Of the 435 elected representatives in the lower house of Congress, 252 voted for an independent investigation of the attack on Capitol Hill on Thursday night Norwegian time.
Of those who voted for, 35 were Republicans, which means that they have voted against what the party centrally thinks about such an investigation.
The proposal is to establish an independent commission with democratic and republican representation.
The commission panel will consist of ten members – where half of the commission will be appointed by the Democrats’ congressional leaders and the same from the Republican side.
The proposal states that the commission shall be tasked with preparing a report which shall be completed by the end of the year.
Forward to the Senate
The work of getting the proposal for a 6 January commission has been stalled for many months, so that it was now voted in the House of Representatives is a significant step in the direction that it will actually happen soon.
Now the next step is to get a majority for the independent investigation in the Senate as well. Ten Republican senators must vote for it to pass.
CNN writes on Wednesday that the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, did not want to comment on whether he will force all senators in his own party to vote against.
McConnell has stated that he is opposed to such a commission investigation, but so has the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, without stopping the proposal from passing there for that reason.
Three more than in the risk law vote
Another thing worth noting is that when it was voted on whether then-President Donald Trump should be put on trial in the House of Representatives in January, only 10 Republicans voted in favor.
In other words, there were 15 more Republicans who voted for an independent investigation on Wednesday than there were in the risk law vote.
This despite the fact that McCarthy has worked for the opposite. Donald Trump, who still has an important role in the party, went out on Tuesday to warn against voting for an independent investigation.
One of the Republicans who still voted for was Tom Reed, who sits in the House of Representatives for New York.
– I wish people chose to look bigger at this. We can still work together when things like what happened on January 6 happen. We must learn from it so that we make sure it never happens again, he said Politico Wednesday.
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