J. Hill

Dear Reps. French Hill, Steve Womack, Bruce Westerman and Rick Crawford:

In August 2024, I took to this Perspective section of the Democrat-Gazette to explain why, as a lifelong Republican, I would be voting for Democrat Kamala Harris for president on Nov. 5. It is probably more accurate to say I explained why I would be voting against Donald Trump, who at that point already had 34 felony convictions to his credit as well as a failed attempt to subvert a free and fair election.

Say what you will about Kamala Harris (I still hear folks reference a "cackle" as though it were some kind of lesser felony); the past two years have only strengthened my belief in the points I made in that column: namely that Donald Trump is a formidable threat to the survival of our democracy. Now, some two years later (though it feels more like 10), I fear we are about to learn just how formidable.

There are those who say Donald Trump is hostile to learning. I disagree. I know he is capable of learning, even beyond figuring out how to use the presidency to grow a family fortune from millions to billions. In fact, I think Trump learned something crucial from his first term as president: the power of blind loyalty. The unthinking, unblinking, unquestioning loyalty of subordinates and ever-willing allies in Congress. Loyalty above any oath sworn to a document, a set of principles, basic morals or a sense of honor.

It is a treasure he values above all others, for it is what makes the most unfathomable authoritarian ambitions attainable. Blind loyalty is the only qualification needed to work in his second administration. And this is why, for as much B.S. as our president traffics on a daily basis, the threat he poses to our democracy is every bit as clear and present as it was when I wrote about it two years ago.

To this point, retired federal judge Michael Luttig, a widely respected conservative jurist, recently authored a piece for The New Republic. It details how our president and one of his favorite loyalists, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, might seek to subvert the will of the people on Jan. 3, 2027, by refusing to seat duly elected Democrats in the 120th Congress through a clerk-led coup d'état, enabling Republicans to retain control, voters be damned.

The scenario Judge Luttig paints is this: In the event Democrats win midterm contests in substantial enough numbers to achieve a House majority, at some point between election day and the Jan. 3 assembling of the 120th Congress, Speaker Johnson will remove House Clerk Kevin McCumber, who is by all accounts fairly serious about his duty to uphold the Constitution.

Having replaced McCumber with a Trump puppet, the newly appointed clerk--citing standard and oft-rehearsed groundless allegations of election fraud and general skullduggery--might refuse to list enough Democratic representatives-elect on the rolls of the newly formed Congress that their exclusion maintains a Republican majority.

Clerk-approved members (a roster I suspect will include each of you), would then be assembled and asked to vote to prevent these supposedly tainted representatives-elect from being seated, triggering a genuine constitutional crisis, with Republicans claiming the House alone (not the courts) is constitutionally empowered to regulate its own elections. It is anyone's guess what comes next.

Why does Judge Luttig's scenario send chills? Because what's past is prologue. On Jan. 6, 2021, Donald Trump attempted to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to selectively throw out certain states' electoral slates in order to obstruct the certification of Joe Biden as president. In the weeks leading up to that day he and his allies engaged in a multi-faceted effort to subvert the election as detailed in a four-count federal indictment which, thanks to Trump's subsequent election in 2024, never had its day in court.

To their everlasting credit, Mike Pence, various state legislators and election officials, and numerous federal judges across the country defended our democracy against this conspiracy. Indeed, three of you--Reps. Hill, Womack and Westerman-- ultimately voted to accept the Electoral College results, and for that I thank you.

But you will recall who was masterminding the battle to subvert in the House. It was none other than Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who invested some serious shoe leather shuttling about the House floor trying to get signatures for the amicus brief he'd authored in support of a lawsuit before the Supreme Court seeking to overturn the election in four battleground states--Texas v. Pennsylvania, filed by another infamous Trump loyalist, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Johnson lobbied for signatures while making sure to let you know the president was keeping score of who signed and who didn't, an effort that met with some success as evidenced by your signatures, Reps. Crawford and Westerman.

Nevertheless, that was then. While Mike Johnson's power grew, there are no more Mike Pences in the administration willing to stand between the president and our Constitution; only acolytes remain. Today, with Johnson in the speaker's chair, Trump's personal lawyer Todd Blanche as attorney general, Kash Patel and Pete Hegseth feverishly purging the FBI and DOD ranks to ensure maximum loyalty to Trump, and Markwayne Mullin at DHS wielding the powers of ICE, Donald Trump no longer wants for blind loyalty; he bathes in it. Factor in a Supreme Court that has handed Trump unprecedented powers up to and including presidential immunity, and to say we should take seriously Judge Luttig's description of a coup that could very well go unchecked becomes an understatement. Jan. 3, 2027, could make Jan. 6 look like a disorganized dress rehearsal.

I want to believe you gentlemen entered Congress for the right reasons, and like many others have found yourselves on a wild ride you never signed up for as an increasingly unhinged and desperate Donald Trump has made a mockery of everything Ronald Reagan stood for. But that ride is about to get even wilder.

Should the people of Arkansas return you to Congress on Nov. 3 and the scenario Judge Luttig describes (or some variation on it) comes to fruition, we have every right to expect you to place your duty to our democracy above your loyalty to party or president, just as Mike Pence did on Jan. 6.

If a Republican coup to retain the House by refusing to seat duly elected Democrats is predicated on Trumped-up allegations of fraud we know will come, you must not only withhold your support, you must work to defeat it. Your votes could be the ones to cripple a coup in its tracks. In your heart of hearts, I know you agree that the legitimacy of Congress is far more important--with a far more lasting impact--than any party holding a majority.

Gentlemen, you must not wait until Jan. 3 to consider this contingency or the actions you will take in response. What's past is prologue. Yet, as harmful as I believe Trumpism has been for our nation and may yet prove to be, its fits of fever dream are coming to an end, even here in Arkansas, as lies, broken promises, unforced errors and utter failures stack one upon another.

The harsh light of history will long reflect on these troubling times. And in that light, more than anything you have achieved or hope to achieve in Congress, you will either be remembered for the courage you show in defending the sanctity of a body that is perhaps our Founders' greatest creation, or you will be noted with shame for your complicity in delegitimizing it.

Fully realizing the price one pays for getting on the wrong side of Donald Trump, I pray you find the courage to stand on the right side of history.

DeWayne Hayes of Little Rock, originally from Pine Bluff, is a speechwriter who has worked in industry, academia and politics.