On Sept. 3, the House of Representatives passed a resolution to establish a new subcommittee to investigate the remaining questions surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The five Republicans and three Democrats who have now been named to the panel may have differing interests in this subject, but they all have an opportunity to approach this work in a genuinely bipartisan fashion, for the good of the country.
A bipartisan probe would also reflect the will of the American people. As Republican pollster Kristin Soltis Anderson noted in a recent essay, politicians may be polarized, but among voters, the center is alive and well, full of citizens who want their leaders to integrate good ideas from the left and right.
Many may ask why Congress is reopening this event after the extensive work done by the original Jan. 6 Select Committee, which had bipartisan membership, conducted more than 1,000 interviews and depositions, held nine public hearings featuring more than 70 witnesses, and in 2022 issued a fact-based 814-page report with specific recommendations and criminal referrals.
Many Republicans reject the findings of the original Jan. 6 Committee, because the panel’s Republican members were chosen by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), instead of the Republican leadership. Democrats respond that the Republican leadership left Pelosi no choice but to choose Republican members herself, after House Republican leaders blocked an independent commission and insisted that the select committee include members who had voted against certifying the election, and even one who was a material witness in the investigation.
Although the new select subcommittee’s membership is not subject to such disputes, its work will only be credible on both sides of the aisle if Chairman Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.), Ranking Member Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), and all members of the subcommittee work together in a transparent, bipartisan and collegial process committed to the facts.
Fortunately, a model of such a bipartisan approach exists in the form of the committee created a few years ago to modernize House operations. Now a standing subcommittee, the modernization panel conducts its business in a bipartisan manner, relying on joint decision-making by its chair and ranking minority member for decisions about hearings, subpoenas, document requests, witness interviews and more. The modernization panel, which has won House approval of many of its proposals, resolves impasses through open debate and, if necessary, through votes, rather than unilateral action.
The new Jan. 6 panel’s Democratic leadership offered eight issues for the subcommittee to consider, including whether enhanced security measures are adequately protecting members of Congress. The majority should consider them, provide a list of their own issues, determine consensus priorities, and include those in a bipartisan investigative plan. That plan, which should be made public, could cover document requests, interviews, public hearings and final recommendations. This is how to mount a bipartisan investigation that will be credible and effective.
Like President Trump’s unconscionable pardons of violent Jan. 6 perpetrators, which both Democrats and Republicans criticized, a partisan examination of these events could become a platform for excusing or normalizing the behavior of those responsible for brutal attacks on our law enforcement personnel and the rule of law. Leaders of this investigation must keep their focus on vital questions raised by the attack and reject any effort to describe as appropriate or lawful the events Americans watched unfold on that tragic day.
By embracing a collaborative, transparent and fact-based approach, this subcommittee would demonstrate how to engage the views of members from across the political spectrum. How better could Congress model leadership that most Americans crave than by employing it to build consensus about the day its home and our democracy came under attack.
Jim Townsend is director of the Carl Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University Law School which conducts workshops in Congress and state legislatures on how to perform bipartisan, fact-based oversight.