A week ago, we watched in horror as an angry mob attacked our US Capitol, killing a police officer and threatening the lives of elected members of Congress and the Vice President of the United States. The assault was an orchestrated effort to disrupt the certification of the votes in the Electoral College, a process established by the Constitution and federal law that stands at the center of the peaceful transfer of power, seeking to overturn the will of the American people as expressed in the November 2020 election. 

This attack was the violent product resulting from a weeks-long campaign by the sitting President to spread lies about fraud in the 2020 election, lies that have been rejected by courts across the country. The baseless campaign to overturn the election specifically targeted Black and Brown votes, suggesting that those votes were undeserving of being counted and considered. This campaign of lies has spread across the country, and shamefully has been adopted by public officials who know that the president’s claims are specious. 

Unfortunately, two members of the Illinois congressional delegation – Representative Mike Bost and Representative Mary Miller – blithely embraced this torrent of lies and voted to challenge lawfully-submitted electoral votes from Arizona and Georgia. These two elected officials cast these offensive votes even after the mob descended on the Capitol, literally after this mob murdered a Capitol police officer and desecrated our nation’s symbol representative government.  

The ACLU of Illinois condemns these votes by Representative Bost and Representative Miller. And, we call on all Illinois residents and voters to hold their elected officials accountable, to resist the allure of elevating fiction over fact, and to demand that everyone sent to represent our state in the Congress of the United States ignore conspiracy theories and lies, and focus on truth and respecting our democratic system of government.