Senator Portman Defended Democracy When the President Undermined It, Blames Trump For Capitol Riot

Over the last few months, Ohio’s US Senator Rob Portman defended our democracy and the will of the American people. He spoke the truth that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, and voted to uphold the certified election results. Meanwhile the President and other members of his own party spread lies about the vote count, pressured election officials to change the results or tried to discard millions of legal votes. It takes courage to go against your own party and to disagree with the President, and for that I thank our Senator.

Portman’s Record on the 2020 Election

Here are Senator Portman’s statements that defended the integrity of the 2020 election:

11/4: The day after the election, as votes were still being counted and Trump was tweeting a barrage of false claims, Portman said, “Under our Constitution, state legislatures set the rules and states administer our elections. We should respect that process and ensure that all ballots cast in accordance with state laws are counted. It’s that simple.”

11/10: 3 days after Biden was projected to win the election, Portman said, “Vice President Biden is leading in enough states to win the presidency”. He acknowledged Trump’s right to pursue his legal options, but was clear that Trump must bring legitimate evidence to back up his allegations of fraud.

11/23: Just before Ohio certified its election results and about 20 other states already had, he said, “There is no evidence as of now of any widespread fraud or irregularities that would change the result in any state.”

12/14: “The Electoral College vote today makes clear that Joe Biden is now President-Elect.” This statement came just after 126 House Republicans, including 5 from Ohio, signed on to a Texas lawsuit seeking to discard all votes in 4 states; 20 million in total. An additional 42 Ohio State legislators urged Ohio Attorney General Yost to sign on as well.

1/4: “I cannot support allowing Congress to thwart the will of the voters,” said Portman as his colleagues prepared to do just that. “Of the dozens of lawsuits filed, not one found evidence of fraud or irregularities widespread enough to change the result of the election.”

1/6: Portman voted to uphold the electoral college votes and said, “The people and the states hold the power here, not us.” That day 147 Republican Members of Congress, including 5 House members from Ohio and 8 fellow Senators, voted to object to the electoral college votes. Portman later said, “It is time for President Trump to embrace the peaceful transfer of power”.

1/12: “Both in his words before the attack on the Capitol and in his actions afterward, President Trump bears some responsibility for what happened on January 6.” This is his most pointed condemnation yet, calling out Trump by name. The next day he said, “The attack on the US Capitol was an attack on democracy itself” and reiterated Trump’s responsibility.

1/20: Portman attended the inauguration and said, “I extend my congratulations to President and Dr. Biden.”

This record shows that Portman stood on the right side of history against those who tried to undermine our democracy.

Did He Do Enough?

Some would have liked Portman to make an even stronger stand against Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, to explicitly and unambiguously accuse Trump of lying, to call out his colleagues by name, or something akin to Georgian Republican Election Official Gabriel Sterling’s impassioned and accurate prediction that “someone’s going to get killed.” Some argue that Portman’s acknowledgements of the President’s legal rights, or of the inconsequential amounts of voter fraud, while both technically accurate, gave too much credibility to Trump’s preposterous legal team and their delusions of widespread fraud.

Some fault Portman for supporting Trump’s reelection despite Trump’s previous record of undermining democracy, including false claims of election fraud when he lost the Iowa primary in early 2016, false claims of winning the popular vote in late 2016, calling for the premature end of vote recounts in 2018 Florida elections, and his attempt to smear his political rival by withholding congressionally approved funds to Ukraine in 2019. While Portman agreed that, “the President asking Ukraine for an investigation of Joe Biden was inappropriate and wrong,” he voted against conviction, saying, “these actions do not rise to the level of removing President Trump from office and taking him off the ballot in a presidential election season that’s already well underway.”

Washington Post columnist Max Boot wrote that Portman is worse for our country than Georgian Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, even though she was the one who actively tried to undermine the election. She encouraged her own state’s votes to be decertified. Just 3 days after being sworn into office, she objected to Michigan’s vote count and then voted against the electoral college counts for both Arizona and Pennsylvania. She continues to promote the lie that Trump won. Since that editorial, when Portman was asked about Greene’s conspiracy theories, he said, “I think Republican leaders ought to stand up and say it is totally unacceptable what she has said,” and implied that removing her from committee assignments would be appropriate. The House removed her from her committees on 2/4.

Ohio’s former Democratic party chair David Pepper called Portman “a more dangerous enabler than the Jim Jordans of the world”, because “Jordan’s participation in the ‘big lie’ was to be expected”, even though Jordan spoke before the House of Representatives in support of rejecting the election results and voted that way, while Portman spoke against the objections on the Senate floor and voted them down.

While some may criticize Portman’s political positions or his tepidness, at least he honored the election results when his colleagues did not. I consider the direct assault on our democracy the single biggest litmus test when sorting out which politicians are worse for our country than others. You may disagree with a politician’s voting record, but imagine a future where there is no way to vote them out, where Congress gets to decide which politicians stay in power regardless of how the states voted, or where Texas can simply invalidate half of all votes in the Midwest. Consider how Portman defended your right to vote for not only the President, but for who our State’s next Senator will be.

