Baker, Toomey comment on riots, certification vote

LEHMAN TWP. — Sen. Lisa Baker Thursday said there is nothing patriotic or courageous about attempting to derail democracy with violence.

“There is no constitutional right to lawlessness,” said Baker, R-Lehman Township.

Speaking about Wednesday’s assault on the U.S. Capitol, Baker saying Wednesday should have been a significant day when America demonstrated a central virtue of our democracy — ratifying the peaceful transition of power.

“Regrettably, today’s events devolved into a disgraceful, destructive, and deadly spectacle,” Baker said. “The assault on the United States Capitol halted not just the normal process, but diminished the efforts of those supportive of the views of the protesters.”

Baker went on to say, “It is appropriate for citizens to assemble, to petition their government, and to speak their truth for all to hear.”

Toomey addresses Senate

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh Valley, Wednesday night defended Pennsylvania’s election processes and spoke in opposition to the objection to Pennsylvania’s electoral college.

Later Wednesday evening, congressional members from Pennsylvania objected to the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes because they disapproved of the process that Pennsylvania used in the 2020 presidential election.

“In light of my expectation of this objection, I rise to defend the right of my citizens, my constituents, to vote in the presidential election,” Toomey said. “And let’s be clear, that’s exactly what this is about. It’s what it would do, it would overturn the results of the presidential election in Pennsylvania, and it would thereby deny Pennsylvania’s voters the opportunity to even participate in the presidential election.”

Toomey said even if Congress did have the constitutional responsibility to judge the worthiness of a state’s election process, which he said it does not, rejecting Pennsylvania’s electoral votes”would still be wildly out of proportion to the purported offenses and very damaging to our republic.”

Toomey then offered a few facts about Pennsylvania.

“First, some of the objectors, in fact even the President of the United States this morning, have observed that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court disregarded existing law when it ruled that mail-in ballots could be counted even if they arrived up to three days after the Election Day.

“Now, the objectors are right about that. In my view, the Supreme Court of the United States should overturn that illegal decision. But Mr. President, only 10,097 ballots arrived in Pennsylvania during the three days after the election. And those 10,097 ballots have been excluded from the vote count that resulted in President-elect Biden winning Pennsylvania by about 80,000 votes.

“What greater remedy could the objectors possibly want than the complete exclusion of the late-arriving ballots? How could we possibly invalidate the entire Pennsylvania election over 10,000 votes that were not even included in the vote count?”

Toomey said a second charge heard is a 2019 Pennsylvania law that allows mail-in ballots for any reason that might violate the Pennsylvania constitution.

“Well first of all, as Sen. (Bob) Casey observed, this was a bipartisan law passed with nearly unanimous Republican support,” Toomey said. “Clearly, the state legislators and the governor believe it is consistent with the Pennsylvania constitution.

“Secondly, this law was not challenged when it was passed, it wasn’t challenged when it was applied during the June primary election. It was only challenged after President Trump lost the general election.

“But 2.6 million Pennsylvanians voted by mail-in ballot in the general election. Over 37% of Pennsylvania voters, in good faith, relied on a law to cast their vote, as they had done previously.

“Now, I understand you can make a theoretical argument about whether this is consistent with Pennsylvania’s constitution. And that needs to be resolved for future elections. But because of this constitutional question that some people have, the objectors want to prevent Pennsylvania voters from participating in the presidential election entirely. That would be an outrageous remedy to this purported offense.”

Toomey said a third charge heard is that Pennsylvania officials did not properly implement Pennsylvania election law in a variety of other ways.

“But the Trump campaign has shown that many of these issues have; well first of all, none of these would have changed the election outcome, but more importantly, the campaign had many opportunities of which it availed itself to litigate these issues. They did time and again. And they lost repeatedly; often in unanimous, bipartisan decisions.”

“Now some of the objectors also cite Congress’ own failure to investigate allegations of election irregularities. And that’s their justification for refusing to certify election results. But the allegations of election irregularities and fraud have been investigated. They’ve been adjudicated. They were adjudicated in the states in which they’re alleged to have occurred.

Toomey added, “Certainly there were irregularities in this election, there always are, but there’s no evidence of significant fraud, conspiracies, or even significant anomalies that cast any serious doubt on who actually won the election.”

“As I’ve said, it is not our responsibility to sit in judgment of state election procedures in the first place. But if it were, there would not be nearly sufficient reason to deny my constituents their right to participate in this presidential election.”

Toomey concluded by stating: “Joe Biden won the election. It’s not what I had hoped for, but that’s what happened. It was an honest victory. With the usual, minor, irregularities that occur in most elections.”

And then Toomey said: “We witnessed today the damage that can result when men in power and responsibility refuse to acknowledge the truth. We saw bloodshed because a demagogue chose to spread falsehoods, and sew distrust of his own fellow Americans. Let’s not abet such deception. Let’s reject this motion.”