Democrats and their house pets in the media are screaming for the heads of Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo.
They objected to the certification of Arizona’s and Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes.
Their alleged affront to the Constitution and common decency, the Left claims, fueled the riot on Capitol Hill by a purportedly pro-Trump mob that triggered the deaths of five people on Wednesday.
Conversely, Democrats who opposed Ohio’s Electoral College votes in 2005 enjoyed plaudits and publishing contracts. In a case of diatribes and double standards, Democrats' message to Hawley is: "Book deals for we, but not for thee."
Sen. Hawley announced Dec. 30: "I cannot vote to certify the Electoral College results on Jan. 6 without raising the fact that some states, particularly Pennsylvania, failed to follow their own state election laws."
Sen. Cruz led 11 other GOP senators in a Jan. 3 joint statement.
Among their complaints: "By any measure, the allegations of fraud and irregularities in the 2020 election exceed any in our lifetimes."
Joe Biden was not impressed. The sore winner “brought America together” by comparing Cruz and Hawley to Nazi Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, arguably Adolf Hitler’s closest and most loyal confidante.
"They’re part of the big lie," Biden said. "Goebbels and the great lie. You keep repeating the lie, repeating the lie."
What a great way to lower the temperature and soothe 75 million Trump voters.
Before Wednesday’s mayhem, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., told MSNBC that Hawley’s objection "borders on sedition or treason."
Sen. Hawley "is talking about Pennsylvania because he wants to come here & run for President someday," Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., said via Twitter. "The lies he told inspired today’s violence. He is still telling those lies. Pennsylvania will never forget."
"Sen. Josh Hawley becomes public enemy No. 1 on Capitol Hill," screamed an NBC News headline. "The Missouri freshman is under fire from Democrats and members of his own party after the riot at the Capitol."
Indeed, former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "Supporting Josh and trying so hard to get him elected to the Senate was the worst mistake I ever made in my life."
Meanwhile, Simon & Schuster joined the pile-on by cancelling Hawley’s book deal. The publishing behemoth torched the June 21 release of "The Tyranny of Big Tech."
Its title seems almost psychic, given Silicon Valley’s still-unfolding, Orwellian "1984"-style clampdown on the social-media accounts of President Donald J. Trump and many of his higher-profile fans, since the recent unpleasantness.
Simon & Schuster explained that it "cannot support Senator Hawley after his role in what became a dangerous threat to our democracy and freedom."
So, what happened the last time a U.S. senator challenged electors?
Less than nothing.
Then-Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., joined then-Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, in resisting G.W. Bush’s Ohio electors.
Boxer, Tubbs, and 30 Democratic House members argued that certain voting practices frustrated Democratic voters and clinched Bush’s Ohio victory and, thus, his 2004 re-election.
"I raise this objection neither to put the nation in the turmoil of a proposed overturned election nor to provide cannon fodder or partisan demagoguery for my fellow members of Congress,” Jones said in the House chamber on January 6, 2005. "I raise this objection because I am convinced that we as a body must conduct a formal and legitimate debate about election irregularities."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., applauded the Democrat objectors for "speaking up for their aggrieved constituents” during "their only opportunity to have this debate while the country is listening."
House Democrats’ challenge failed, 31 yeas to 267 nays.
"The fight for electoral justice,"drove Sen. Boxer. "Why did voters in Ohio wait hours in the rain to vote?" she asked her colleagues. "Why is it that when 638 people voted at a precinct in Franklin County, a voting machine awarded 4,258 extra votes to George Bush? Thankfully, they fixed it. Only 638 people had shown up, but George Bush got more than 4,000 votes. How could that happen? Why did Franklin County officials reduce the number of voting machines in downtown precincts while adding them in the suburbs?"
Boxer added, "I hate inconveniencing my friends, but I think it’s worth a couple of hours to shine some light on these issues."
Boxer’s objection flopped, one aye to 74 nays.
So, for confronting America’s democratic voting system — via Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution and 3 U.S. Code § 15, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 — Boxer surely was excoriated, compared to Nazi cineaste Leni Riefenstahl, and subjected to book-cancellation torture, right?
No, no, and no.
The Washington Post observed the next day that Boxer’s intervention "followed constitutional guidelines." The Post also reported that, although only Boxer backed her bid, "many Democrats defended her in floor speeches."
"Earlier in the day, more than 100 protesters rallied in front of the White House to demand and, ultimately, celebrate Boxer’s decision to join Tubbs Jones in protesting the Ohio vote," the Post explained. "Some senators . . . have gone to Ukraine to investigate that election," said then-Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill.
"They’ve gone to Iraq. But not one has gone to Columbus, Ohio."
The San Francisco Chronicle called Boxer "a feisty liberal" and her challenge "Boxer’s Rebellion." The caption of Gerald Herbert’s accompanying AP photo noted that Boxer "wipes away a tear" while announcing her intentions.
Boxer’s book was not burned. In fact, just 10 months later, Chronicle Books published "A Time to Run."
This was Boxer’s fiction debut, with co-writer Mary-Rose Hays.
"Boxer brings been-there nuance to the backbiting, hazardous personal disclosures and naked power mongering of California and Washington politics," Publisher’s Weekly sang in praise. Hummed Library Journal: "Recommended for all large fiction collections."
The 31 House Democrats who objected also faced no literary lashes.
Indeed, just five months hence, Academy Chicago Publishers released "What Went Wrong in Ohio: The Conyers Report on the 2004 Presidential Election," by then-Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich. In 2007, Phoenix Books published "The Courage to Survive" by then-Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.
Obviously, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and other Republicans had their deliberations derailed by maddeningly counterproductive marauders supportive of their party’s president.
Boxer, Jones, and the 30 other Democrats who questioned Ohio’s electors did not endure that hideous misfortune. Still, the wildly disparate treatment of Republican and Democratic Electoral College challengers in 2021 versus 2005 is certifiably objectionable.
Bucknell University's Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research. Read Deroy Murdock's Reports — More Here.
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