Members of the House Select Committee on Jan. 6, vice chaired by Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, are preparing to launch a major assault on the Electoral College as part of the probe’s end proposals.
According to Axios on Monday, members of the House panel are split on ideas for electoral reform, which now appears to dominate the committee’s talk of legislation that will emerge from the politicized probe designed to persecute political dissidents.
Axios reported that the panel’s far-left members, including Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Adam Schiff of California, have endorsed exploiting the committee to pursue their long-desired destruction of the Electoral College. In contrast, Cheney, who represents the least populated state in the nation with the most to lose, “thinks the committee will burn its credibility if it pushes for radical changes like abolishing the Electoral College, according to a source with direct knowledge.”
“She also has joked to her colleagues on the committee that there’s no way the single at-large representative for the tiny state of Wyoming would support abolishing the Electoral College,” Axios added, citing “another source with direct knowledge of internal committee deliberations.”
With fewer than 580,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, Wyoming is home to fewer people than the District of Columbia. The Electoral College, however, guarantees the state three electors to cast votes in presidential elections. While one elector represented 712,000 people in California in 2016, the last time the victor lost the official popular vote but captured the White House, one elector in Wyoming represented 195,000 people. The system at the foundation of the republic offers Wyoming’s rural residents influence that would otherwise be erased by the abandonment of the Electoral College.
Cheney’s Trump-endorsed primary challenger, attorney Harriet Hageman, blasted the three-term incumbent’s championing of the J6 Committee, which is now on a path to dismantle the institution that guarantees Wyoming’s too-often-overlooked constituents a voice in their government.
“The Electoral College ensures that states with lower population still have a voice in electing the president,” Hageman told The Federalist. “If the Electoral College were abolished, presidential elections would be decided by liberal voters in California and New York, leaving states like Wyoming voiceless and disenfranchised.”
“This is the reality that Liz Cheney has created by entering into a partnership with the radical Democrats on the January 6 Committee,” Hageman continued. “The Democrats have always been using the committee as a political campaign weapon, and their true goal is unchecked, never-ending power. Cheney has pursued her own personal war on President Trump while the Democrats have used her to try to legitimize their illegitimate witch hunt and power grab. Liz Cheney has now gone beyond her failure to represent Wyoming’s interests and is now complicit in Democrat plans to permanently silence the people of Wyoming.”
