Midterm voters register another rebuke of House Jan. 6 Committee

Voters again spurned the House Jan. 6 committee on Tuesday by shunning Rep. Elaine Luria and leaving the Democrat-led panel decimated as it returns to Washington.

Just five of the panel’s nine members have survived the midterm gauntlet that began with Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney’s landslide primary loss, reflecting GOP outrage over her unrelenting anti-Trump stance.

Two members — Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Illinois Republican, and Rep. Stephanie Murphy, Florida Democrat — bowed out of their reelection races rather than face voters. 

In the Virginia race, voters in the district that includes Virginia Beach and Norfolk tossed out Mrs. Luria in favor of Republican Jen Kiggans.

Mrs. Luria, a second-term Democrat who raised her profile on the Jan. 6 committee, framed her tight race against Ms. Kiggans as a referendum on democracy, drowning out her otherwise moderate voting record and hawkish sensibilities on the House Armed Services Committee.

She called her work on the committee examining the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol “the most important thing” she’s ever done professionally. She said she would be OK losing reelection over it “because I’m on the right side of history.”

Voters in her district were unswayed. They sent a loud message rebuking House Democrats who once believed the committee’s probe of the Capitol riot and pursuit of wrongdoing by former President Donald Trump would boost their midterm prospects.

Republicans accuse the Democratic-led panel of weaponizing the events of Jan. 6 and using the committee to target them and Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump called the committee a “kangaroo court” and said the Democrats’ only goal in holding the hearings was to prevent him from running for president again in 2024.

The panel will all but certainly end under a Republican-controlled Congress.

“It has used congressional subpoenas to attack Republicans, violated due process and infringed on the political speech of private citizens,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, said earlier this year. “It has permanently damaged the House and divided the country. It’s a smokescreen for Democrats to push their radical agenda.”

After a series of public hearings over the summer, the committee issued an eleventh-hour subpoena demanding that Mr. Trump hand over documents and appear for a deposition later this month.

Mr. Trump has given no indication that he intends to comply, and the committee last week extended his deadline to hand over documents.

The committee has yet to release a comprehensive report and list of legislative proposals based on its findings, which the lawmakers had hoped to publish ahead of the midterms.