This summer, between packing BBQ joints with maskless campaign crowds and podcasting about making nationalism great again, Congressman Dan Crenshaw took time to completely abandon his oath of office in six tweets today.
The first tweet is a frantic response to Vice President Biden. Crenshaw attacked in defense of Trump when Biden called him out for hypocrisy in criticizing mail in voting while applying for a mail in ballot for the Florida primaries.
“Joe thinks you can’t tell the difference between absentee voting and universal mail-in voting,” he tweeted
Absentee voting is “safe and secure,” Crenshaw lectures, while mail in voting has “abuse and mistakes.”
The Congressman’s assertion — that random requests for a mail in ballot is more secure and less prone to mistakes than organized statewide systems — is as stupid as it sounds.
Currently, 77% of Americans can request a ballot by mail without a problem. Texans — surprise, surprise — cannot, and we are in the glaring minority.
The first article Crenshaw posts as support for his vacuous argument points to a problem with mail in voting in states who have recently updated their policies. For example, the New York branches of the United States Post Office were overwhelmed by the changes during the last primary election.
“The U.S. Postal Service, unused to the deluge of prepaid mailers, reportedly left postmarks off ballots, leaving thousands of them to be rejected because it was unclear they were sent on time,” the article clarifies.
What my congressman’s tweet shockingly lacks is mention of the crisis unfolding before Americans in the last few days: photo after photo of USPS mailboxes ripped from their foundations.
I scroll and see no tweets supporting expanding funding for the USPS; there’s no tweet criticizing Trump’s attacks of the institution.
The next article from NPR addresses potential problems within the first paragraph: “because people make mistakes, such as forgetting to sign the form or sending it in too late.”
These mistakes deal with a need for a public information campaign, but they do not reflect abuse or fraud.
The third article from the Post makes the useful suggestion of allowing drop off locations to address issues with slow mail, but it never says that the system is abused or should be abandoned.
The truth is that Crenshaw tweeted these sophomoric sentiments because he feels a deeper allegiance to Trump than to his Oath to the Constitution.
And we could forgive this perhaps from an ignorant American like Chip Roy or Louie Ghommert. But Crenshaw spent years in Latin America during the same time I grew up there.
He learned Spanish and went to local schools like me. He watched democracies crumble using similar tactics: attack the Press, plant doubt in the elections process, attack institutions which serve the People.
Crenshaw fought in Iraq and Afghanistan to defend American values and spread democracy, yet he fails to defend the threats here at home.
The tweet temper tantrum showed potential weaknesses in mail in voting which Congress can remedy. Supporting an administration that would further harm the USPS and access to the vote seems to contradict Crenshaw’s own argument.
The United States Postal Service and our right to vote safely are American sister values in the United States Constitution. These sisters are under attack by weapons long favored by fascists and anti-democratic extremists — on the right and the left.
Houstonians deserve a defender to the Constitution who will not hesitate to fight for the promises made when accepting the role of a representative:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;
that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;
and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter:
So help me God.”
Dan Crenshaw has abandoned his Oath as a Congressman and a sailor.
Houston voters and patriots should demote him.