Elections

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Now, Mr. President, on a completely different matter, I remember distant days long, long ago, way back through the mists of time, when Democrats said it would be wrong for Washington to overturn a State-certified election result.

No, wait a minute. That was 2 months ago. Two months ago, every Democrat, cable news channel, and every liberal newspaper was melting down over some Republicans' efforts to dispute State-certified election results here in Congress. I vocally opposed those efforts myself.

But right now, as we speak, Speaker Pelosi and Washington Democrats are literally trying to overturn a State-certified election here in Congress. That is exactly what they are doing over in the House right now.

The voters of Iowa's Second District spoke in November. They counted the votes. They recounted the votes. The outcome was certified. That is the magic word, ``certified,'' that we heard over and over and over again in November and December.

There was the opportunity to present complaints in court. Sound familiar? But the defeated Democrat passed up the opportunity to go to court. The process played out in a way that every liberal in America spent November, December, and January insisting was beyond question.

Ah, but there is a catch. This time--this time--the Republican won, and the Democrat lost. So Speaker Pelosi and Washington Democrats have set out trying to overturn the result from right here in Congress.

Congresswoman Miller-Meeks has been sworn in. She is here. She is working. But Democratic leadership is trying to use brute political power to kick her out and replace this Congresswoman with the Democrat whom she defeated.

You don't often see hypocrisy this blatant and this shameless so quickly.

Naturally, now that the Democrats stand to benefit from this, the concept of Washington overturning a certified election has gone from a massive outrage--a massive outrage--to a minor afterthought for much of the national media.

This is happening at the same time that House and Senate Democrats are pitching a massive takeover of all 50 States' election laws. The same people who are trying to overturn this certified election result want to ram through a bill that would let them control the democratic processes that will determine whether they keep their jobs and their majority in 2 years' time.

This isn't about principle. It is just an attempt to use a temporary majority to pull off a permanent partisan power grab.

Democratic leaders have razor-thin majorities in both Chambers. They are obviously afraid they are going to lose them, so they have decided their top priority is a Washington rewrite of election rules.

The Second District in Iowa is just the appetizer. Soon Democrats want to come for the main course. Every congressional district, all 50 States, every election for every Federal office would have to be run the way liberal Washington lawyers who donate to Democrats prefer.

Voter ID? Their bill bans it unless States implement a huge loophole that makes it meaningless. But ballot harvesting, where paid political operatives can hand in stacks of absentee ballots with other people's names on them? It won't just be allowed; it will be mandatory nationwide.

Those are just two examples from an endless list. Outside special interests are putting tens of millions of dollars behind this.

In fact, some Democrats are so desperate to rewrite the rules of our democracy that many of them want to break the Senate's rules in order to do it. They want to break the Senate's rules in order to rewrite the rules of our democracy all over America. People will argue that it is worth destroying the legislative filibuster over H.R. 1 because the rules that govern our democracy are so important.

Of course, that is backward. The rules that govern our democracy are indeed uniquely sensitive and important. That is why this issue, of all issues, must be addressed in a fair and bipartisan way.

This isn't a uniquely justifiable place to shred the Senate's rules and ram through something partisan. It is a uniquely unjustifiable place to do it.

I worked with Chris Dodd to spearhead the Help America Vote Act back in 2002, a big landmark election bill that made it easier to vote and harder to cheat. It passed the Senate 92 to 2--92 to 2.

That is the kind of consensus you build if you want to tune up our democracy. That's the kind of broad bipartisan support that exists for making it easier to vote but harder to cheat, a far cry--a far cry from overturning a result from the last election and dictating the terms of the next one.

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