Next Up For Portman: The Impeachment Trial

The denouement of Trump’s Big Lie will be his 2nd impeachment trial for inciting the 1/6 Capitol attack and for pressuring election officials to change the certified election results, and Portman will be a juror. He has already blamed Trump for the Capital attack, and since the Senator announced he won’t run for reelection in 2022, some have speculated that he could vote to convict Trump. While Portman did approve a motion to vote on the constitutionality of an impeachment trial after a President has left office, he clarified that he voted to debate it’s constitutionality rather than to signal how he intended to vote. He has since called Trump’s actions “wrong and inexcusable“, but worries about the precedent of convicting a former President.

There is already a precedent for holding an impeachment trial of a former official: Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876. Trump’s trial would not set a precedent for wanton impeachment of former Presidents because Trump was impeached while still in office. What Portman should be concerned about is the precedent of acquitting a President that incites insurrection, as long as they do it in the final days of their term.

Portman blamed Trump “for what happened on January 6,” the day his supporters attacked the US Capitol. The Constitution provides the remedy of “disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office” for such “high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. There is an opportunity to set a precedent that conviction and disqualification is the appropriate response for any future President who attempts a self-coup.

In Trump’s 1st impeachment trial, Portman said “we should let the voters have their say at the ballot box” instead of convicting him. When the voters said they wanted Biden instead, Trump lied and said he was the winner and tried every tactic he could muster to overturn the voters’ voice. Portman said impeachments should be bipartisan, and in this one 10 Republicans voted to impeach. He said, “my hope is that lessons have been learned.” Does he believe Trump learned his lesson not to use his office to undermine his political rival during an election season, given that Trump subsequently pressured Georgia’s election officials to “find” just enough votes to switch Georgia from Biden to Trump?

The 2nd impeachment trial starts next week. Will Portman defend democracy once again?

Trial Day 1 (2/9)

On the first day of trial, after hearing opening arguments, Senator Portman voted against proceeding with trial, although 6 Republicans voted with Democrats allowing the trial to continue.

Trial Day 2 (2/10)

Portman issued a statement again blaming Trump for 1/6 and calling his comments that day “inexcusable”, but said the “Senate does not have jurisdiction” because Trump is no longer in office. Article II of the Constitution explicitly gives the Senate the sole power to issue the judgement of disqualification, but it appears Portman does not plan to use it to hold Trump accountable for the insurrection he agrees Trump incited.

He says “the text of the Constitution prescribes removal from office as the punishment upon conviction” without even mentioning that it also grants the power of disqualification. His opinion is that “the framers reserved the tool of impeachment for removal of current presidents, not private citizens.” However, he offers no explanation for why the framers included disqualification at all if not to punish (and protect us from) a private citizen who committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors, and was impeached for them, both while still in office.

Would he argue that resigning just before the verdict is a Constitutionally approved method of avoiding disqualification? Did the framers intend for disqualification to be retribution for making Congress sit through an impeachment trail to completion, rather than a suitable punishment for the High Crimes and Misdemeanors he was convicted of?

Trial Day 4 (2/12)

Portman signed onto this leading question for Trump’s defense team:

“Multiple State Constitutions enacted prior to 1787, namely the Constitutions of Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Vermont, specifically provided for the impeachment of a former officer. Given that the framers of the US Constitution would have been aware of these provisions, does their decision to omit language specifically authorizing the impeachment of former officials indicate that they did not intend for our Constitution to allow for the impeachment of former officials?”

The defense agreed with the premise. However, you could also ask the inverse: does the omission of termination of impeachment proceedings upon leaving office indicate that the framers intended to allow for conviction and disqualification of former officials? Of course that is exactly the view supported herein.

Final Day of Trial (2/13)

Portman joined the minority of Senators who voted to acquit the former President. He parted with 57 Senators, including 7 Republicans, whose verdict was Guilty but fell short of the 67 needed for conviction. He issued this statement on Facebook, blaming Trump for 1/6 in even more detailed terms:

“I have said that what President Trump did that day was inexcusable because in his speech he encouraged the mob, and that he bears some responsibility for the tragic violence that occurred. I have also criticized his slow response as the mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, putting at risk the safety of Vice President Pence, law enforcement officers, and others who work in the Capitol. Even after the attack, some of the language in his tweets and in a video showed sympathy for the violent mob.” He agreed that “Trump said and did things that were reckless and encouraged the mob.”

He then explains his understanding of why the Constitution does not allow conviction after leaving office. He says “this would be unprecedented,” which is true because no President has ever been convicted in any impeachment trial and therefore disqualification has never been applied to any President, even though both are Constitutionally approved. You could also call Trump’s incitement of insurrection unprecedented, which might warrant the unprecedented step of invoking Constitutional disqualification on a former President.

He opined that “Impeachment in the Constitution is fundamentally about removing someone from office,” but said nothing to demonstrate that Article 1 disqualification is not also a fundamental aspect of impeachment, saying only that “disqualifying him or her from running again pulls people further apart.”

In a final condemnation, Portman says, “My decision today in no way condones the president’s conduct. On the contrary, it is keeping an oath to the Constitution, that I believe the president did not keep on January 6.”

Oversight Hearing on Capitol Breach (2/23)

Examining the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol

About Ohio Republican Who Voted For Impeachment (3/3)

Portman defended Congressman Gonzalez, saying “he’s a good public servant, and I support him”, in response to others who criticize Gonzalez for his impeachment vote.

Further Reading

It’s Time to Disqualify Trump From Future Elections

Is it constitutional to hold an impeachment trial for a former president?