Marshall ‘marginalized’ after using Senate debut to challenge election, Republicans warn
The first floor speech of a new United States senator is usually a dry, quickly forgotten affair. But Roger Marshall’s debut Wednesday evening could define his political career.
The Kansas Republican kicked off his Senate tenure by joining a small band of colleagues in a futile attempt to block the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory. Their votes came hours after the Capitol was ransacked by a mob inflamed by President Donald Trump, to whom Marshall has pledged support.
“I want my fellow Kansans and all Americans to know that I’ve given as much consideration and thought surrounding the issue of objecting to a state’s Electoral College vote as I did considering the treatment plan for a serious health concern, and today’s decision is once again from my heart,” said the former two-term congressman, an OB-GYN from western Kansas.
It was also an unveiling that went against the express wishes of the Senate’s most powerful Republican, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell had urged senators to reject challenges to the election results and in a dramatic floor speech called his vote the most important of his career.
The Republican establishment went to great lengths to aid Marshall in his hard-fought 2020 campaign, spending millions to help him turn back a well-funded challenge from Democrat Barbara Bollier.
With two Democratic victories in this week’s Georgia Senate runoffs, McConnell will soon be the minority leader. But Republicans warned Marshall’s decision to cross him could cause lasting damage and threaten the new senator’s effectiveness as a legislator.
“His actions and his vote yesterday set him apart from Republican leadership in the U.S. Senate. It effectively marginalized him,” said Republican state Rep. Don Hineman, a western Kansas farmer whose term will end next week after he chose not to run for reelection. “And my concern is that will have a very tangible effect on his ability to deliver much legislation for the people that he represents back in Kansas.”
Nancy Kassebaum, a Republican who represented Kansas in the Senate for 18 years, said Thursday that Trump should be impeached over the Capitol riot and suggested Marshall should learn from what happened.
“Maybe he’ll learn a little bit that it’s better to think about things before you jump up and down and act on them,” said Kassebaum, who had crossed party lines to endorse Bollier in the fall election.
A Kansas GOP strategist said Republicans in private discussions Thursday appeared mystified by Marshall’s support for the objections after the storming of the Capitol.
“There was a moment to rise to the occasion, and yesterday he didn’t,” the strategist said.
A Marshall spokeswoman didn’t respond to questions. On Thursday afternoon, Marshall posted a statement that called Biden the president-elect and condemned Wednesday’s violence.
“To all those who destroyed any chance we had for peaceful discussion and debate on restoring and ensuring confidence in this and all future elections: Your actions were despicable and each of you — the rioters, vandals, and trespassers — should be prosecuted to the fullest extent,” Marshall said.
Marshall’s statement made no mention of Trump, even as calls mounted from Democrats and some Republicans to remove the president from office. Lawmakers, including Kansas Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids, said the 25th Amendment should be used to strip Trump of his powers. Invoking the amendment would require support from Vice President Mike Pence and a majority of the cabinet.
Marshall spent the last year — during both the primary and general elections — trying to win the votes of Trump’s supporters. He often framed his campaign in terms of loyalty to the president, saying he was standing with him “shoulder-to-shoulder.”
“I often say that I am running for the U.S. Senate to defend Kansas values, and part of that means standing by the President to defend the unborn, secure our border, stand up for our 2nd Amendment rights, confirm conservative justices, and improve our trade deals,” Marshall said in November 2019 when he was named a Kansas co-chair of the Trump campaign.
In the primary, Marshall’s chief rival was Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state who championed hardline immigration measures and pushed baseless allegations of voter fraud. Kobach had lost the 2018 governor’s race to Democrat Laura Kelly, and national Republicans, fearing he would lose again if nominated, cast him as an extremist in an effort to boost Marshall.
But in siding with a handful of senators in objecting to the election certification, it is Marshall facing condemnation for extremism.
“I think we are all still in the process of learning what Roger Marshall is about, and I think yesterday clarified for us,” Hineman said.
Some Kansas Republicans defended Marshall on Thursday. Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman, of Olathe, said McConnell’s loss of the leadership of the Senate “damaged Kansas more than anything Roger Marshall said.”
“I believe what happened in Georgia deeply affected the power Kansas has,” Ryckman said.
Trump and supporters of the president have leveled baseless allegations of fraud in a handful of elections in states won by Biden. Judges have uniformly rejected legal challenges seeking to toss out the results.
Republican Sen. Jerry Moran, Kansas’ senior senator, voted against the objections. Moran, who is up for reelection in 2022, said he supported Trump’s right to challenge election results in court.
“But in every instance, the judgments were clear, and no judge or Supreme Court justice — including those appointed by President Trump — determined there was evidence sufficient to change the results of the election,” Moran said in a statement on Jan. 5.
While Marshall was the highest-profile member of Congress from Kansas to back objections to the election results, every House Republican from the state also supported the effort. The group included returning Rep. Ron Estes, and freshmen Reps. Tracey Mann and Jake LaTurner.
Unlike in the Senate, some high-ranking House Republicans supported the objections, lowering the risk that Republican representatives will face blowback from their leaders.
“The long-term consequences probably lie in the conscience of these legislators,” said Bob Beatty, a political scientist at Washburn University who has been an election observer in the United Kingdom and Mongolia. “If they’ve decided to make this Faustian bargain, then they’ve got to live with it for the rest of their lives.”
The Star’s Bryan Lowry contributed reporting.
This story was originally published January 7, 2021 at 5:24 PM with the headline "Marshall ‘marginalized’ after using Senate debut to challenge election, Republicans warn."
