Must-Read: St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board Blasts Rodney Davis For Choosing “Blind Partisanship” Over “Integrity”

Illinois U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis has squandered his moment to demonstrate integrity and independence on the national stage, opting instead for blind partisanship and a lapdog pat on the head from the House GOP leadership.

What a sad statement for the Taylorville Republican, who previously defied his party's extremists at key moments over the past year, telling them not to be 'stupid' by minimizing the dangers of the coronavirus and to stop spreading nonsense about a stolen presidential election in November. When the pressure was on for Republicans to vote against confirmation of the election result, Davis refused. He stood with a small minority of 34 other Republicans and supported creation of a Jan. 6 commission.

For someone who has twice survived potentially deadly attacks - first when a gunman attacked Republican lawmakers at a 2017 baseball practice and again when crazed pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the Capitol - he should by now grasp the importance of finding out exactly who was behind the Jan. 6 insurrection. But on Wednesday, he refused to participate in a bipartisan commission of inquiry because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had rejected two of his most extreme Republican colleagues.

Davis was among five Republican House members McCarthy selected for the commission. McCarthy also tried to install Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, infamous rabble-rousers who have blindly defended former President Donald Trump and serve as the most prominent promoters of his big lie that Democrats stole the presidential election.

While Davis until Wednesday offered credibility and objectivity, Jordan and Banks were clearly chosen to disrupt and derail the inquiry. The motive became obvious the moment McCarthy stepped to the microphones Wednesday to assert that the inquiry should have focused on why Capitol Police failed to fend off a swarm of violent, armed rioters whom Trump had just urged to 'fight like hell.'

The last thing McCarthy wants is for Trump and his insurrectionist supporters to become a focal point of the inquiry. So of course he would attempt to divert attention to the security question - as did Jordan immediately after McCarthy spoke.

Davis always had the choice to assert his independence. But instead, he opted to echo, almost word for word, what McCarthy and Jordan said.

Asked in a May 20 interview with us whether he was concerned about defying the GOP leadership, he laughed and said, 'This is what, in my opinion, I came to Congress to do: to vote my conscience.'

His fellow Illinois Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, is being considered for the inquiry panel, joining Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming. They have consistently challenged Jordan's diversionary antics and refused to buckle under McCarthy's pressure. That's what conservative integrity looks like. Why Davis opted to side with the extremists is worthy of a separate inquiry - by Illinois voters the next time he runs for office.