Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) bear responsibility for the failed insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th that left several people dead and our democracy more vulnerable than ever before, yet they haven’t been held accountable.
Even after the insurrection, both of them and other Republicans STILL voted in favor of overthrowing the legitimate election results in a scheme to keep disgraced former President Donald Trump in power.
Both have since been severely criticized. They’ve lost donors. They’ve lost endorsements. And they’ve likely lost voters. But they have not been held accountable by the Senate and the Department of Justice.
Just as Trump is being impeached for inciting insurrection, Cruz and Hawley deserve to be punished accordingly. Preferably, they should be expelled. It takes two-thirds of the members to expel a senator, so that will likely not happen. But at the very least, both should be censured. Only nine senators have ever been censured since 1789, so it would be a lasting mark of condemnation that does damage.
It would also be particularly and even more appropriate since Senate Republicans rebuked Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in 2017 just for reading a letter by Martin Luther King Jr’s widow Coretta Scott King in opposition to Trump’s nomination of then-Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for Attorney General.
King objected to Sessions being nominated for a federal judgeship in 1986 because he has worked to suppress black voters.
Republicans threw a temper tantrum over Warren’s reading of the letter and falsely accused her of impugning Sessions’ character. They wrongly rebuked her and barred her from participating in further debate on his nomination.
Cruz and Hawley, meanwhile, impugned the nation’s character by inciting insurrection. If anyone deserves to be censured in the Senate, it’s them.
Every supposedly “moderate” Republican—including Cassidy, Collins, Moran, Murkowski, Portman, and Young—voted to censure Warren for reading Coretta Scott King’s letter, but none of them will do anything about unapologetic insurrectionists in the Senate like Cruz and Hawley. https://t.co/MYjldgYoZr
— Max Kennerly (@MaxKennerly) February 7, 2021
Senate Democrats should force the issue and bring a censure up for a vote. All they need is one moderate Republican to support it, which they should since several of them voted to rebuke Warren in 2017. This is not up for debate. Cruz and Hawley must be held accountable for their seditious actions.
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