FILE - Security fencing shown around the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 16, 2021. Fencing installed around the U.S. Capitol for months after the January 2021 insurrection will be put back up before President Joe Bidens State of the Union address on Tuesday as concern grows about potential demonstrations or truck convoys snarling traffic in the nations capital. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a statement Sunday that the fence will be erected around the Capitol building for the speech and is being put up out of an abundance of caution, in consultation with the Secret Service. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - Security fencing shown around the Capitol in Washington, Sept. 16, 2021. Fencing installed around the U.S. Capitol for months after the January 2021 insurrection will be put back up before President Joe Bidens State of the Union address on Tuesday as concern grows about potential demonstrations or truck convoys snarling traffic in the nations capital. Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger said in a statement Sunday that the fence will be erected around the Capitol building for the speech and is being put up out of an abundance of caution, in consultation with the Secret Service. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
The two candidates who are seeking to represent Indiana’s 6th Congressional District, which includes parts of Bartholomew County, have different views on the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and the efforts by former President Donald Trump and his supporters to overturn the results.
Rep. Greg Pence, R-Indiana, who is seeking a third term representing the district, voted to object to Pennsylvania’s presidential election results and signed on to an amicus brief in support of a failed lawsuit that sought to subvert the will of voters in four battleground states that Democrat Joe Biden won in order to swing the election in favor of Trump and Pence’s brother, former Vice President Mike Pence.
Pence did not respond to multiple requests for an interview on his views on the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.
Democratic nominee Cinde Wirth, Pence’s opponent in the Nov. 8 election, characterized efforts to overturn the election as “an attack on democracy.”
“We have MAGA Republicans who are election deniers that are corrupt, power-seeking persons who have sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, but instead rely on subversive manipulation of the public so they can get what they want,” Wirth said. “And these MAGA Republicans that are denying the election or saying that it was stolen, including our current Sixth District representative (Rep. Greg Pence). …They voted not to certify the results of some elections, and that is election denying. And they filed lawsuits against the results of some of the elections. So, to me, this is an attack on democracy and puts us in a very serious position.”
MAGA refers to “Make America Great Again,” Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan, and has been used to indicate people who strongly support the former president.
Failed Texas lawsuit
In December 2020, Pence was among 126 House Republicans who signed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to allow a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas that sought to throw out millions of votes in four battleground states that Trump lost and overturn the 2020 presidential election, The Associated Press reported.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 8, 2020, demanded that the 62 total Electoral College votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin be invalidated — enough Electoral College votes to swing the election to Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence, according to wire reports.
The lawsuit repeated a litany of false, disproven and unsupported allegations about mail-in ballots and voting in the four states, according to wire reports.
Seventeen states that Trump won in the 2020 election, including Indiana, joined Texas in urging the court to take on the lawsuit, according to wire reports. The four states sued by Texas urged the high court to reject the case as meritless. They were backed by another 22 states and the District of Columbia.
The Supreme Court summarily rejected the lawsuit the day after the amicus brief was filed, ruling that Texas did not have standing to sue over “the manner in which another state conducts its elections.”
But on Jan. 3, 2021, Rep. Greg Pence voted in favor of allowing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to administer the oath of office to every House member who won their races in the 2020 election, including himself and every House member who won elections in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia — states that the lawsuit Pence supported alleged had “unconstitutional ballots.”
It is unclear why Pence would support administering the oath of office to dozens of House members who were candidates on the same ballots that, according to allegations in the lawsuit he supported, were “unconstitutional.”
“We can’t pick and choose democracy like a buffet,” Wirth said. “We can’t say, ‘Well, this race was not good, but this race on the same ballot with the same person voting for the same set of people was valid.’ That’s not even logical. So, to me, as I said, it’s corrupt, power-seeking persons who are manipulating the public to get what they want in any way that they can.”
‘Hang Mike Pence’
On Jan. 6, 2021, a violent mob loyal to Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn America’s presidential election and keep Biden from replacing Trump in the White House.
The Capitol’s attackers pinned a bloodied police officer in a doorway, his twisted face and screams captures on video, according to wire reports. They mortally wounded another officer with a blunt weapon, believed to be a fire extinguisher, and body-slammed a third over a railing into the crowd.
