Time to Make an Exception?: The Members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission Should Be Out Front

The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, a bipartisan body in the House of Representatives, holds hearings and monitors human rights violations around the world, including fair elections.  They are resolute in limiting their work to human rights in other countries.  While they sometimes encourage the State Department to be more resolute in protecting human rights abroad — a worthy activity, for sure — they avoid any engaging in scrutiny of human rights at home. Their staff explains that this line is necessary to hold the Commission together, since individual political interests and pressure would be too intense to support bi-partisan work on domestic human rights.  

Fair enough, I guess.

But as members of the House of Representatives who are on the record as caring about human rights, including free and fair elections, it’s also fair to expect that these members would be among the first individuals to declare the 2020 election over, to condemn President Trump’s failure to concede, and to begin support of the incoming Biden Administration.

Here is a list of Commission members.  Have any of the Republican members on this list acknowledged the human rights issues at stake in the party’s current efforts to cast doubt on election results? Have they expressed concern over efforts to sow distrust among voters in the absence of any evidence of election fraud?  Have they rejected the President’s apparent refusal to facilitate a peaceful transition based on the election?

Whatever influence the Lantos Commission might have in its human rights work abroad is being leached away by the GOP’s current activities, along with whatever standing its members might have to opine on human rights internationally.  The self-identified human rights champions in the House of Representatives, members of both parties, should be leaders in standing up to what amounts to domestic efforts to undermine the election results.  If they can do it for Bahrain, surely they can do it for America.