A battle over the creation of a commission to study the events of Jan. 6 comes down, on its face, to sticking points over the structure of the body.
But it also reflects a broader fight between the parties over how the country should reckon with the violence that pro-Trump supporters inflicted on the U.S. Capitol as they raged about false claims that the election was stolen from the former president.
MCCONNELL WON’T BACK JAN. 6 RIOT COMMISSION
The prospect of an independent commission to study the causes and effects of the riot was all but doomed on Wednesday when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he opposed it.
And while his opposition spoke to an overarching resistance on the Right to giving Jan. 6 more airtime, here is why Republicans say they oppose the commission.
SCOPE
Republicans and Democrats clashed during talks about the creation of the commission over what it should examine.
Democrats wanted the commission to focus narrowly on the Capitol riots. But Republicans pushed to include other forms of political violence in the scope of the investigation, such as looting and destruction that spun out of anti-racism protests in several cities last summer.
“What about all the riots that have let up throughout the summer? The unrest from [Black Lives Matter], antifa, and others?” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday on Fox News. “This is driven solely by politics and Nancy Pelosi, but we should not be a part of that.”
In announcing his decision not to support the commission, which is expected to pass the House on Wednesday, McConnell said the proposal emerging from the lower chamber was “slanted and unbalanced.”
STAFFING
The proposal negotiated by Rep. John Katko, a New York Republican, who McCarthy dispatched to lead negotiations over the commission, and Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, would have included an equal number of commissioners appointed by each party to make up its 10 members.
But Republicans objected to the staffing structure of the proposal because they said it gave the chairman of the commission the power to hire all staff members.
“There are changes that are needed in the House version. For example, it’s my understanding that the House bill would have the chairman choose all of the staff members, and that’s not right,” Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who supports the idea of creating a commission, said Wednesday.
The chair of the commission would be jointly selected by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, with Republicans selecting the vice chair.
And while both the chair and vice chair would need to agree on issuing subpoenas, GOP lawmakers said the structure would give Democrats effective control over the staff on the panel and therefore over what work the commission could prioritize.
CONFLICT
Republicans also expressed concerns that the independent commission would interfere with investigations already digging into the Jan. 6 violence.
Both McCarthy and McConnell noted that the Department of Justice’s investigation has led to more than 400 arrests connected with the riot,
“Bipartisan investigations are also underway and have been for months at the committee level here in the Senate,” McConnell said Wednesday on the Senate floor.
END DATE
The House proposal provides a deadline of December 31, 2021, for the commission’s final report. That end date gave Republicans one thing they wanted because few hope to see Jan. 6 litigated into an election year.
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But some observers expressed skepticism that the commission, which would take time to come together and hire staff, could finish its investigation with just seven months left in the year. Republicans were nervous that the deadline could be extended, particularly if witnesses chose to fight their subpoenas and dragged out the process, into the 2022 midterm elections and be weaponized by Democrats.
