I am objecting to the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes because Governor Tom Wolf, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court violated the State legislature’s clear constitutional authority to set election proceedings.
Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, only the General Assembly has the power to set election law.
Additionally, Article II of the U.S. Constitution explicitly grants State legislatures, not the Governor acting alone and not the courts, the explicit power to determine the manner of appointing Presidential electors.
Pennsylvania’s court unlawfully extended the deadline to receive absentee and mail-in ballots. Governor Wolf’s administration dismissed signature authentication procedures for absentee and mail-in ballots, allowed for the uneven administration of the election across counties, and unilaterally changed Pennsylvania’s election code without the State legislature’s consent.
The Constitution is clear and the facts are indisputable.
This past weekend, each Member of this body stood in this Chamber and swore an oath to protect and defend our Constitution. I intend to fulfill my constitutional oath which the people of Pennsylvania have entrusted in me. My objection is grounded in the Constitution and rule of law.
If we allow the Governor to violate the constitutional rights of the General Assembly, what is stopping him from violating the constitutional rights of the 12.8 million Pennsylvanians our State legislators were elected to represent?
Mr. Evans. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the objection.
The Speaker. The gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for 5 minutes.
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.
Ms. Herrell. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the objection.
The Speaker. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from New Mexico for 5 minutes.
Ms. Herrell. Madam Speaker, this is not how I imagined my first speech in the House of Representatives or my first week to be in Washington.
The violence that occurred in this building yesterday is reprehensible and inexcusable. I am appalled by anyone who assaults our Nation’s law enforcement officers.
I swore an oath on Sunday to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We are here today delayed, but not deterred, to debate a constitutional question and follow a constitutional process.
The Constitution gives State legislators, not State executives or judges, the sole authority to determine how their State selects Presidential electors.
Nobody disputes that in Pennsylvania, as well as in other States, rules and regulations were changed by executive fiat or judicial edict.
These changes were significant and irregular. They included changes to vote-by-mail deadlines, identity verification requirements, and other ballot handling practices.
In Pennsylvania specifically, the Democrat Secretary of the Commonwealth and the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court usurped the constitutional authority of the State legislature.
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Together, they exceeded their authority by extending the deadline for absentee ballots and by waiving signature requirements for those ballots.
In their haste to make these changes, the secretary and the court created two different and unequal standards for voters. Pennsylvanians who chose to vote in person still had to have their signatures verified at their polling place, but those who chose to vote by mail did not. How is this process fair?
This objection is about Pennsylvania, but it affects every State. As a State Representative of New Mexico, Pennsylvania’s unconstitutional actions disenfranchised my constituents and the constituents of my colleagues. It is my duty to give my constituents a voice. Signing these objections raises their concerns to the fullest extent my office allows.
I, again, condemn in the strongest terms the violence that took place here yesterday. We have many issues to solve, including reforms to restore all Americans’ faith in the fairness of our elections. I look forward to those serious civil and peaceful debates.
Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).
Mr. Duncan. Madam Speaker, this process we are going through today isn’t about personalities. This isn’t about Joe Biden or Donald Trump. As hard as some try to paint it that way, let me say that names and personalities don’t matter. This is, gravely, about the Constitution of the United States.
Almost 20 years ago, after the attacks on 9/11, Americans were persuaded to give up some of their constitutional liberties. Using the justification of that global crisis, the terrorist attacks on that fateful day, America saw the erosion of their liberties for the safety and security many felt they may receive through the USA PATRIOT Act and other resulting processes too many felt would keep us safe from another attack here on our shore.
This year, using the justification of the global pandemic, COVID–19, we once again saw our Nation’s Constitution violated. You see, the Constitution is clear in Article II, Madam Speaker, that the power and duty to set the manner of national elections rests solely with the State legislatures.
That power doesn’t rest with us. That power didn’t rest in the hands of unelected county election officials, secretaries of state, or a supreme court but, rather, in the hands of the State legislatures, which pass laws setting the manner of elections held in their States.
This year, using the extraordinary circumstance of the COVID–19 pandemic, we witnessed these duly passed laws circumvented and usurped time and again, not by having the laws changed in the respective State legislative bodies, but those laws arbitrarily
