. Eric Greitens in Missouri’s open Senate race, elevating worries that they’ll be saddled with a baggage-laden candidate in a contest that should be a slam dunk.”
We recall, we hope correctly, that when Greitens ran for Governor in 2016, a lot of Republicans were concerned and some questioned whether he fit the definition of “Republican.” At the time, we wrote that if Eric Greitens wanted to call himself a Republican, he was within all of his rights to do so.
The party is correct in worrying that his regrettable time as governor and the reasons for his departure might not be enough to dissuade his dedicated populist supporters from supporting him in 2022. Whether those supporters find any value in Josh Hawley’s endorsement of Vicky Hartzler or Ted Cruz’s endorsement of Eric Schmitt is something we won’t hazard to guess.
But in getting desperate in keeping him from getting the nomination, the party seems to be acting in a way in Missouri that it refuses to act nationally. Eric Greitens might be an albatross around the GOP neck. But so is Donald Trump. Both came along about the same time and in many ways appealed to the same base of voters. Those voters might be unappreciative of the party’s falling out of bed with either man. What those voters might do is beyond the capabilities of our crystal ball. But if Trump endorses Greitens—well, that seems from this lofty position to be a genuine Republican muddle.
The Hill reported that a leaked poll by “an unknown group” shows Greitens leads a Democrat in early general election sentiments, narrowly. The fact that the Democrat candidates’ name recognition in the general public mind is nowhere near the name ID of Eric Greitens is gratifying to Greitens fans but a concern to his critics. If relative unknowns are that close, without campaign advertising that brings them more to the fore and attacks Greitens’ past behaviors that diminish him, there is legitimate Republican concern that the voters could put that seat in the D column again.
Frankly, the world will not come to an end either way. What’s distressing is that so much of our national politics is seen through the lens of power rather than with a vision of service.
Greitens advantage is the same one that Trump had in the 2016 primaries. His core of true believers (somewhere between 20 and 30 percent, say polls) will stick with him while his several opponents will split the majority of anti-Greitens votes and leave him the last person standing. Trump won a lot of delegates in 2016 by getting 35% of the primary votes while six or seven or eight candidates divided the other 65%.
But nobody is bailing out of the Republican senatorial primary. They’re all waiting for Trump’s expensive imported loafer to drop. Then they have a new problem. If it drops Greitens’ way, do they attack him because he has Trump’s endorsement? Or will the egos and ambitions of others let them step aside, leaving, say, Hartzler and Schmitt to carry on the fight?
The Hill says those concerned might not get much help from “Washington power players.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee says it’s not going to play favorites. And so far the Senate Leadership Fund, closely tied to Mitch McConnell, has shown no enthusiasm to dive in, either.
Greitens seems not to care. His campaign manager has referred to “false narratives peddled by DC swamp creatures.”
That’s speaking the language a lot of Trump/Greitens loyalists understand.
Another influential voice that is speaking up is former Senator John Danforth, who is suggesting that a center-right independent candidate could save the day. Danforth has all but promised some big checks to support the person filling that bill.
But a sad question that speaks to the sadness of our political times hangs over such a hope. Have our politics reached such a low that John Danforth’s opinion doesn’t count for much?
Once a man whose integrity was a standard for political office-seekers to follow (although some on both sides of the aisle have never forgiven him for supporting Clarence Thomas’ Supreme County nomination), what influence does he have over what his party has become?
I have pretty well made up my mind how I will vote in 2022. I have decided because I remember.
—I remember November 22, 1963 when I had returned to my apartment house in Columbia after student-producing the noon newscast at KOMU-TV, during which we reported President Kennedy had gone to Texas to assure Texans he was not going to dump Lyndon Johnson from the ticket in 1963, and one of my housemates shouted down the stairs as I came through the door, “You better get up here. The President’s been shot.” I was drawing a paycheck from KFRU Radio as assistant news director under Eric Engberg (who went on to a long career as a CBS correspondent) and immediately went to the newsroom where we started gathering reaction stories to put on the air when ABC Radio broke for local coverage. It never did, not for three days.
