Let Their Names Ring in Infamy

Speaker Vote Stains Record of Iowans in US House

The record of all four Iowa members of the US House of Representatives is now stained with votes for Jim Jordan. He was by far the worst candidate ever considered to be Speaker of the House. Their votes are a blot on the good name of Iowa and on their own names.

The votes for Jordan - three each from Ashley Hinson (R-2nd IA), Zack Nunn (R-3rd IA), and Randy Feenstra (R-4th IA) and one from Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st IA) have also put to rest once and for all the comforting - but false - myth that Iowa’s Republicans in Washington, DC are somehow different than the bullies and budding fascists who don’t care a whit about democracy and who increasingly own and operate the Republican party.

Their votes for Jordan were in lockstep with those very same bullies and fascists. They were cast for someone who fits that same description.

Iowa’s all Republican delegation in the US House is now - with these votes - as untethered to democracy as the rest of the Republicans in Washington, DC. and just as tied to Jordan’s corruption.

You know the book on Jordan, by now, so I won’t belabor the details about why he was unfit to be considered to be placed second in line to the presidency, in a position where he would have had the power to wage his partisan sabotage against a government that works and democracy itself.

But even a quick summary of his unfitness takes some time:

• As a college wrestling assistant coach at Ohio State Universty Jim Jordan did nothing when wrestlers reported to him on going sexual abuse of young wrestlers by a physician employed by the Ohio State Athletic Department.

• Jordan was not only an election denier after the 2020 election, to this day he will not acknowledge that Trump lost and Biden won the 2020 election.

• Jordan was, in fact, a strategist with Trump in trying to overthrow America’s democracy.

• He refused to testify before the bi-partisan House January 6 Committee, and refused to comply with a subpoena from the committee, which earned him a referral to the House Ethics Committee.

• As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he has weaponized the committee’s work, choosing to conduct political warfare from the post, rather than conduct actual legislative business.

• Despite having served in the US House since 2007, not a single bill of which Jordan was the original sponsor has been passed by the House.

• He lies as brazenly and as frequently as Trump.

• Former Republican House Speaker John Boener, who served with Jordan in Congress, describes him - not as an effective legislator, but as a “legislative terrorist.”

None of that sounds to me like the perfect resume for the next Speaker of the House, but it was enough to convince all four Republicans in Iowa’s U.S. House delegation, because on the first - crucial - ballot they all voted for Jim Jordan.

Let their names ring in infamy: Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-1st), Ashley Hinson (R-2nd); Zach Nunn (R-3rd), and Randy Feenstra (R-4th) voted to for Jim Jordan.

The man who in 16 years in Congress never passed a single bill. The man who plays political war games with the congressional committee he now heads rather than focusing on actual needed legislation - had the votes of the Iowa delegation prevailed - would have been responsible for passing legislation through the House to avert a government shut down on November 17.

The man whose word no one trusts on Capitol Hill. His first ever actual legislative accomplishment was going to be averting fiscal and policy catastrophe in a matter of mere weeks by passing legislation to keep the entire federal government functioning.

Yeah, that was going to happen.

The Iowa delegation’s political careers should end for that dangerously misplaced judgement alone.

And before starting with the jokes about who needs government anyway, let me remind you there are two active shooting wars underway in which US allies are under brutal attack by Putin’s Russia and terrorists in the Middle East. Government services across the board would be slowed, and most stopped entirely, throwing the economy into a tailspin. Interest rates and the deficit would soar. There’s a lot at at stake in keeping the government running and avoiding a catastrophic shut down. Jim Jordan was never the man to count on to get that job done. Never.

Yet, he got their votes, despite never having passed anything in Congress in 16 years.

Astoundingly, three of the four Iowans who voted for Jordan - to their everlasting shame - did so on all three ballots. Not a quiver of doubt, apparently, that the man another Republican House Speaker described as a “legislative terrorist” was exactly the right person for the job.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks deserves special mention. She voted for Jordan only once, on the first ballot. She voted against Jordan on the second and third ballots.

She claims now to have had concerns before that first ballot vote for Jordan that he would not be able to unify the caucus. She voted for him, she says, because he was the Republican nominee for Speaker, and Republicans are supposed to vote for their nominee for Speaker. Twenty other Republicans did not let that stop them from doing the right thing for the country - voting against Jordan. They recognized him for what he is and voted against him on the first ballot.

