HARRISBURG – May 25, 2022 – Today, Pennsylvania Senate Democrats wrote the following letter to Republican leaders in response to rampant gun violence and mass shootings that have become too common in the United States. Just this year, 215 mass shootings have taken place in the country, with the devastating shooting that occurred at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas on May 24, 2022, being the 215th.
In the letter, the caucus calls on the Republican majority to act on “reasonable and responsible legislation and appropriations” that does not infringe on Second Amendment rights but will help keep guns away from bad actors and support gun violence prevention. Senate Democrats list seven bills that have been introduced to mitigate gun violence but have sat in committee with no discussion or votes. They also highlight how American Rescue Plan dollars and Pennsylvania’s current budget surplus can be used to help communities prevent horrific violence.
Loading...
Harrisburg – September 23, 2021 – State Senate Democrats issued the following statement announcing the filing of an application for relief in Commonwealth Court in response to the Senate Republican subpoena of the Department of State, including the request of sensitive personal data of voters:
“Our application for relief requests a delay to the October 1, 2021 response deadline included in the subpoena issued to the Department of State and also seeks to enjoin the Senate Republicans from entering into any binding contract that would commit taxpayer funds to a third-party vendor until such time as the court makes a ruling on the lawsuit we filed last week.
This is a critical step in protecting taxpayer dollars from waste and inappropriate expenditures until the court has an opportunity to consider the legality of the subpoena. Waiting for the courts to review and rule on the subject is warranted due to the sensitive nature of the information being sought, particularly given the very real public concerns that have been raised surrounding privacy concerns.
Notwithstanding any one party’s personal viewpoints, we should all agree that the gravity of this matter constitutes serious and thoughtful consideration.”
A copy of the filing can be found HERE.
The Democratic members of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee are Caucus Whip Anthony H. Williams, Committee Chair; Caucus Leader Jay Costa; Caucus Appropriations Chair Vincent J. Hughes; and Caucus Judiciary Chair Steven J. Santarsiero.
###
Application for Relief
Harrisburg – September 17, 2021 – The Democratic members of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee issued the following statement announcing a lawsuit filed today against a Senate Republican subpoena of the Department of State, including the request of sensitive personal data of voters:
“The latest ploy by the Senate Republicans is unprecedented and completely unwarranted. All aspects of the certified 2020 election have been thoroughly reviewed and adjudicated in the courts with no findings of irregularities or fraud. The timeframe to contest the 2020 certified election results is long overdue.
The unprecedented maneuver of collecting the sensitive personal information of millions of voters without their consent, including Social Security information and driver’s license, for political purposes is unjustifiable and a gross misuse of taxpayer resources. The fact that they will not share how that personal information will be stored, used or who will have access to it is astonishing.
Our lawsuit seeks a declaration from the court that it is a violation of Pennsylvania law to convene a legislative standing committee to issue subpoenas for multiple election records, including private voter information, to investigate the allegations of wrongdoing or to confirm election results. The Judiciary has the exclusive power over the trial and determination of contested elections under the Pennsylvania Constitution and the state Election Code. A legislative effort to use taxpayer funds to investigate the allegations of wrongdoing or to confirm election results violates the separation of powers doctrine where the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee simply has no statutory authority to proceed in this manner.
The consequences are dire; the committee’s subpoena requests for private voter information applicable to each and every voter in the Commonwealth, which will be provided to an undisclosed third-party vendor with no prescribed limits or protection. Simply put, Senate Republicans seek to go on a fishing expedition for clearly partisan purposes, despite the fact that the Secretary of the Commonwealth, working in concert with the county Boards of Election, has undertaken a thorough review of the election, as has the bipartisan Senate Special Committee on Election Integrity and Reform.
Senate Democrats will continue the fight to protect the identity of private citizens and their right to vote without intimidation. This is nothing more than an inexcusable attempt to erode public trust in our electoral process. We must not sacrifice the most fundamental principal of our democracy so that some may pursue political gain by perpetuating the Big Lie that this election was somehow stolen.
The Democratic members of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee are Caucus Whip Anthony H. Williams, Committee Chair; Caucus Leader Jay Costa; Caucus Appropriations Chair Vincent J. Hughes; and Caucus Judiciary Chair Steven J. Santarsiero.
Download lawsuit →
Harrisburg – September 15, 2021 – Following today’s Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee hearing, of which had one agenda item- Consideration of a motion to authorize the issuance of subpoenas- Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa, Democratic Chair of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee, Anthony H. Williams, and committee members Vincent J. Hughes and Steve Santarsiero held a press conference to discuss legal action they will take to challenge Republican members’ call for confidential data from the Department of State, including a complete list containing the names, dates of birth, driver’s license numbers, and last four digits of social security numbers of all registered voters within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as of May 1, 2021.
Lawsuits filed by Senate Democrats will be in direct response to Senate Republicans’ far-reaching subpoena, which they argue is a violation of the separation of powers. The forthcoming lawsuit will ask the courts to confirm that the Senate is not the place to conduct an untimely election contest or to undertake an audit that will force election officials to violate federal law and invade the privacy of each and every Pennsylvania voter. The Senate does not have authority to perform either. Senate Democrats will also request to have courts protect the secrecy of ballots, which is a constitutional protection in Pennsylvania, as well as additional personal voter information Senate Republicans are seeking. The committee members also plan to file an injunction against the subpoena, asking the court to hold those until their lawsuit is heard in court.
