DENNIS L. BAKER FOR U.S. SENATE

The rule of law exists only if people respect it. Doing so is especially important for people who have sworn to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic. I took that oath and considered upholding it to be a sacred responsibility. That’s why I spent 23 years as an FBI Special Agent focusing on counterterrorism efforts to keep Americans safe. For some people though, the oath of office is just a bunch of pretty words.

In the weeks leading up to January 6th and then on that day, Trump and his allies showed they were not people who keep their word. Senator James Lankford was one of them. It is not overly dramatic to say that this was an attack on voting rights and the electoral process. They wanted to override the will of the people and disregard the votes of 81 million people.

We have to pay attention to these hearings because the danger still exists; over 440 election laws that make it harder for people to vote have been proposed in various states because of the lies and propaganda Team Trump pushed. Those laws that passed will have an effect on the midterms in November as well as the next presidential election. In Georgia, you’ll be arrested if you give someone waiting in line to vote a bottle of water! Texas and Florida have made it much harder to vote by mail after black voters used that method in large numbers in 2020. They’ve also passed laws that target election workers who are just trying to do their jobs. They are trying to rig the system, and they’re doing so in plain sight.

If the people that were responsible are not punished, then what U.S. District Court Judge David Carter described as “a coup in search of a legal theory” just becomes a practice run for the next time a losing candidate wants to hold on to power.

Everyone who has testified under oath has said that Trump and everyone else in the White House knew that he had legitimately lost the election, that fraud hadn’t happened, and that the strategies they were coming up with to help him stay in office were illegal. It is only people who aren’t willing to testify that continue to spread lies about the election being stolen and to raise money based on those lies.

Trump and his congressional supporters were not interested in preserving democracy and the rule of law. That’s why he said, “just say it’s corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” He didn’t care about the truth, he just cared about the show and how much money he could make off of it. The Republicans who were more loyal to Trump than the Constitution and their constituents were ready to help pull off a coup.

Either Senator Lankford knew that Trump’s allegations were false but spread his lies during multiple interviews and tried to block the vote to certify Arizona’s electoral votes anyway, or he somehow didn’t put the pieces together and was duped. Either way, he failed to uphold his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.

I spent my entire career up to now fighting to protect the Constitution. I will continue to do that in D.C. I will vote YES on the John Lewis Voting Rights Act because I believe it should be easy for eligible people to vote. You will never have to worry about me going back on my word and promoting myself or my interests over our Constitution.

Learn more about my campaign at www.DennisLBaker.com and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.