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Urgent: Pass Convention of States resolution in Pennsylvania
| We should all be furious over what happened to both the Pennsylvania and U.S. Constitutions over the past two years. But first, some good news. We are close to finalizing the prime sponsors for our Article V resolution (to propose fiscal restraints, term limits, and other limits on federal power) in both the Pennsylvania House and Senate. I hope to be able to let you know later this week or next that we have resolution introduction activities underway in both chambers. Given the actions taken by both the House and Senate State Government Committees on Article V resolutions in 2019 and 2020, I expect we will quickly move through the committees this year. Now, the bad news. As you may already know, recently the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the last pending case involving the general election. This effectively ends any chance that judicial action will be taken to address the violations of both the state and federal constitution provisions that occurred prior to and after the election in Pennsylvania. So, now it’s up to we the citizens of Pennsylvania to set things straight. Currently, the Pennsylvania Constitution imposes tight restrictions on who can cast an absentee vote in an election. No-excuse mail-in voting is not currently authorized under the state Constitution. In early 2019 a bipartisan group of 27 senators co-sponsored and/or voted out of committee a bill that began the process of amending the Constitution to make no-excuse mail-in voting legal. The Constitution requires specific amendment language to be passed in two consecutive sessions of the General Assembly, followed by a statewide vote by eligible PA electors. Under this process, since the bill passed in the 2019/2020 legislative session, the soonest this amendment could be placed before the voters would be mid-2021, after the 2020 general election was over. This amendment has yet to be introduced in 2021. If it is, it should be strongly opposed. The infuriating part is that the General Assembly also began working on a piece of legislation in mid-2019 that was initially designed to make various changes to the PA Election Code unrelated to no-excuse mail-in voting. There was no mention of no-excuse mail-in voting in the drafts of this legislation until October 2019, right before it was passed by both chambers of the General Assembly and signed by the governor. This legislation is now known as Act 77. This was evidently done without regard to the need to first amend the Pennsylvania Constitution and without regard to the fact that that process had been started but not completed. All 27 senators who supported the effort to amend the PA Constitution to make no-excuse mail-in voting legal also voted for Act 77. This completely illegal action is the basis for the Kelly, et al complaint that was filed in PA Commonwealth Court last November. It was found to have merit by the Commonwealth Court, rejected by the PA Supreme Court on procedural grounds, and was pending before the U.S. Supreme Court until last month. Considering the Covid response and the election disaster, I cannot think of a time when all three branches of the Pennsylvania government have so completely and disastrously failed the citizens of the Commonwealth. This past year should be a huge wake-up call for all Pennsylvanians as to the magnitude of the problems we have in state government. They not only completely ignored their oaths of office to protect and defend both the PA and U.S. Constitutions, but they also completely disenfranchised every single voter in Pennsylvania over a year before the last election occurred. Act 77 is unconstitutional and consequently illegal, and it should not have existed prior to the last election. There are a number of actions we need to press the General Assembly to take to reaffirm the obligations they have under both the state and federal constitutions. I will send you those details next week in Part II. In the meantime, if you have any questions about this information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks, Steve Davies Convention of States Pennsylvania State Director [email protected] www.conventionofstates.com # | LEADER_POSITION_FORM{leader_position:volunteer_activist} | # |
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| Login Required to view? | No |
| Created: | 2021-04-01 20:47 GMT |
| Updated: | 2025-02-19 04:57 GMT |
| Published: | 2021-04-05 04:00 GMT |
| Converted: | 2025-11-11 11:57 GMT |
| Change Author: | Steven Polgar |
| Credit Author: | Steve Davies |
public/cb_mirror/urgent_pass_convention_of_states_resolution_in_pennsylvania_txt_blogposts_12064.txt · Last modified: 2025/11/11 11:57 by 127.0.0.1