Skipping a Step
Yesterday was the deadline for the Rita Hart campaign to file a challenge to the election results which were certified by the Iowa Secretary of State Monday. That would have meant a legal challenge within the Iowa courts, that would have had to have been wrapped up by next Tuesday. A unique, rarely used, expedited process well-established in Iowa law.
Given the closeness of the election, a 6 vote margin out of nearly 394,000 cast, no one would blame Hart for exploring every avenue legally.
But remember that the number one goal of a candidate and a campaign is to win, again by every legal means necessary. And that explains the move the campaign did make, which was to bypass the legal challenge within the state of Iowa courts and go directly to an outlet that will be more favorable to them–the Democrat-controlled United States House of Representatives.
She is appealing her situation to the committee that reviews credentials. Typically this is all just a formality, a committee that rubber stamps a state certification and officially seats a member of the House.
So instead of a court in Iowa potentially upholding who the representative should be, it will be left in the hands of a committee controlled by a political party whose majority numbers are shrinking dramatically.
As I said, I respect any campaign doing anything it can do legally in order to win. I’m not sure I, or too many Iowans, like the idea of skipping a step for something that is clearly political.
Tells me they know they can’t win in court and don’t want that spot on the record.
If you think things are political now, just wait if in fact a U.S. House committee ignores the state of Iowa certification in this way, absent something we don’t know about from a voting standpoint.News/Talk 1540 KXEL · Iowa Politics — Thu. Dec. 03, 2020
