Foothill voters must hold Tom McClintock accountable for spreading misinformation

Despite losing more than 60 court challenges of the 2020 election by Donald Trump’s lawyers and his allies across 12 states, Congressman Tom McClintock claimed on the House floor that the recent election was tainted by a “corrupted process” and he questioned the legitimacy of the results.

In the court cases to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in swing states, not a single court found any evidence of fraud.

Federal Judge Stephanos Bibas, one of three Trump appointees who authored opinions rejecting election fraud charges, issued a blistering opinion about the charges in Pennsylvania saying, “Charges require specific allegations and then proof. We have neither here.”

On the same day he was fired by Trump, Chris Krebs, the Trump appointed election security chief for the nation, said, “The 2020 election was the most secure in U.S history.” He backed-up his conclusion by stating a record 95% of ballots cast in the November election had a paper trail.

Nonetheless, McClintock signed onto a Texas lawsuit in December with 125 of his Republicans colleagues and the attorney generals of 19 states, asking the Supreme Court to set aside the electoral votes for President Joe Biden in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

McClintock recently characterized the elections in those states as being “illegally conducted.”

The Supreme Court, with all three Trump appointees in agreement, rejected the lawsuit, saying it “lacked standing.” As a result, the political stunt by Republicans to draw the Supreme Court into their battle to overturn the 2020 election was not even considered.

McClintock believes that, even during a raging pandemic, we should all be voting in a private voting booth behind a closed curtain on Election Day. Yet despite any proof of fraudulent votes found by any court across 12 states, McClintock continues to question the legitimacy of our election process.

McClintock proclaimed, “every fraudulent vote disenfranchises an honest citizen.” Based on this unsupported claim, he then added, “a lingering pall of illegitimacy will stalk the new administration.”

By spreading misinformation about the 2020 election, McClintock and many of his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are casting a dangerous cloud of illegitimacy over the Biden Administration.

Republican Senator and 2012 Republican nominee for President Mitt Romney also went to the floor of Congress to talk about the 2020 election.

“The best way we could show respect for the voters who were upset is by telling them the truth,” Romney said from the Senate floor the day after the Capitol insurrection. “The truth is, President-elect Biden won and President Trump lost.”

The most jaw-dropping comments by McClintock are those made since rioters attacked our Capitol. He characterized Trump’s incitement of the violent mob as simply “bad conduct.”

In a 2019 interview, McClintock said, “Free societies do not punish words and thoughts.” That is false in the United States. In 1969, the Supreme Court ruled in Brandenburg v. Ohio that the First Amendment does not protect a speaker who intends to incite “imminent lawless action.”

We should all be thankful for the heroic defense of the Capitol Building by understaffed and overrun U.S. Capitol Police officers.

Instead of sowing the seeds of illegitimacy about our election process, McClintock should applaud the voters in the Foothill congressional district who voted in record numbers in the 2020 presidential election.

Over 440,000 votes were cast in the 2020 Foothill district election, far more than any other district in California, shattering the old district record of over 365,000 votes cast in 2008, when Democrat Charlie Brown was narrowly defeated.

Brynne Kennedy, McClintock’s 2020 Democratic challenger, received over 194,000 votes, 10,000 more votes than McClintock received in 2018.

Unsurprisingly, McClintock is not claiming that his own reelection lacks legitimacy.

If McClintock truly cared about serving his Foothill district constituents and honoring our Constitution, he would go to the House floor, condemn the violent Pro-Trump mob that attacked and desecrated our Capitol building, congratulate the Biden administration, roll up his sleeves and say, “Let’s all work together on behalf of the American people.”