Iowa Democrat Rita Hart, claiming 'toxic campaign of political disinformation,' withdraws election challenge in Iowa's 2nd District
Brianne PfannenstielIowa Democrat Rita Hart is withdrawing her challenge to U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks’ election in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District following what she claimed was a toxic disinformation campaign, she announced Wednesday.
The move puts an end to a bitter partisan fight that has rippled across the country and that threatened to drag on through the summer. The sudden reversal also takes pressure off moderate and vulnerable Democrats who have appeared to grow increasingly uncomfortable with the possibility of voting to overturn a state-certified election.
But even as she ended her official challenge, Hart made clear Wednesday that she stands by her claims.
"Despite our best efforts to have every vote counted, the reality is that the toxic campaign of political disinformation to attack this constitutional review of the closest congressional contest in 100 years has effectively silenced the voices of Iowans," Hart said in a statement announcing the decision. "It is a stain on our democracy that the truth has not prevailed and my hope for the future is a return to decency and civility."
Miller-Meeks, who has been seated in Congress provisionally since January, issued a statement Wednesday thanking Hart for the decision.
"I know how extremely difficult it is to lose an election, but for the people to have faith and confidence in the election system and Iowa laws, it was gracious of her to concede at this time," she said. "I look forward to continuing to work to represent the people of Iowa’s Second District.”
Concession comes as public pressure mounts
In recent weeks, state and national Republicans have mounted an increasingly aggressive campaign urging Democrats not to support Hart's challenge.
The National Republican Congressional Committee began airing radio ads this week targeting Iowa's lone Democrat in Congress, U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, over the issue. The conservative American Action Network announced it would spend five figures across 19 districts to fund phone calls to Democrats the group sees as vulnerable.
And U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy traveled to Iowa Wednesday to show support for Miller-Meeks and to publicly criticize Democrats' attempts to challenge the election results.
"It’s time to move on," McCarthy told a group of supporters at the Machine Shed Restaurant in Davenport ahead of Hart's announcement Wednesday.
The election was the closest of any in the U.S. since 1974 (not 100, as Hart's statement claimed), with just six votes separating Hart and Miller-Meeks. After a districtwide recount, a bipartisan state panel certified the results.
Hart's campaign said then that it would not have time to challenge the results in court, and instead took its complaint to Congress using an appeal process outlined by the Federal Contested Elections Act of 1969.
The recourse Hart chose was not unusual. The House has considered 107 contested election cases from 1933 to 2009, according to a 2010 Congressional Research Service report. And although the vast majority were dismissed, three resulted in an election reversal.
In filings to the House Committee on Administration, Hart had asked Congress to review 22 ballots the campaign said were legally cast but not properly counted.
Hart has maintained throughout the process that her intention was to ensure every legally cast vote was counted.
"Since Election Day, and throughout this entire process, my mission has been about ensuring the voices of Iowans who followed the law are not silenced," she said in a statement Wednesday. "I am saddened that some Iowans’ votes will not count through no fault of their own. The work of ensuring it does not happen again will continue beyond this campaign."
But Republicans said Hart should have exhausted all her options at the state level before asking a partisan U.S. House, led by Democrats, to decide.
"You or I — ordinary citizens — if we had a grievance, we’d have to go through court to settle that grievance. We couldn’t go to a member of Congress and say, 'You know, I didn’t like the results they counted and counted and recounted — it didn’t come out the way I want — so can a partisan political process body overturn that result?'" Miller-Meeks said in Davenport Wednesday.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican, said he agreed, after Hart's decision was announced.
"Rita Hart did the right thing today by withdrawing her request that Washington partisans overrule the voices of 400,000 Iowans," he said. "Going down this road would have seriously damaged faith in our elections, which is why many in Pelosi’s own party expressed concern with such a blatant power grab."
Republicans promised to make 2nd District fight an election issue
If the House committee had moved forward with a recommendation to seat Hart and remove Miller-Meeks, the full House would have needed to approve the measure.
However, a group of House Democrats reportedly expressed skepticism about voting to overturn a state-certified election. And Republicans promised to make it a campaign issue in Iowa and beyond.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who is the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said before Hart ended her challenge that he expected the issue to be part of the discussion heading into the 2022 elections.
“Every Democrat is going to have to answer why they're taking that position,” he said in an interview with the Des Moines Register. “If I was running in '22, I would clearly be talking about it.”
But Scott's position highlights the complicated messaging that has arisen as members of both political parties draw attention to what they say is hypocrisy by the other side.
Scott was among a group of Republican senators who voted not to accept the Electoral College results that came from Pennsylvania showing Democrat Joe Biden beating Republican Donald Trump.
"In my case, I wasn't trying to overturn the election," Scott told the Register. "I was very clear that the governor and the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania did not follow the law. They didn't. And my expectation is people follow the law. So in the case of Iowa, no one is suggesting that the law wasn't followed. And so Democrats just don't like the result."
Democrats who took issue with Scott's and others' votes in January have said the situation in Iowa is not the same. They argued that there was no evidence of wrongdoing that would have reversed the outcome of the presidential election, as shown by the court cases Trump lost in contesting the results.
But Republicans have pressured Democrats to condemn Hart's appeal — particularly pushing on those who they think will run for higher office in 2022.
"The withdraw of Hart's contest should signal to every Iowan that the fight to take back the House and Senate in 2022 has begun," Republican Party of Iowa Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement. "Democrats shamelessly went along with this effort to usurp Iowa elections, and tried to drag it across the finish line for one thing — power. It's time we show them they no longer deserve it."
Democratic State Auditor Rob Sand is among those who took the brunt of Republicans' efforts.
“The choice to appeal to Congress instead of state courts is a legal one,” he recently told the Register in a statement. “But more importantly, Iowa politicians choosing to spread lies about that process and further undermine the legitimacy of our institutions proves that they didn’t learn any lessons from Jan. 6.”
Axne, the only Democrat representing Iowa in Congress, has not made recent public comments about the situation. But she said during a taping of Iowa Press in January — about a week after Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol seeking to disrupt the Electoral College count and prevent Biden from taking office — that she wished Hart had found a different way to try to resolve her concerns.
"I wish she would have been able to get that done at the state level, I think everybody does," Axne said. "But she has the right to take it to a federal level."
Hart wished Miller-Meeks well and urged state leaders to begin reforming Iowa's election process.
"I wish Mariannette Miller-Meeks all the best as she serves the people of this great state as Congresswoman," Hart said in the statement. "This has been a difficult process for all of those involved and it’s incredibly important that we work together to reform the system so this does not happen again in the future."
Iowa City Press-Citizen reporter Zachary Oren-Smith contributed to this report.
Brianne Pfannenstiel is the chief politics reporter for the Register. Reach her at bpfann@dmreg.com or 515-284-8244. Follow her on Twitter at @brianneDMR.