In September, House Republican leader Congressman Kevin McCarthy said, "There should only be two questions about this,” in reference to the Jan. 6 insurrection. “Why were we so ill-prepared that day and what are we doing to correct it?"

According to PolitiFact, for Democrats, the questions raised by the specter of the five-hour televised assault on the nation’s capital go much deeper than that. Democrats, PolitiFact said, have focused on the vulnerabilities of the electoral system. 

Some Republicans don’t want to discuss the underlying issues that lead to the attack. 

For example, just before Christmas, Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis appeared on Inside City Hall with Errol Louis. 

When Louis asked her why she voted against the investigation into the riot, Malliotakis said her constituents had moved on from the incident, and blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for politicizing the event. 

Capital Tonight asked Daniel Weiner, co-director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center, if that was the case: Have Democrats politicized Jan. 6?

“With all due respect to the Congresswoman, I couldn’t disagree more. I think January 6 was a truly traumatic event,” Weiner said. “The most important thing about January 6 is that it was a motivated by a profound lie about the outcome of the 2020 election.” 

Weiner said the lie extended to the right of certain people in the community to vote — a trend of voter suppression that, he says, started before the 2020 election but has gained steam.

In 2021, Georgia, Florida, Texas and 16 other states enacted 24 laws restricting access to voting, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. 

The new laws make voter registration more difficult and institute more restrictive voter ID policies.

In order to counter this trend, Democrats want to pass a slate of national voting standards which are encompassed within two separate voting rights bills: the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.

When asked about Republican claims that these bills would nationalize voting, Weiner responded that, instead, they would create national standards.

“This is something that Congress has done many times before,” he said. “You’ve heard of something called the National Voter Registration Act. The Help America Vote Act. Those are national standards too. The Voting Rights Act. Ultimately we need to have (these) for trust in our elections.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer has promised a vote on the voting rights bills within the next month. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently floated his own version of voting rights legislation that Schumer rejected.