House Democrats will seat Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks on Sunday when the new Congress opens, ending speculation about the majority party would first review the election in which she emerged victorious by six votes.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, in her year-end news conference, said, “Yes,” when asked about the contest of Iowa’s 2nd District by the Democratic candidate Rita Hart. Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill said later that Democrats “intend to provisionally seat” Miller-Meeks, pending the outcome of the challenge filed by Hart.
Miller-Meeks edged out Hart on election night by just 47 votes, but Hart called for a recount of all 24 counties in the district. That ended in Miller-Meeks’s favor by six votes — 196,964 to 196,958.
The House, under the Constitution and a 1969 law, has the final say on seating its members. Iowa’s 2nd District race has large implications for how the House conducts business during the first two years of President-elect Joe Biden’s administration. Democrats lost seats in 2020 and emerged with 222 members. Republicans will hold 211 seats, with a temporary vacancy in Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District after the death of GOP Rep.-elect Luke Letlow.
Another nail-biter race in New York’s 22nd Congressional District remains uncalled due to ballot-counting litigation and won’t be settled until after the House convenes in early January.
Pelosi did not elaborate on the Iowa situation. But House Republicans are already demanding that Miller-Meeks be seated when the new Congress comes in.
Earlier Wednesday, the top Republican on the House Administration Committee, Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois, said not seating Miller-Meeks would be an “unprecedented power grab” by Pelosi.
Davis added, “Rep.-elect Miller-Meeks has been certified the winner by the state of Iowa, and her constituents deserve to have her representing them immediately in the new Congress.”
In Hart’s Notice of Contest, she cites 22 excluded ballots, which, if counted, would give her the lead over Miller-Meeks.
“These 22 ballots include (i) curbside and absentee ballots that election officials accepted for counting but mistakenly omitted from the initial count and (ii) valid absentee and provisional ballots that election officials erroneously rejected,” Hart said in the 176-page document.
Hart decided to forgo a judicial challenge to the election, saying it would take too long for a complete recount to settle a congressional election.
Iowa law mandates that the contest court be established and the ballot recount started and ended by Dec. 8. Five judges, including a state Supreme Court judge, would have dealt with the almost 400,000 votes cast in the election if Hart went that route.
On Nov. 30, the Iowa State Canvassing Board certified the election results. Two days later, Hart announced she planned to file a petition to the House of Representatives to contest the election, giving her 30 days to file her petition to the House Administration Committee.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and the vice chairman of the committee, was expected to review Hart’s petition.
Hart on Wednesday said she looks “forward to a complete review of the election.” Miller-Meeks, Hart said, “has refused to say whether she believes the legally cast, yet uncounted votes, including those that were cast for her, should be counted. She needs to answer that question.”
