Impeachment-peddling hack Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., undertook a new crusade to spread disinformation about election-integrity reforms as part of a hearing Thursday for the House Oversight Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.
“This zealous pursuit of a massive draconian crackdown is now a national crisis,” said Chairman Raskin in his opening statement for the hearing, titled “Democracy in Danger: The Assault on Voting Rights in Texas.”
Citing New York University’s radical leftist Brennan Center, which is funded in part by billionaire oligarch Michael Bloomberg, Raskin raised the alarm that 18 states had enacted 30 new voting laws thus far—with more on the way, including Texas.
“We must fight back against the voter suppression campaign sparked by the Big Lie before it is too late,” he said. “The future of our democracy depends on it.”
Ironically, his attack on election integrity followed on the heels an actual draconian power-grab this week in the form of arbitrary new vaccine mandates imposed by the Biden administration.
In fact, the event’s focus risked being overshadowed by its prospect of becoming a super-spreader event as Democrats invited several COVID-exposed Texas lawmakers to speak. Already they have infected a staffer from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office and an unknown number of White House staffers.
Wisely, the committee opted to stream the Texas Democrats remotely into the hearing—during which, Raskin himself appeared to ignore Pelosi’s recent diktat that everyone be required to wear a mask upon threat of arrest.
The hearing appeared to be the latest in a nonstop stream of efforts to push the House’s controversial HR1 election overhaul bill, which would effectively strip states of their constitutionally vested power to oversee elections and hand that authority to the federal bureaucracy.
The bill also seeks to codify many of the illegal practices that Democrats undertook during the 2020 election under the pretense of emergency pandemic rules.
GOP led legislatures, such as Georgia and Texas, have wasted no time trying to close the loopholes that led to those abuses.
Republicans, including the subcommittee’s ranking minority member, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, hammered the Texas Democrats for their cowardly, undemocratic effort to forestall the Texas legislation by depriving the statehouse of a necessary quorum.
“Republicans don’t walk out,” Sessions said in his opening statement.
“We don’t go and accuse people of things just because we are losing,” he continued. “I would suggest to you that what is happening today in Texas is the rights of all Texans are being withheld because members of the Democrat party who are members of the State House choose not to be a part of this.”
Others on the committee slammed Raskin and House Oversight chairman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY, for their pointless waste of power and abuse of resources in service of yet another political stunt.
“The hearing title today claims there is an assault on voting rights in Texas, which would be very troubling if it were true. But it isn’t,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.
Riffing off Raskin’s incessant repetition of the “Big Lie” trope—a term coined by Adolf Hitler to describe the psychological manipulation of citizens through rhetorical trickery—Comer called on Democrats to demonstrate some self-awareness.
“Your hearing title implies a big lie,” Comer said.
“Today, Democrats are holding a hearing meant to convince us of the necessity of their bill, HR 1, that would federalize elections across this country, funnel taxpayer money to politicians, and prevent commonsense and popular integrity measures such as voter ID,” he continued. “Once again, Democrats are engaging in spectacle over substance while conducting no real oversight.”
In addition to the desperate spectacle involving Texas Democrats, Raskin and Maloney recently attempted to prevent election transparency by launching a retaliatory investigation into Doug Logan, the lead auditor for efforts currently underway in Arizona’s Maricopa County.
Other states, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan have considered conducting independent audits of their own, but Democrats, for reasons unknown, have fought back viciously to thwart and discredit them.
Texas state Rep. Travis Clardy, a Republican witness for the minority, touched on what many suspect to be the case: that Democrats’ refusal to participate suggests that they view fairness as being inherently unfair to their side, since the only way they are able to win is by stacking the deck.
“You know as well as I do, this legislation has been negotiated in good faith and deserves your attention,” Clardy said.
“. . . Like every bill, it can get better through debate and deliberations . . . It’s an inclusive process that has served us well and it is available to all those who want to participate,” he continued. “Simply put, we should want to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.”
