Pauly Denetclaw
ICT
Two years ago, Congress member Markwayne Mullin, Cherokee, was in the U.S. Capitol as it was being breached by insurrectionists trying to keep Congress from certifying the 2020 election results. Mullin helped the sergeant-at-arms barricade a door to the House floor with a desk. He stood alongside Capitol police officers with a makeshift weapon made from a wooden hand sanitizer station.
At one point, a lieutenant told the staff and legislators still in the chambers to lay down on the ground in case the floor was breached. This is where Mullin stepped in.
“I stood up at that point, and I said ‘Sir, you are wrong,” he recalled in a July 2021 interview with C-SPAN. “I turned around to everybody and I said, ‘Do not lay down on the floor’… The lieutenant walked over to me and I said, ‘Sir I mean no disrespect but you don’t lay down during a riot. That’s how you get people killed. People are going to get stomped. They’re going to get walked over.’ People who get hurt are the people who lose their footing during a riot.”
There is a photo of Mullin crouched behind chairs in the last row near the middle aisle as insurrectionists were breaking through the window of one of the doors that leads from the House floor to Statuary Hall.
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Friday marks two years since the Capitol insurrection. The event was driven by a severe rift between the two main political parties that make up the nation’s government that still echoed in the halls of the capitol which stood at a standstill Friday.
On Twitter, Rep. Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, said “Two years later, we stand together to reflect on the January 6 attack. Its impact is still felt—by the families of those who lost loved ones, by the folks who come to work at the Capitol each day, and by many of the people who watched from home as that dark day unfolded.”
Davids was the only Indigenous Congress member to make a public statement as of 3 p.m. ET on Friday.
Requests for comment from the other Indigenous members of Congress went unanswered.
Friday morning’s moment of silence at the Capitol to contemplate the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection drew mostly Democrats, with brief remarks from Democratic leaders new and incoming — Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries — and none from the GOP.
The event was focused on the Capitol Police officers who protected the building that day, and families of law enforcement officers who died after the riot. Jeffries said 140 officers were seriously injured that day and “many more will forever be scarred by the bloodthirsty violence of the insurrectionist mob. We stand here today with our democracy intact because of those officers.”
At the White House, few Republicans were expected for a ceremony at which President Joe Biden will award Presidential Citizens Medals to a dozen state and local officials, election workers and police officers for their “exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens” in upholding the results of the 2020 election and fighting back the Capitol mob.
It’s all a far cry from Sept. 11, 2001, when lawmakers who had frantically evacuated the Capitol during the terrorist attack gathered there later in the day in a moment of silence and broke out in “God Bless America,” Republicans and Democrats shoulder to shoulder.
“They stood shaken and tearful on the steps of the Capitol, their love of nation and all that it symbolizes plain for the world to see,” an Australian newspaper reported in a passage reflected now in the House’s official history.
Today, the world sees a different picture, one of turmoil in American democracy coming from within the institution that insurrectionists overran two years ago.
The nation’s legislative branch is again at a standstill — not from violence this time but because of a tortuous struggle among Republicans over who should lead them, and the House itself, as speaker.
After two rounds of voting Friday afternoon, where 14 of the 20 or so Republican holdouts switched their support to Kevin McCarthy, the House adjourned until 10 p.m. ET tonight. After 13 rounds of voting, McCarthy is still unable to reach the amount of votes he needs to ascend to speaker.
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A number of concessions have been made but Republicans have not mentioned any specifics. They have asked for procedural rule changes like being able to request a vote to recall the speaker with just one representative making the motion. Currently, the rules state the House needs a majority to even call for a vote to recall. It has also been reported that some wanted key assignments to the rules committee. Though it has not been confirmed if any of these are among the concessions made.
Though Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen, who was one of the 20, changed his vote to McCarthy Friday. Brecheen said he switched his support after the embattled McCarthy offered a number of concessions during negotiations through the week.
“After days of intense deliberations, I cast my vote today for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker after he agreed to conservative reforms to how the House of Representatives operates,” Brecheen, Choctaw, said in a press release. “What we have agreed to is transformative and will allow conservatives to rein in out-of-control spending.”
Brecheen said he had a personal goal as a representative. “I did not come to Washington to preserve the status quo. I came here to reform Congress and fix the reckless spending that has plagued our country. I believe this agreement will help put us on the right track,” he said.
Still, despite turning 14 votes in his favor, McCarthy still lacked the required number to actually win. But Brecheen said he will continue to support McCarthy.
“I will vote for Mr. McCarthy as long as what we agreed to in negotiations remains in place,” he said.
Rep. Mary Peltola, Yup’ik, tweeted, “The American people elected all of us to lead, not waste time bickering over who our own leadership will be. It’s time to work together to give the American people what they deserve: a functioning government.”
Peltola told Alaska Public Media on Thursday that she would consider forming a coalition majority with Republicans to elect a speaker.
Peltola and Rep. Sharice Davids, Ho-Chunk, continued to vote for Democratic speaker nominee Hakeem Jeffries round after round.
McCarthy told reporters he is confident that during Friday night’s 14th vote he will have the votes to become speaker.
AP contributed to this reporting.
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