Which is exactly how Miller-Meeks should have voted if she actually had the doubts she now claims to have had.

Miller-Meeks represents voters in Iowa and their interests. Not Republicans in Washington, DC. She chose partisan politics on that critical first ballot and in doing so willingly voted for the most flawed and dangerous candidate ever seriously considered to be House Speaker.

As Maya Angelou once wrote: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”

Miller-Meeks complains that things got ugly when some Republican members voted against Jordan. Threats of violence and “credible death threats” flooded the offices of Republicans who did not vote for Jordan.

Threats of violence and “credible death threats.” Let that sink in.

Sadly, that’s the way Republicans roll these days. The violence of January 6 was no aberration. It’s business as usual for today’s Republican base.

Miller-Meeks reported getting her own “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls” which were turned over to law enforcement for investigation.

In a stunning dilsplay of a lack of self-awareness, she added: “One thing I cannot stomach, or support, is a bully.”

Really?

Stomaching and supporting a bully is exactly what she did when she voted for Jim Jordan on the first ballot. Jordan’s bullying tactics in Congress are well known. We see them on the TV news frequently as he shouts down witnesses who come before his committee and who are in no position to shout back. He relentlessly and brutally pursues innocent citizens in search of the imaginary villains in his partisan hallucinations. She voted for him on the first ballot.

And what about Trump? He’s the biggest bully of them all. Miller-Meeks has had no trouble stomaching and supporting him. His entire business career was based on bullying, so much so that he even had to hire a full time attorney - Michael Cohen - to call people who expected Trump to pay what he owed them, and bully them on Trump’s behalf.

Even that level of bullying, however, shrinks to near insignificance when compared to the bullying Trump engaged in daily as president - against immigrants, against the lone protesters at his rallies who he urged rally attenders to beat up, against his fellow Republican contenders in the 2020 primaries, each of whom got their own derogatory, bullying nickname and a raft of personal insults.

Even Hillary Clinton, whom he physically tried to intimidate on live TV during a nationally televised debate.

Even war heroes like former POW, fellow Republican, US Senator and former Republican presidential nominee John McCain was not immune from Trump’s bullying: “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”

Remember that? From a serial draft dodger, no less. .

As president his bullying targets included: powerless refugees whose kids were kidnapped under policies he put in place; Muslims barred from entering the country - even American citizens - for no other reason than their religion; News reporters; White House staff; His own Vice President whom he belittled when he was in danger on January 6, and did nothing to save from the crowd of his own partisans who wanted to hang him.

Rep. Miller-Meeks didn’t have any trouble stomaching or supporting that bullying.

She was the one member of Iowa’s U.S. House delegation who managed to finally do the right thing - vote against Jim Jordan - on the last two votes. In the process, however, she managed to cover herself with ridiculous, sanctimonious ignominy.

This is truly the saddest congressional delegation Iowa has ever sent to Washington, DC. Every last one one of them betrays the state’s heritage - among Republicans and Democrats - of respectful, thoughtful, focused politics. Vigorous debate? You bet. Bullying? No. Betrayal of democracy? No. Willing to put dangerous individuals in positions of great power? Never.

Iowa can no longer claim such a heritage. That legacy of public servants who came before is gone. It’s been destroyed by the current congressional crew with their votes for Jim Jordan, who stands for every poltical value Iowa does not.

“I am never going to stop fighting for this country,” Miller-Meeks yelled at a fundraising crowed crowd back in Iowa after the votes. (Because that’s how Republicans roll when they don’t have a House Speaker nearly a year into a Congress. They hold fundraisers back home.) "If you think you can intimidate me, go. Suck it up buttercup.”

Representative Miller-Meeks, a good time to start fighting for your country would have been when when an insurrectionist, an opponent of democracy, was the Republican candidate for House Speaker, and you voted for him.

To her credit, Miller-Meeks only voted for Jordan once. To her discredit, she claims to have thought that might be a bad idea, but did it anyway for the sake of Republican politics. The country be damned.

The other three Iowa Republicans in the House voted for the insurrectionist, bullying, legislatively inept Jordan not just once, but three times. That’s just pitiful.

Iowa. Do better.

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