Is Jan. 6 a Winning Political Issue? We're About to Find Out.

[Celerity]

Democratic candidates have shied away from talking about the Capitol siege. That could change if voters flock to a former federal prosecutor running for a House seat in California.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/us/politics/california-house-races-jan-6.html

https://archive.ph/xqRbY


Representative Ken Calvert of California embodies the changing Republican Party, having moved rightward in recent years. Credit...House Television, via Associated Press

On Tuesday, we’ll get an unusually clear test of the political power of Jan. 6 at the ballot box. In California’s newly drawn 41st Congressional District, a pro-business Republican who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election faces a primary for a House seat against a Democratic former federal prosecutor who worked cases against several alleged Capitol rioters. No race provides a starker contrast between voters’ usual kitchen-table concerns and what the leading challenger cast in an interview as a battle for “the future of democracy.”

A G.O.P. House veteran and a young Democrat

The Republican incumbent, Representative Ken Calvert, embodies a changing G.O.P. He has represented the area for three decades, though the district’s boundaries, which now stretch from suburban areas east of Los Angeles to Palm Springs, have changed over the years. He was first elected to the House in 1992 as a traditional, Chamber of Commerce-style conservative, but has moved rightward along with his party. He voted on Jan. 6, 2021, against certifying President Biden’s victory, but later published an op-ed article denouncing the mob at the Capitol. Donald Trump has endorsed him, though Calvert’s website makes no mention of that fact. He prefers to talk about the price of gas in a state where the average gallon now costs $6.25.

Calvert has faced accusations of ethical lapses during his time in office, though he has always denied wrongdoing. After the police discovered him in a parked car with a woman in 1993, he acknowledged having sex with a prostitute, saying he had been “lonely” after a recent divorce. In California’s unusual primary system, voters in the district will decide which two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party.

The leading Democratic challenger is Will Rollins, a 37-year-old former assistant U.S. attorney in California who has made Jan. 6 the central theme of his campaign. In his ads, such as this introductory video, he talks about the danger to democracy posed by domestic extremism and misinformation — ideas most other candidates in his party rarely emphasize. Rollins saw a “huge rise in domestic terrorism cases” during his five years as a Justice Department prosecutor focused on national security and counterterrorism, he said in an interview, culminating in his work assisting colleagues in Washington reel in alleged participants in the Capitol riot.

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[UTUSN]

1. More like, judgment accountability stuff like that