Move over Darth Vader, there’s a new Sith Knight in town. Elise Stefanik just threw away any credibility that she had as a rational, thinking being and has thrown in her lot with the insurrectionist. The battle lines are drawn now. The Old GOP is planning to go down this way, insisting that 2020 was not valid. Faith in our elections is the cornerstone of democracy and Stefanik just dynamited that. The Hill:
House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said that she would not have allowed 2020 election results to be certified on Jan. 6, 2021 if she was in former Vice President Mike Pence’s position.
“I would not have done what Mike Pence did. I don’t think that was the right approach,” Stefanik said on CNN Thursday evening. “I specifically stand by what I said on the House floor.’
Stefanik, widely seen as a top contender to be former President Trump’s vice presidential pick in 2024, voted against certifying election results in Pennsylvania on Jan. 6 after rioters breached the Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the election.
Stefanik did, however, vote to certify election results in Arizona, the only other state to be contested in Congress that day.
“There was unconstitutional overreach in states like Pennsylvania, and I think it’s very important that we continue to stand up for the Constitution and have legal and secure elections, which we did not have in 2020,” Stefanik said.
Speaking on the House floor in 2021, Stefanik had referenced a 2020 Pennsylvania court case that said mail-in ballots could not be rejected because of comparisons on signatures, which infuriated Trump allies.
CNN host Kaitlan Collins pushed back with a reference to a different case, saying the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had rejected another Republican-led case that challenged mail-in voting itself as unconstitutional – a mail-in voting law that was approved under a Republican-controlled state legislature.
“It was unconstitutional when there was circumventing state legislatures, unilaterally changing election law,” Stefanik said.
I guess that’s her audition for VP. We still don’t know when Donald Trump will decide to name a vice president. He’s too busy setting fire to the RNC and getting rid of Ronna McDaniel, but it should come any time now, perhaps in March.
Power is the name of the game, not democracy.
Stefanik needs to be removed from office since she obviously doesn’t understand the very document she’s REQUIRED BY LAW to “defend.”
She was first took office–swearing an oath on that very first day–in January of 2015. And EVERY TWO YEARS, she has stood on the House floor and repeated that oath.
This is the text: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
That Constitution does NOT allow the Vice-President to just ignore a state’s PROPERLY SUBMITTED election results, much less override those results.
Stefanik is unfit to be a member of the House of Representatives, much less the Vice-President of the United States. That oath is not just some little “suggestion”; it’s FEDERAL LAW (5 U.S.C. 3331). Additionally, these members are supposed to sign an affidavit within 60 days affirming they will NOT “advocate the overthrow of our constitutional form of government.”
I suppose, of course, if one of her unhappy constituents went around calling for her murder and sent her letters wishing for her death or severe injury, she’d be siccing law enforcement on that individual (or those individuals) using some sort of “legal” jibber-jabber but it’s perfectly okay for her to knowingly and deliberately advocating to break her oath of office.
“I WOULD NOT HAVE DONE WHAT MIKE PENCE DID. I DON’T THINK THAT WAS THE RIGHT APPROACH,”–The right ‘approach’? You mean like following the Constitution? This woman has become an out and out bimbo since she started whoring for tRump. She’s ridiculous, and so transparent. ‘Oh Donnie, I wouldn’t have done what Pence did. I’m the one you want for VP’. Yeesh, give me a break.
A bad choice for her. What I find puzzling is that some the younger, originally moderate conservatives with futures ahead of them are trashing their careers by aligning themselves with the orange abomination and his wacko cult. It’s an indelible stain that will be with them for life. Is this a question of money, inexperience or low intelligence? (Not to suggest any of these are mutually exclusive.)