We are praying that Congressman Jim Hagedorn overcomes the recurrence of his kidney cancer, which he revealed in a press release on Wednesday.
While the second-term Republican received good will on the condition of his health that day, some of his constituents were not so forgiving of a part of his record.
At the Rochester Post Bulletin, Matt Stolle reports in Rep. Jim Hagedorn defends Jan. 6 vote objecting to electors:
The Republican congressman holds town hall on same day he announced his cancer has returned.
In a sometimes raucous town hall meeting Wednesday, July 7, Rep. Jim Hagedorn defended his decision to object to the counting of electoral votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania on Jan. 6, the same day supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to disrupt the counting.
"Here's why I voted against the electors on Jan. 6: I took the stand on constitutional grounds," Hagedorn said. "States across the country made changes to our elections without the consultation and consent of the state legislature."
Hagedorn was pressed on the issue by Janette Dean, of Caledonia, who called Trump a "sore loser saying he didn't lose." She suggested that Trump damaged the country's democracy with his "big lie." And she accused Hagedorn of helping by voting "to take away Pennsylvania and Arizona."
"This is our democracy. It's not something we play around with," Dean said. "Biden won fair and square."
Hagedorn was one of 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election results that day.
He argued that many states made changes to the election procedures that were unconstitutional, because they were not done with the consent of their state legislatures. Even though the changes were made in the midst of a pandemic, there is nothing in the constitution that says, "all of sudden, you get to make arbitrary changes," he said.
Hagedorn also said that when Congress met to certify the election, there were not enough votes to overturn it. Biden was going to be certified the winner, so he used his vote to register his objection to those changes, he said.
"Everybody knew that," Hagedorn said about the number of votes. "The Republicans didn't control the House. I voted that way in order to make the point that I wrote in a statement that night. In the United States of America, we follow the Constitution." . . .
The issue of election integrity was a dominant issue of the town hall, which featured back-and-forth from Hagedorn and audience members. One man, who believed the election was "stolen" from Trump — though no evidence of fraud on a scale to overturn the election has ever been produced — warned what might happen if people lose faith in their elections. . . .
Read the entire article at the Post Bulletin.
The coverage has begun to prompt responses across the long district on the southern border of the state.
At the Mankato Free Press, the editorial board responded with a short thumbs' down commentary, Defending the indefensible
Thumbs down to U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn’s nonsensical claim this week that his votes on Jan. 6 to toss out electoral votes was in defense of the U.S. Constitution.
Hagedorn issued that preposterous statement Wednesday during what the Post-Bulletin of Rochester described as a “sometimes raucous town hall” in La Crescent.
Hagedorn argues that the changes in election procedures in Arizona and Pennsylvania — upheld by the courts before and after the election — were unconstitutional and invalidated the result. He also says that his vote didn’t matter anyway because Joe Biden was going to be confirmed by the House as the winner.
The Blue Earth Republican was one of 147 Republicans in the House — more than half the caucus — to vote against certifying Biden’s victory. They cast those votes hours after a mob egged on by the election loser stormed the Capitol in a violent attempt to prevent that certification.
Hagedorn’s vote supported the cause of the mob. It was a vote to undermine the Constitution and the democracy it serves. There is no defense for it.
We'll keep an eye out for video of the town hall and embed it here if and when it's available.
Photo: Victoria White, of Rochester, MN, one of Hagedorn's constituents, at the US Capitol on January 6, via KARE 11's Rochester woman charged in U.S. Capitol insurrection.
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