The Struggle Was Real
January 21, 2021
I wanted to take a few moments to review my actions regarding the 2020 General Election and share them with you. I know how frustrating the last few months have been for you. They were equally frustrating for me. Although this is a review of the actions I took which can be documented on paper, what can’t be documented is the extraordinary amount of time I spent in meetings with colleagues, constituents, legal experts, and other concerned parties in my effort to discover the truth about the 2020 General Election.
Even when I was running my own business before I got elected to the House of Representatives, I cannot remember a single period during my life when I have worked harder. I regret that my efforts were not fruitful in getting to the whole truth, but I pledge to you that I will continue to work at this on your behalf as hard as I have since last fall.
Anyway, here’s the inventory of my efforts:
September 2, 2020: I voted in support of HB2626, the General Assembly’s effort to establish specifically designed statewide security standards for “drop boxes,” which included other tweaks to the Pennsylvania Election Code in response to feedback from the Department of State and Pennsylvania’s counties following the June primary election. The bill was approved by the House of Representatives and poised for final passage in the Senate. With this legislation 5/6 of the way through the legislative process, Tom Wolf abandoned the negotiating table because the PA Supreme Court gave him almost everything he really wanted.
September 25, 2020: I joined other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in filing a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief, seeking a restraining order to block the use of private funds from The Center for Tech and Civic Life (funded by billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, et al) for use in local election management, including funding to facilitate “drop boxes,” because federal law preempts private federal election grants to counties and cities, and because conducting elections is a statutory responsibility of state officials including the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
September 30, 2020: I voted in support of House Resolution 1032 in the House State Government Committee, establishing a Select Committee on Election Integrity to investigate, review and make recommendations concerning the regulation and conduct of the 2020 general election. The proposal was heard and advanced to the full House by a 15-10 vote, but was never called up on the House floor.
November 7, 2020: I joined 18 other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in delivering a letter to the Speaker of the House and Majority Leader urging them to empanel an independent forum with subpoena power to investigate troubling issues of grave concern surrounding the 2020 General Election.
November 30, 2020: I introduced House Resolution 1094, with 38 co-sponsors, which defined certain non-legislative actions contravening the Pennsylvania Election Code and urged the Governor and the Secretary of the Commonwealth to withdraw or vacate their certification of presidential electors, to delay certification of results in other Statewide electoral contests voted on at the 2020 general election, declared the results of the election to appoint presidential electors and other statewide electoral contest results to be in dispute, and urged the United States Congress to declare the selection of presidential electors in Pennsylvania to be in dispute.
December 2, 2020: I joined 31 other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in delivering a letter to Governor Tom Wolf requesting he call a special session of the General Assembly, in accordance with provisions of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to address unanswered questions about the 2020 General Election and the oversight of elections in general. The Governor announced he would not call a special session on December 3, 2020.
December 4, 2020: In response to the Governor’s refusal to willingly call a special session of the General Assembly to address unanswered questions about the 2020 General Election and the oversight of elections in general, I joined members of the General Assembly in signing a petition to call a special session under the “shall” provision of Article II Section 4 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Seventy-nine (79) members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and twelve (12) members of the Pennsylvania Senate committed to this effort.
December 4, 2020: I joined 31 other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Senate in filing a brief as amicus curiae in support of applicants/petitioners with the Supreme Court of the United States requesting that the writ of injunction and certiorari be granted, in the Kelly v. Pennsylvania case.
December 4, 2020: Sixty-four (64) members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and Senate sent a letter to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation outlining the reasons why they should dispute the slate of electors certified by Governor Tom Wolf. Although I submitted my signature to appear on this letter, it was omitted due to administrative error.
December 4, 2020: I joined 14 other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in sending a letter to Congressman Scott Perry outlining an analysis which substantially confirms that the mail-in ballot process in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the 2020 General Election was so defective that it is essential to declare the selection of presidential electors for the Commonwealth to be in dispute and questioning the validity of over 100,000 votes cast, more than enough to overcome the vote differential between the candidates for President in Pennsylvania. This analysis, commonly referred to as the “Ryan Report,” was included as part of the plaintiff filing in the Texas v. Pennsylvania case before the Supreme Court of the United States. The Ryan Report was also briefed at a United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs hearing on December 16.
December 4, 2020: I joined nine other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and an eleventh plaintiff in requesting that the Commonwealth Court issue a Writ of Mandamus directing the withdrawal of certification of the 2020 election, and the certificates of election issued to the Democratic electors as a result thereof.
December 10, 2020: I joined 69 other members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in filing a brief as amicus curiae in support of plaintiff/defendants with the Supreme Court of the United States requesting that motion for leave to file bill of complaint be granted, in the Texas v. Pennsylvania case.
December 11, 2020: I circulated a co-sponsorship memorandum for a House of Representatives resolution declaring the 2020 General Election process to be unlawful, the results null and void, and exercising the plenary authority of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to appoint electors of President and Vice President, in anticipation of such relief being ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States, in the Texas v. Pennsylvania case. The resolution was introduced as HR8.
December 12, 2020: I circulated a co-sponsorship memorandum for a House of Representatives resolution declaring the 2020 General Election process as neither equal nor uniform, but instead as unlawful, void ab initio, and the results thereof invalid, and exercising the plenary authority of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to appoint electors of President and Vice President. The resolution was introduced as HR7.
December 23, 2020: I authored a letter to Vice President Mike Pence detailing our legislative efforts to combat the efforts to contravene, frustrate, and undermine the Pennsylvania Election Code by in the Executive and Judicial branches of the Commonwealth, as well as certain local election officials. I was joined by 31 other members of the General Assembly. We urged Pence to give appropriate consideration and weight to the severe infringements upon the General Assembly’s authority to direct the manner of appointing Electors, and to the response of members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, both in their legislative capacity and as individual citizens, to these infringements as he prepared to preside over the qualification of Electors and the tabulation of Elector College votes. We urged him to reject the Electoral College votes received from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the Joint Session of Congress on January 6, 2021, and advised that we were prepared to appoint Electors for President and Vice President, if called upon to do so.
December 28, 2020: I joined 16 other members of the House of Representatives in issuing a report highlighting the difficulties in matching numbers from official county-level election returns to the state-level data contained within the Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE) system. We view this exercise in the same light you would to reconcile your personal checkbook at home. We continue to track this data and questions still remain regarding its accuracy.
January 2, 2020: I delivered a letter to my Republican colleagues in the General Assembly detailing why I believed it was critical to exercise the General Assembly’s plenary authority over presidential electors, not only due to outstanding questions surrounding the 2020 General Election, but also in defense of the General Assembly’s overall authority in other matters.
January 5, 2020: I rose to seek recognition six times during a joint session of the General Assembly for the purpose of lodging an objection to formally accepting the results of three other statewide races due to outstanding questions surrounding the 2020 General Election. I was not recognized due to a parliamentary prohibition on the recognition of members during such a joint session. However, my objection was later acknowledged, duly spread across the record, and will be recorded in the official House Journal, the permanent record of the House of Representatives.
So there you have it. Again, I pledge to continue to work at this and to rebuild confidence in Pennsylvania’s electoral systems. As a member of the House State Government Committee and as the Speaker’s designee to the Joint State Government Commission’s Election Law Advisory Board, it certainly looks like my agenda for the first half of 2021 is already full.
The struggle was real, but I will continue to persist on your behalf.
