Congressional Record/Volume 167/Issue 4/House/Counting Electoral Votes/Pennsylvania Objection Debate/Evans Speech
Mr. Evans. Madam Speaker, I represent the Third District of Pennsylvania, which includes part of Philadelphia, the birthplace of America. It was in Philadelphia that the Constitution of the United States was written and signed, the very Constitution that we are all sworn to uphold as Members of the House of Representatives.
We are elected to serve our constituents, and it is our job to represent them and their interests in Congress.
Yesterday, I spoke to the son of the late Dick Thornburgh, who is a two-time Republican Governor of Pennsylvania and was Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan and President Bush. His son stressed to me that his father would have wanted the rule of law to prevail regardless of the political outcome, because he cared more about the safeguarding of democracy than partisanship.
In addition, Al Schmidt, who was a Republican commissioner of elections, said, when Philadelphia certified its results on November 23: “I’m proud that the birthplace of our Republic held the most transparent and secure election in the history of Philadelphia.”
Instead of using this time to dispute the results of our fair and lawful election, we should be spending this time making sure vaccines are quickly given to essential workers and our most vulnerable communities, that people are getting housing.
We should look at rental assistance. We should ensure that that is available.
Small businesses, the engines of our economy, should be getting needed grants and loans.
That should be our focus.
Hospitals desperately need support and help. We should be paying attention to the needs of hospitals.
We are in the middle of a pandemic where hundreds of thousands of people are dying, and we are in a recession that is putting millions of Americans at risk of hunger, homelessness, or both. It is time we start legislating for the people.
One last person I want to mention is our junior Senator, Senator Toomey. There are very few things that he and I agree on, but he has stated very clearly that Joe Biden has won this election. He has stood up on the Senate floor and he has stated that.
So it needs to be very clear that the late Governor Thornburgh; Albert Schmidt, the commissioner; and our current junior Senator all have one thing in common: democracy first, partisanship second. Let’s keep that in mind.