—-I remember April 4, 1968 when a phone call to my apartment told me Martin Luther King had been shot, and another call later that he had died. I was in my first months as news director of a radio station that used to do news in Jefferson City. It was a daytime-only station and I had to wait until the next morning to report the story. And a few days later I was inside the Jefferson City News-Tribune building when Lincoln University students turned violent outside the newspaper’s doors when the editor refused to retract an editorial run a few days earlier critical of Dr. King. A flying piece of glass came within inches of hitting me in the eye.
—-I remember June 5, 1968 when another call came to my apartment, early in the morning. “Kennedy’s been shot,” said the newstipper. “Which one?” I asked because just a few days before handsome, young Ted Kennedy had strode into a room at the Holiday Inn to speak on behalf of his brother. “Robert,” said the caller. The morning newspapers that had gone to press the night before were reporting that RFK, as he was being called, appeared to have won the California Democratic Primary. He was shot at 2:15 a.m., our time. Radio news people like me delivered the shocking news heard by those having breakfast that Kennedy was in critical condition.
—I remember June 6, 1968, when the phone rang again in the darkness. “Kennedy has died,” said the caller. He died at 3:44 a.m., our time. The newspapers that morning reported he was still critical. I joined other broadcasters breaking terrible news for a second straight morning to thousands of people again having breakfast.
—I remember September 22, 1975 when the national networks’ evening newscasts were interrupted by word that a woman had tried to assassinate President Ford in San Francisco. We later learned that the first of two shots she fired from only forty feet away had missed the president’s head by only five inches.
—I remember March 30, 1981. It was just before 1:30 in the afternoon in the newsroom of The Missourinet when the UPI wire machine bells began ringing with the bulletin that President Reagan had been shot and others had been wounded. Throughout the afternoon, we were reporting reactions from our people in Congress as well as our state leaders, knowing no more than most other reporters how close we were to losing another president.
I remember these events vividly, maybe more vividly than many because, as a reporter, I was instantly and intensely involved in telling the stories to others.
I remember fears, especially in the 60s, of where our country was headed, fears that were rekindled in 1975 and in 1981.
They were nothing like the fears today.
Nothing, because the fear did not originate within the government.
Yesterday I watched the United States House of Representatives censure Republican Congressman Paul Gosar for his Twitter video showing an animated attack on Democratic Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and an attack—with swords—on President Biden. Majority Democrats forced the action after Republican leaders in the House refused to publicly say one critical word about Gosar’s action. His “apology” during discussion of the censure resolution was no apology and was instead an attack on Biden administration immigration policy.
Only two Republicans voted for the censure resolution, which also takes away Gosar’s committee assignments: Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who will leave the House at the end of this term, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming, whose courage in standing against the “Big Lie” has led the Wyoming Republican Party to say it no longer recognizes her as a Republican. Kinzinger had argued that failure to hold Gosar accountable “will take us one step closer to this fantasized violence becoming real.” It is difficult to disagree with that fear as we continue to watch the violent rhetoric that dominates one side of our political spectrum today.
Gosar reportedly told his caucus he doesn’t support political violence. He said he had not seen the Tweet and he pulled it from his account when he learned about it.
So far we have not heard any of the leaders of Gosar’s party express any misgivings about his video or disagreement with their former president’s comment that “it’s only natural” that some of those storming the capitol in January wanted to “hang Mike Pence.”
The failure of party leaders to show any spine in the face of intentional and ongoing stoking of barely-latent fires of violence and their groveling at the feet of a man who is a stranger to honesty, empathy, courtesy, respect, and other Christian values leaves me with no choice.
In normal elections my votes are scattered on both sides of the ballot. As of now, I will fill in the little box next to only one Republican’s name next year.
Only one. Because I am so terribly disappointed in those for whom I might otherwise vote in their reluctance to stand for the values I thought they had.
I remember 1963. And ’68 and ’75 and ’81. Never then was I so fearful for our freedoms as I am now. Never have I had so little faith in those I should trust to be servants of the people.
They cannot be servants of the people if they are slaves to one who demands their obedience and countenances every vulgarity that stems from his gross failures of character.
I am but one voter and I am easily dismissed. But I doubt that I am just one.