While chants of “Hang Mike Pence” echoed in the U.S. Capitol as the attackers pressed inside and beat police with pipes and flag poles, the nation’s elected representatives scrambled to crouch under desks and don gas masks while police with guns drawn futilely tried to barricade the building in one of the most jarring scenes ever to unfold in a seat of American political power, according to wire reports.
Rep. Greg Pence and then-Vice President Mike Pence were whisked away together from the Senate by the Secret Service shortly before the mob of Trump supporters burst in, according to wire reports.
Their dramatic escape, caught on video, came minutes after Trump excoriated Mike Pence on Twitter for lacking the “courage” to use his ceremonial role presiding over the certification of the 2020 election to overturn its results, according to wire reports.
At the same time, Trump did not call off the insurrectionists for over 2.5 hours before telling them, “So go home. We love you. You’re very special. I know how you feel.”
After the clouds of tear gas dissipated and heavily armed officers pushed the mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists off the Capitol grounds, Rep. Greg Pence returned to the House floor and objected to Electoral College tallies in Pennsylvania, where nearly 7 million Americans cast ballots. However, he did not oppose Electoral College votes in Arizona, which also faced a flurry of Republican objections.
It is unclear what Pence hoped to accomplish by voting to object to Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes. Even if Pennsylvania’s Electoral College votes were awarded to Trump, Biden still would have won the election, 286-252, instead of 306-232.
“I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution on behalf of Hoosiers in the 6th District,” Pence said in a statement at the time. “The United States is a country of law and order. There are millions of American voters in our nation who currently feel disenfranchised, but violence and anarchy is (sic) never the answer. The way forward is to follow the U.S. Constitution. My votes reflect both my support of the Constitution & voters of the 6th District who feel this election process was intentionally altered for political reasons. This was not what the Founding Fathers intended, and it is wrong.”
Opposition to accountability
Since the insurrection, Rep. Greg Pence has repeatedly voted against proposals and resolutions to investigate the attack and hold people accountable for their role in the insurrection or not complying with Congressional subpoenas issued related to the Jan. 6 investigation.
On Jan. 13, 2021, Rep. Greg Pence voted against impeaching Trump on a charge that he incited the deadly insurrection, saying in a statement at the time that “it is time to move on” and that Trump “has made it clear that he will support a peaceful transfer of power on Jan. 20th to president-elect Joe Biden.”
Also last year, Rep. Greg Pence voted against a proposal to form a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6 attack. At the time, he did not respond to requests to explain his reasons for voting against the measure, but he evoked the chants of hanging his brother in a comment to The Washington Post, characterizing the commission as a “political execution” of Trump.
“Hanging Judge Nancy Pelosi is hellbent on pushing her version of bipartisan justice complete with a hand-picked jury that will carry out her pre-determined political execution of Donald Trump before law enforcement officials have completed their investigation,” he told The Washington Post before the vote.
In October 2021, Rep. Greg Pence was the lone member of the House to not cast a vote on a resolution to hold Steven Bannon, a long-time ally and aid to Trump, in contempt. Hannah Osantowske, a spokesperson for Rep. Pence, said at the time that the congressman “had a family medical emergency that he had to attend to, but he would have voted no.”
This past December, Rep. Greg Pence voted against holding White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows in contempt of Congress after he stopped cooperating with the Jan. 6 commission.
Last month, Rep. Greg Pence voted against legislation that would overhaul the rules for certifying the results of a presidential election in response to the Jan. 6 insurrection and Trump’s failed attempt to remain in power.
The bill would clarify in the law that the vice president’s role presiding over the count is only ceremonial and that he or she cannot change the results, according to wire reports. It also sets out that each state can only send one certified set of electors after Trump’s allies had unsuccessfully tried to put together alternate slates of illegitimate pro-Trump electors in swing states where Biden won.
“I think this election, as (President Biden) said, is a battle for the soul of our nation, and I wholeheartedly agree with that statement,” Wirth said. “This election, there’s no gray area. People are either going to cast their vote for democracy, for personal rights, like the right to have an abortion or whom to marry, or they’re going to be casting it against democracy and for what we saw on Jan. 6, and it’s up to each of us to decide where we stand — with democracy and liberty, or against it.”
Rep. Greg Pence, for his part, has largely remained largely silent on what transpired while he was with his brother on Jan. 6, 2021, according to the AP. In July 2021, Pence told those who attended a fundraising dinner in his district that, “My brother was being asked to do what we don’t do in this country. I couldn’t be prouder.”
