Election-denying lawmakers hold key election oversight roles

HARRISBURG, PA. >> Republican lawmakers who have spread election conspiracy theories and falsely claimed that the 2020 presidential outcome was rigged are overseeing legislative committees charged with setting election policy in two major political battleground states.

Divided government in Pennsylvania and Arizona means that any voting restrictions those GOP legislators propose is likely to fail. Even so, the high-profile appointments give the lawmakers a platform to cast further doubt on the integrity of elections in states that will be pivotal in selecting the next president in 2024.

Awarding such plum positions to lawmakers who have repeated conspiracies and spread misinformation cuts against more than two years of evidence showing there were no widespread problems or fraud in the last presidential election. It also would appear to run counter to the message delivered in the November midterm elections, when voters rejected election-denying candidates running for top offices in presidential battleground states.

At the same time, many mainstream Republicans are trying to move past the lies told by former President Donald Trump and his allies about his loss to President Joe Biden.

“It is an issue that many Americans and many Pennsylvanians are tired of seeing litigated and relitigated over and over,” said Pennsylvania state Sen. Amanda Cappalletti, the ranking Democrat on the Senate committee that handles election legislation. “I think we're all ready to move on, and we see from audit after audit that our elections are secure, they are fair and that people's votes are being counted.”

Multiple reviews and audits in the six battleground states where Trump disputed his loss, as well as dozens of court rejections and repeated admonishments from officials in his own administration, have underscored that the 2020 presidential results were accurate. There was no widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines that would have altered the result.

The legislative appointments in Pennsylvania and Arizona highlight the divide between the two major parties over election law. Already this year, Democraticcontrolled legislatures are moving to expand access to voting and heighten penalties for intimidating voters and election workers, while many Republican-led states are aiming to pass further restrictions, a trend that accelerated after Trump's false claims about the 2020 election.

Democratic governors and legislative victories last fall will blunt the influence of Republicans who took steps or pushed rhetoric seeking to overturn the 2020 election.

But in Arizona and Pennsylvania, two lawmakers who dismiss the validity of that election — not to mention other elections since then — will have key positions of influence as the majority chairs of legislative committees that oversee election legislation.

In Arizona, Republican Sen. Wendy Rogers takes over the Senate Elections Committee after being appointed by an ally, Senate President Warren Petersen. He was one of two lawmakers who signed subpoenas that led to Senate Republicans' widely derided audit of the 2020 election.

Rogers, who has gained a national following for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning elections, has faced repeated ethics charges for her inflammatory rhetoric, support for white supremacists and conspiracy-filled social media posts.