Why should Ken Calvert represent part of the Coachella Valley in Congress?

Like many valley residents long used to being in one large congressional district, I was surprised to learn that the latest round of statewide redistricting ended up splitting the Coachella Valley. I was equally surprised that Rep. Ken Calvert, who has long represented the Corona-Norco area, is effectively now the incumbent for a new district that bizarrely stretches from west of Riverside through the mountains to include a large swath of the valley: Palm Springs, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert, Indian Wells and La Quinta. As a Palm Desert resident and now a voter in this newly constituted District 41, I began to look into Ken Calvert and whether he should be entitled to represent an area so far removed from his home base.

What jumped out at me immediately was that Rep. Calvert was one of 139 members of the House who voted against certifying the 2020 election in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, violence. Just hours after this horrible event, he voted to disregard the votes of the people of Arizona and Pennsylvania and not certify those states’ chosen electors. So now Rep. Calvert, who has no apparent connection to the Coachella Valley, is asking for us to ignore his stance toward those out-of-state voters and support his return for another term.

Rep. Calvert has sought to explain his votes not to certify by claiming that he was merely protesting “constitutionally questionable changes of voting rules in some states by authorities other than state legislatures.” However, there are clear problems with this rationale.

The previous November, in the midst of court challenges, he stated that he would “certainly respect” the state-level certification of results once these court cases concluded. But after the court challenges were all soundly rejected, he decided to change this position and not respect the official certifications from Arizona and Pennsylvania. Fellow California Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, who did vote to certify all state electors,  pointed out that “if the Congress can refuse to count electoral votes — for whatever reason — then it has the inherent power to seize the decision for itself and render the Electoral College superfluous.” He goes on to argue: “If the Founders had intended to give this power to the Congress, why did they go to all the fuss and bother of designing an Electoral College at all?” If Rep. Calvert thought that he had the right to overturn the will of millions of Arizona and Pennsylvania voters, I wonder how much he can be trusted to represent Coachella Valley residents as well as to be a fair player in the certification of the upcoming 2024 presidential election.

This concerns me not only as a valley voter but as a long-term educator.  It has been well documented that many students nationwide leave school with a very limited understanding of our constitution and electoral processes. This has led to a push for an increase in civic education in our schools. One of the key issues that is discussed in civic education is the Electoral College. What message are we sending to valley students (and future voters) if our representative believes that Congress can simply override state-certified election results and ignore the electoral college?

Mike Walbridge is a Palm Desert resident and retired executive director of student learning for the Palm Springs Unified School District. Email him at mnwalbridge@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Why should Ken Calvert represent part of the Coachella Valley in Congress?