(NewsGlobal.com)- Another member of the House’s January 6 special investigating committee has been shown the door, only this time, it’s a Democrat and not a Republican.
Both Republican members of the committee — Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney — won’t be returning to Congress next year. Kinzinger is retiring from Congress, while Cheney lost in her Republican primary election.
Now, another member of the committee will be gone come next year — Democrat Elaine Luria from Virginia.
Republican Jen Kiggans, who was serving as a state senator in Virginia, defeated Luria in the election for the swing district in the state. Kiggans ran a successful campaign that focused on the poor performance of the economy, as well as that of other prominent Democrats like President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
As Mollie Hemingway, the editor-in-chief at the Federalist, tweeted this week:
“That makes Luria the 4th member of the Sham J6 Committee to not be able to return to Congress. Kinzinger didn’t run rather than face certain defeat, Cheney was humiliated in her WY primary, and Stephanie Murphy of Florida, once considered a rising star, declined to even run.”
Kiggans is a veteran of the Navy, having become one of the first women who was trained to fly a Navy helicopter in combat. She never actually flew in combat, but she did fly in missions in both Kosovo and the Persian Gulf.
Luria, who she is replacing in Congress, is also a Navy vet. She was one of the first women who worked in the nuclear reactor program for the Navy, working on combatant ships. She served in the Navy for two decades, climbing as high as commander.
Kiggans ran for Virginia’s state Senate back in 2019. She said she was inspired to do so after the blue wave in 2018 put Luria and other Democrats who had backgrounds in national security into political office.
At the time, Kiggans said she believed that conservative women were very much underrepresented in politics, and she was hoping to fill that void — despite having no previous political experience.
Over the last three years, Kiggans has built a solid reputation in the Virginia Senate for being mild-mannered and friendly. She has focused on health-care related matters, using the background she has in medicine.
During the campaign for the House, Luria called Kiggans an election denier multiple times since she was one of only four GOP members of the Virginia Senate to support an audit of the 2020 election results in her state.
Luria had a big war chest to use during her campaign, which received a boost when she was named to the January 6 investigating committee in the House. But, Kiggans got $5 million from the national GOP to help her in her fight — and it worked.
In all, the election cost more than $15 million in advertising that came from the candidates and the parties supporting them. It was the second most expensive election in the state during this cycle.
