House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his fellow House Republicans have sued Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi regarding the proxy voting rules used by the House in the midst of the pandemic. The Supreme Court panned the lawsuit, citing that this is a matter of being challenged on a legislative front and not a court.
The Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by McCarthy and several House Republicans against Pelosi Monday, over the proxy voting rules put in place for lawmakers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The court explained that McCarthy and other House Republicans’ issue with the proxy voting rules could not be challenged through the courts as it is more of an internal legislative matter.
It should be noted that there are Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, who have used the proxy voting system.
“If their changes are acceptable, what stops the majority from creating a ‘House Rule’ that stipulates the minority party’s votes only count for half of the majority party’s?” McCarthy said earlier this year. “This is not the representative democracy our Founders envisioned or what our Constitution allows. It is tyranny of the majority.”
Meanwhile, McCarthy is also being targeted by the congressional committee established by Pelosi to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Early this month, CNN reported that the committee had asked McCarthy to voluntarily speak with them about what he remembers on that day.
“We also must learn about how the President’s plans for January 6th came together, and all the other ways he attempted to alter the results of the election,” said the committee’s chair, Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson. “For example, in advance of January 6th, you reportedly explained to Mark Meadows and the former President that objections to the certification of electoral votes on January 6th was doomed to fail.”
Prior to requesting McCarthy’s testimony, the panel has also issued subpoenas to two former advisers to Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr – Andrew Surabian and Arthur Schwartz – as well as an adviser to the former president Ross Worthington. Worthington was responsible for writing the speech Trump delivered on Jan. 6. However, when it reached the part where the now-former president was telling his supporters to march towards the Capitol, it was not part of the drafts.