This week the House Committee on Administration is taking up the challenge by Rita Hart to have Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks kicked out of Congress. The Democratic candidate for a vacant seat in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District, Hart lost by six votes in November to Miller-Meeks, a Republican. The election was properly certified in Iowa, but Hart’s attorney—the Democratic Party’s most powerful power lawyer, Marc Elias—claims to have found extra ballots for Hart. He wants Congress to overrule state elections officials and seat Hart.
Rodney Davis, the ranking Republican member of the administration committee, blasts the effort, calling it an attempt to “steal a House seat.” He’s not alone is seeing hypocrisy in litigating to overturn an election after Democrats lambasted Donald Trump for doing much the same. But Elias may have something more ambitious in mind than just this one Iowa seat. His political action group, the Democracy Docket, is floating a new strategy to guarantee Democratic majorities in the House and Senate: unseating any Republican they say won unfairly, especially through “voter suppression” or gerrymandering.
