PA Republicans take a bogey
Republicans in the Pennsylvania Legislature, including Rep. Matt Dowling of the 51st District, which includes Fayette and Somerset counties, willingly, eagerly, enthusiastically participated in a charade last week. They put their names to a resolution declaring that the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania were “in dispute,” and thus sought to delay, hopefully deny, the certification of the election outcome. What a farce.
The Republicans who put their names to the resolution kowtowed to a petulant President Donald J. Trump, who lost the national election by more than 8 million votes, including more than 800,000 in Pennsylvania, and who lost numerous legal challenges to the outcome in swing states, including a devastating Pennsylvania Supreme Court defeat and another in a Pennsylvania federal court by a judge who, get this, was appointed by Trump.
The Pennsylvania Republicans’ resolution had no significance. It was hollow. Its sole purpose was to demonstrate their fealty to Trump and his supporters that they will need for reelection, even though Trump, by then, will be counting strokes hitting golf balls out of sand traps at his golf courses and not votes he lost in Pennsylvania in 2020.
But here is the kicker to the resolution signed by the Republicans, including Dowling, who won his reelection overwhelmingly, keeping Fayette and Somerset “red”: If Pennsylvania’s election results were not certified by Nov. 30, as petitioned by the Republicans, none of them would be in office because their terms would have expired on that date. They would not be duly elected. Their resolution was not a verdict. It was a fixed purpose. It was a joke.
Richard Ringer
Uniontown