Government & Politics

Pgh pols remember Jan. 6 as ‘insurrection’ — warn of danger ahead

‘This wasn’t a protest; this wasn’t peaceful. This was an insurrection,’ U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-18th District, said

By: Special to the Capital-Star - January 6, 2022 3:45 pm

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 06: Protesters enter the U.S. Capitol Building on January 06, 2021 in Washington, DC. Congress held a joint session today to ratify President-elect Joe Biden’s 306-232 Electoral College win over President Donald Trump. A group of Republican senators said they would reject the Electoral College votes of several states unless Congress appointed a commission to audit the election results. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

By Jordana Rosenfeld

PITTSBURGH — One year after a violent mob breached the U.S. Capitol Building, assaulting police, journalists, and staff in an attempt to stop the certification of the results of the 2020 presidential election, Pittsburgh-area politicians offered their reflections on the events of Jan. 6, 2021. A bipartisan Senate report on the Capitol Riot found that at least seven people lost their lives as a result of the attack, including four police officers who responded to the attack and later died by suicide.

Many local politicians urged their fellow lawmakers to support measures to protect and expand voting rights.

Newly-inaugurated Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey, a former state House lawmaker, said that last year “the heartbeat of our country’s democracy was attacked,” and he said that insurrection has been followed by attempts from Harrisburg Republicans to attack the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Gainey called on lawmakers to protect and expand voting rights.

Congress must pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the For the People Act in order to protect our democracy, ensure everyone has access to the ballot box, and get dark money out of politics,” Gainey said in a statement. The time is now.”

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., also criticized Republicans in a press release for continuing “to undermine our elections and our democratic principles.

“Republican officials across the country have embraced the former President’s Big Lie by introducing and enacting an unprecedented number of voter suppression measures and politicizing nonpartisan election administration functions,” Casey continued.

“If we do not restore and strengthen voter protections nationwide,” Casey warned, “a future authoritarian could succeed where the former president and his insurrectionists failed.”

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would reinstate and strengthen elements of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that have been recently struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The act passed the House in August 2021 and was introduced to the Senate a few months later. Sen. Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., had announced his intention to pass filibuster reform in order to approve the bill this month, but Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., has indicated he does not support such a strategy.

The For the People Act would expand voting rights, reform campaign finance laws, and ban partisan gerrymandering.

State Rep. Jessica Benham, D-Allegheny, wrote in a tweet that “our democracy is fragile & that we must fight for it,” arguing that “while January 6 is a day burned in our collective memory, our democracy has been under a sustained attack for more than a year.”

But some Pennsylvania Republicans are striking a slightly different tune.

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., appears to have declined requests for comment on Thursdy’s anniversary from multiple media outlets. In the wake of the insurrection, Toomey did, however, directly blame Trump in a speech later the same day and was one of the few Republicans to vote in favor of Trump’s impeachment for spreading lies and urging on the riot.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-16th District, said in a statement that he encourages House committee members to “avoid partisan investigations and instead focus on ways to secure the Capitol so this type of violence does not happen again.”

Biden in Jan. 6 speech decries ‘web of lies’ created by Trump about 2020 election

“I stand with my fellow Americans to defend democracy on this day,” he continued, although the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes that “[Kelly] objected to the certification of Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results.”

Overall, Democrats and those condemning what happened at the Capitol last winter have dominated the conversation among Pittsburgh-area politicians.

U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-17th District, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Toomey, retweeted a video of a six-minute speech he gave in Congress the day after the attack.

“Let’s be clear about what happened in this chamber today,” Lamb insists in the video. “Invaders came in for the first time since the War of 1812.”

“And for the most part they walked in here free. A lot of them walked out free” he added, “and there wasn’t a person at home who didn’t know why that was, because of the way that they look,” seemingly referring to the overwhelming whiteness of the rioters.

U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-18th District, described the day as “clearly an insurrection. This wasn’t a protest; this wasn’t peaceful. This was an insurrection with the express purpose of not allowing the count of the electoral votes to take place.”

“I think the American people absolutely have a right to know exactly what happened,” Doyle told the Post-Gazette, referring to the U.S. House select committee investigating the attack.

State Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Allegheny, joined calls for accountability in a tweet, urging that “anyone who encouraged, enabled or engaged in that act of sedition must be held accountable.”

Jerry Dickinson, a Democratic candidate for Congress, said in a statement that Jan. 6, 2021 was one event in “an onslaught of attacks by the extreme right to destabilize our electoral system to overturn free and fair elections” that have exposed “the fragility of our Constitution.”

A year after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, election review and reform efforts continue in Pa.

In a video statement posted on Twitter, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman reminded viewers that while the Jan. 6 insurrection targeted the federal government, similar political forces are also present at the state and local level. Like Lamb, Fetterman is also running for U.S. Senate.

Fetterman recalled how on Jan. 5, 2021, a chaotic conflict between lawmakers erupted in the senate chambers as a “Stop the Steal” rally raged outside. Republicans refused to seat Sen. Jim Brewster, contesting his electoral victory. When Fetterman insisted that Brewster be seated, Republicans had him forcibly removed.

“It’s impossible not to see the parallels here,” Fetterman said.

Jordana Rosenfeld is a reporter for Pittsburgh City Paper, where this story first appeared.

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