Iowans Punch Extremism Card in Congress

All four voted for Speaker candidates who backed U.S democracy's overthrow

Iowa’s four Republican members of the U.S. House helped end three weeks of congressional gridlock by voting to elect an extremist, anti-democracy, insurrectionist, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA), as the new Speaker of the House.

While Johnson’s installation in the post allowed Congress to resume work, which ground to a halt during the Republican’s Speakership debacle, it raises new questions about the commitment of the Republican party to American democracy.

Some would argue the unknown Johnson’s elevation to the Speakership - and the votes from Iowans in Congress that helped elect him - actually answers questions about the party’s fidelity to democracy, the principle of self government which has guided the nation since its founding, but from which the Republican party has increasingly become unmoored in recent years.

I think it’s important that we talk about what House Republicans did, and what Iowans in Congress did to aid and abet the outcome. And that we talk about it in terms of what really happened. There is no need to be polite or sugar coat their votes against democracy.

They betrayed democracy. All of them.

The new Speaker Mike Johnson is an extremist. He supported the January 6 insurrection which tried to violently overthrow American democracy. He voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, based solely on Donald Trump’s big lie.

When Iowans in Congress voted for a man with that giant blot on his record to be the next Speaker of the House - second in the line of presidential succession - they gave up any claim that their north star in governing is democracy.

Their north star is hyper-partisanship and ideology, neither of which has much room for, or care about, democracy.

In saner times, a record blotted with support for insurrection would be enough to get one expelled from Congress, not put in charge of one its chambers.

The four Iowans in Congress are Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA), Ashley Hinson ((R-2nd IA), Zach Nunn (R-3rd IA), and Randy Feenstra (R- 4th IA). Remember their names. Their votes in the Speakers race unmask the fact that they are no friends of democracy. They are now charter members of the “Insurrectionist Caucus.”

Their votes for the insurrectionist Johnson were no accident, by the way.

Johnson was actually the second candidate for House Speaker with a record of support for violent insurrection and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election who all four Iowans supported.

The first, of course, was the now de-railed Rep. Jim Jordan.

The four members of Iowa’s “Insurrectionist Caucus” aren’t the first extremists Iowa has sent to Congress. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) had a nearly 20 year career there voting on behalf of Iowans and embarrassing thinking Iowans daily. His abominations were mostly racist and eventually even fellow Republicans in Congress grew sick of him and took away his committee assignments. Republicans back home defeated him in a Republican primary.

But not even King wandered into insurrection territory.

That’s where the whole Iowa delegation stands today, and the entire Republican House membership stands with them. (The vote that elected Johnson was unanimous.)

Jordan was so hip deep in the January 6 insurrection planning that he pleaded with Trump for a pardon before Trump left office. Trump, focused as always on looking out out for himself, ignored Jordan’s request.

That should have been a huge red flag that nobody should voting to make him Speaker of the House (or anything else), but all four Iowans did. When a new candidate presented himself, also sporting a resume of support for violent insurrection and votes to overturn the 2020 presidential election, they voted for him, too.

Iowans should never forget that.

Rep. “Landslide” Mariannette Miller-Meeks, who won her seat with a six vote margin in 2020, comically tried to let Iowans think she was torn about her vote for Jordan once it became clear he wasn’t going to win and after she voted for him on the first, crucial, ballot. She claimed she had “concerns” about him - none of which, by the way, had anything to do with his support for trying to overthrow democracy - and voted for somebody else on the next two ballots.

She went home to Iowa and yelled at a fundraising rally: “I am never going to stop fighting for this country!” Which seemed an odd thing to say after having just voted for Jim Jordan who supported the January 6 insurrection and attempt to overthrow our democracy.

Having appropriately tried to cover her tracks, she then went back to Washington, DC and voted for Johnson, who also voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and supported - some say played a key role in plannning - the January 6 attempt to overthrow our democracy.

Miller-Meeks says she’ll never stop fighting for our country. With that record, some of us are still waiting for her to start.

The new Speaker Johnson is still relatively unknown, but the on-going examinations of his record are finding that - like Jordan - he’s an extremist. In addition to having supported overthrowing an elected US president, he favors deep cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

Like most Republicans in Congress, he has voted against every attempt to reform the nation’s gun laws to prevent mass shootings like the one this past week in Maine. Even legislation to strengthen background checks.

He wants to take away the right of women to make their own health care decisions by banning abortions nationally.

That’s a record of extremism that all four Iowans endorsed with their votes to make him Speaker.

We’ll learn more as the weeks and months progress. I say, let’s have an honest debate and vote on the things we disagree about and see where the American people are on them. I’m confident who will win that contest.

I imagine Republicans see the same outcome as I do, which is why they are working so hard to end our democracy.

We cannot, however, ignore Speaker Johnson’s extremism - and especially what should have been a career-ender for him, or landed a knockout punch in his Speaker’s race: his support for the January 6 insurrection and his vote to overthrow America’s democratic election of its president in 2020.

Iowans should not accept the fact that their representatives in Congress are voting - mulitiple times - to put a supporter of armed, violent insurrection, a man who voted to overturn the results of a presidential election, in charge of the House of Representatives.

Votes for the overthrow of democracy and support for armed, violent insurrection should have ejected both Jordan and Johnson from any congressional leadership track.

Knowing that record and voting to install first Jordan and then Johnson as the next Speaker of the House - is enough to end the careers of Miller-Meeks, Hinson, Nunn, and Feenstra. Such monumental bad judgement and recklessness with our American democracy should not be rewarded with more terms in Congress.

This cannot become Iowa’s new normal.

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