Schumer Urged to Deny Committee Seats to Hawley, Cruz, and Other Republicans Who 'Incited Deadly Insurrection'

Progressive advocacy group MoveOn is calling on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to deny committee seats to Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and other Republicans who attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and incited the violent siege of the U.S. Capitol Building earlier this month.

"Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and their allies in the Senate must be held accountable for their attacks on our democracy."
--Rahna Epting, MoveOn

"Elected officials like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and other senators who sought to use their power to promote the big lie to overturn the results of the 2020 election--and who incited a deadly insurrection--have no place in the U.S. Senate and most certainly should not be rewarded for their deadly attacks on democracy with seats leading important committees in the next Congress," Rahna Epting, MoveOn's executive director, said in a statement late Thursday.

"Senate Majority Leader Schumer must work to ensure that any power-sharing agreement with Mitch McConnell keeps these insurrectionist senators from committee positions where they can use their influence to further undermine our democracy," Epting continued. "Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and their allies in the Senate must be held accountable for their attacks on our democracy."

Schumer and McConnell have yet to reach an agreement on so-called organizing resolution that establishes the rules and committee assignments of the new session. As Common Dreams reported Friday, the Kentucky Republican is holding up the measure in an effort to preserve the legislative filibuster, an archaic 60-vote rule that progressives are urging Democrats to eliminate.

MoveOn's demand came amid growing calls for the immediate resignation or expulsion of Cruz and Hawley, the most prominent Republican senators to vote against the certification of Biden's Electoral College victory earlier this month. Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the number three Democrat in the Senate, is among those who have demanded that Cruz and Hawley step aside for inciting the January 6 invasion of the halls of Congress.

"Any senator who stands up and supports the power of force over the power of democracy has broken their oath of office," Murray said in a statement two days after the attack. "Senators Hawley and Cruz should resign."

On Thursday, as Common Dreams reported, a group of Senate Democrats demanded that the Ethics Committee launch a "thorough and fair investigation" into Cruz and Hawley and "consider any appropriate consequences."

"Cruz and Hawley continued to amplify the claims of fraud that they likely knew to be baseless and that had led to violence earlier that day," reads the Democrats' ethics complaint against their GOP colleagues. "Violent action provoked by false fraud claims remains a persistent threat."