About
Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) has served Arkansas’ 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2011. He ran for reelection in 2022 with Trump’s endorsement and won by nearly 75 percent of the vote.
A former Army sergeant, Crawford later transitioned to a career in the rodeo and founded and operated the AgWatch Network, a web-based farm news provider. In 2017, he spoke out in defense of Confederate monuments, saying that removing them would also lead to closure of the Holocaust Museum. “Is that on the agenda at any point, because it makes people uncomfortable?” he asked. “I mean, it never stops.”
After the 2020 presidential election, Crawford showed his loyalty to Trump by spreading the Big Lie. He adhered to the GOP playbook by objecting to the certification of President Biden’s Electoral College win and voted against both impeaching Trump for inciting the mob and establishing a special House committee to investigate the insurrection, among other measures.
In early 2021, Crawford co-sponsored legislation to repeal the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, which would strip Washington, D.C. of its three Electoral College votes and deny its citizens the right to participate in the presidential election.
January 6, 2021
- Just hours after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Crawford joined 146 other congressional Republicans in refusing to certify Biden’s win of the 2020 presidential election. “And listen, if today’s action with these rioters didn’t get the Supreme Court’s attention, I don’t know what will,” he said shortly after, leading some commentators to ask if he was endorsing the insurrectionists.
- Crawford criticized Democrats for expediting a vote to impeach Trump in January 2021 for his role in inciting the insurrection, stating that “rushing and short-circuiting the process of a serious criminal investigation by the House of Representatives would be a risky precedent that could lead to widespread abuse by both parties.”
- Crawford voted against establishing a House committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol.
The Big Lie
- After voting against certifying the Electoral College results, Crawford said in an interview with local news station KATV in Arkansas, “It’s not the electors that I question. It’s the method by which those electors were chosen.”
- On Nov. 17, 2020, responding to an ABC News tweet about the lack of evidence of significant voter fraud during the 2020 election, Crawford tweeted: “With widespread reports—including Arkansas—of ballot fraud and/or irregularities, it would seem the MSM is still trying to whitewash [sic] the voices of 70 million Americans from this election.”
- On Dec. 10, 2020, Crawford signed an amicus brief in a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas urging the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the results of the presidential election in four swing states: Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.