Washington, DC – Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) today cautioned Democrats against moving to overturn the election in Iowa's 2nd District where Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks has been certified the winner following a bipartisan and thorough recount process and was seated as a member of Congress on January 3rd. At the same time, the Democrat candidate chose to forgo the legal options available to her within the state.

Davis also spoke about the committee's failure to schedule a markup for H.R. 1 - an 800-page bill that would impact millions of Americans' right to vote.
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Davis's comments on IA-02:

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm glad we could come to an agreement on adding some additional structure to the election contests before us. We need to ensure these proceedings are fair, impartial, and transparent. Taxpayers deserve to know exactly how much this is costing and I hope we can find a transparent way to disclose this spending.

Rita Hart had an opportunity to challenge each of these claims using Iowa's impartial judicial proceedings, but instead, she has chosen to sidestep Iowa law and ask this House to decide this election for Iowa voters. Taking up this election contest would set a dangerous precedent that candidates don't have to exhaust their legal options through the state and can, instead, go straight to Congress if they don't like the outcome of an election. I can't think of a worst first step this committee could take in a new Congress than to waste taxpayer dollars by moving forward with overturning this election.

We know every legal vote was counted in Iowa's Second District because the votes were counted and recounted using a timely, transparent, and bipartisan process, and Miller-Meeks never trailed in any officially reported count. Bipartisan recount boards in all 24 counties — including a member from each campaign and their agreed upon third member — conducted the recount. Following the recount, Iowa's bipartisan State Canvassing Board voted unanimously to declare Congresswoman Miller-Meeks the winner on Nov. 30.

The state's process is solid and fair, and we can trust the outcome. In fact, we already have, by seating all four Members from Iowa on January 3, who were elected at the same time. There is no reason why we should hold Congresswoman Miller-Meeks to a different standard. And just to be clear, there are no "provisional or conditional" Members of Congress. If you are sworn in and given the right to cast a vote on the House floor, you are a duly elected Member of Congress, just like Marianette Miller-Meeks. Congresswoman Miller-Meeks is our colleague.

The last time Democrats overturned an election was in 1985 and we saw how partisan of a process this was. In fact, it was dubbed the ‘Bloody Eighth.' Democrats decided ballots that were not legal under the state law were suddenly determined legal votes under new rules invented by a partisan task force who completely rejected state law. They changed the rules of the game after the game had already been played and that is exactly what's happening 35 years later.

While running for election is partisan in nature, administering and determining the outcome should never be. It will be one of the greatest mistakes this House makes to take up an election contest where the candidate sidestepped the courts and, instead, turned to a partisan process in the House because they knew they could not win any other way.
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Davis's comments on H.R. 1:

I wanted to address another election issue related this this committee. Leader Hoyer announced H.R. 1 will be on the floor the week of March 1, just over a week away. Yet, this committee hasn't held any hearings on this bill. Could the Chairperson tell me if this committee will be holding any hearings specifically on H.R. 1 or markups on this nearly 800-page bill before it goes to the floor?...

That's incredibly disappointing to hear – a nearly 800-page bill that will impact millions of Americans' right to vote deserves a markup and taxpayers deserve committees who are doing their work. And since Democrats changed House floor rules to shut out a difference of opinion, committees are now the only real opportunity for the minority to provide an alternative.

This committee needs to hear from those who actually run our elections about the impact this could have. We should review the issues we saw during the 2020 election cycle and help states develop a better process. Simply mandating how states run their elections is not only unconstitutional, but it will lead to chaos and confusion for voters.

We saw this play out last year. States, that were not accustomed to vote by mail, struggled to implement it. This led to chaos in elections throughout the country and weakened voter confidence in the process. Hundreds of thousands of people were unintentionally disenfranchised, many ballot integrity safeguards were abandoned, and election results took weeks to determine.

H.R. 1 forces all states to make many of these changes, that were made in the name of COVID, permanent. We had observers in New York, in California, in Pennsylvania, and other parts of the country and I think I speak for many Americans when I say, I don't want an election process like that again. But if H.R. 1 were to become law, that's exactly what the American people will get, along with the first ever corporate funding that is laundered through the federal government that will go directly into your own campaign account.
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