“Facts are facts, and the law is non-negotiable. Unfortunately for Senate Republicans, those realities don’t bode well for them in this investigation. Despite their quest to engage in a partisan exercise that wastes taxpayer resources and only seeks to prove a Big Lie about an election that has already been audited and certified, our goal is not to make this a Democrat vs. Republican fight. Our goal is to follow the law at both the state and federal level,” said Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa. “I really regret to see Senator Corman commit more and more to this path that he himself admitted was wrong back in 2020. We must not sacrifice the most fundamental principal of our democracy-fair and equal elections- so that some may pursue political gain by perpetuating the Big Lie that this election was stolen.”
Senator Dush confirmed he has yet to determine who will handle the millions of records he’s requesting or how the investigation will use the copious amounts of data. He did confirm the investigation would be paid for with taxpayer money, yet he is unwilling to share publicly about vendors he’s vetting. Decisions related to the investigation will be made with his partisan “team” of legal counsel and potentially with GOP colleagues. If millions of personal records are subpoenaed from the Secretary of State, they will be held by Republican counsel, although no details were shared on how those records would stay secure against physical or digital breach. The hearing concluded with a 7-4 vote along party lines in favor of the subpoena, with two Republican members who actively tried to overturn the 2020 election results voting “yes”.
“What transpired at our first hearing should concern everyone involved,” said Senate Democratic Whip and ranking member of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee, Anthony H. Williams. “And if the first hearing wasn’t enough to warrant concern, consider now Senate Republicans are asking for personal information of millions of people across the commonwealth with no plan for how they will keep the data secure, how they will use it to investigate their conspiracy theory, or who will be responsible for cleaning up the mess if there is a data breach. So, while Senate Republicans play this dangerous game with our democracy and the personal information of Pennsylvanians, Senate Democrats will stay on the side of the law and truth. I hope our colleagues eventually join us.”
“We do not need personal information to draft legislation. That fact, along with so many others clearly shows this so-called investigation represents corruption at every turn,” added Senator Vincent Hughes, who is a committee member and Democratic Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “We’ve had one witness in this investigation so far. He was presented as a concerned county official, but during his testimony we learned he’d been in contact with elected officials in 2020 trying to overturn fair and credible election results. Now our committee is issuing subpoenas for personal voter records related to an election that has been audited several times and certified. I question what Senate Republicans hope the outcome of all this is. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, and all I’ve seen so far is a lot of smoke that leads back to one Big Lie from a former President who lost in Pennsylvania. The evidence of Republican attempts to overturn the results of a legitimate election is growing.”
Less than a week ago, Republican Chair of the Intergovernmental Operation Committee, Senator Chris Dush, convened a hearing with just one witness: Commissioner and Chair of the Fulton County Board of Election Stuart Ulsh. During his testimony it was revealed Commissioner Ulsh emailed Senator Judy Ward and Representative Jesse Topper from his private email account on November 9, 2020, stating, “The people are asking who all is in this fight with Senator Mastriano. It couldn’t hurt the Trump campaign if our state Representatives all got involved. If we don’t stop this election problems next will be worse. If there were 109 house and 27 senate with Senator Mastriano it would be a big help. The people need this. Respect their vote.”
“The Republicans’ subpoena is a brazen attempt to use public taxpayer dollars to fund a partisan effort to contest the 2020 election,” said committee member and ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Steve Santarsiero. “This is absolutely an attack on the freedom to vote, where the confidential, personal information of 7 million Pennsylvanians is being given to private entities that are accountable to no one other than the Senate Republican caucus. It was revealed today that it is possible one or more of these vendors could have been in the employ of either Donald Trump or someone associated with his campaign or supporting his campaign. This lack of transparency and accountability should worry every Pennsylvanian and every American. As to the information that came out of last week’s hearing, we are calling on U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the activities that unfolded in Fulton County in December of 2020, which apparently involved granting partisan consultant access to sensitive voter information without a public vote. These activities need to be investigated for potential violations of federal law.”
###
Harrisburg – September 9, 2021 – The Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee held a hearing today to allegedly examine the PA Department of State’s evolving guidance to counties during the monumental 2020 general election. Testimony today from the Chairman of the Fulton County Commissioners and the Board of Elections revealed that despite all evidence indicating the elections in the county were run smoothly with regular communication and information from the PA Dept. of State, investigations occurred on Fulton County voting machines recommended by Senate Republican members with no information on who paid for such investigations.
“It is disgraceful that Senate Republicans have chosen to waste our time calling into question the legitimacy of an election that four of their members on the Intergovernmental Operations committee were elected in, and that have been certified and held up in numerous courts of law,” Sen. Anthony H. Williams (D- Delaware/Philadelphia), Democratic Chair of the Intergovernmental Operations Committee, said.
Senate Democratic Leader, Jay Costa (D- Allegheny) continued, “The Intergovernmental Operations Committee should not be examining elections because their committee simply does not have the authority to do so. Despite this fact, we heard in sworn testimony today that the Department of State did their due diligence in effectively communicating with counties about new voting procedures as a result of Act 77 of 2019 and the further implications of an unprecedented global pandemic.”
Fulton County Commissioner and Chair of the county Board of Elections, Stewart Ulsh, said in today’s hearing that in his five years and a half years overseeing elections, he has never had so much contact with the Pennsylvania Department of State. Ulsh stated, under oath, that despite numerous changes to voting procedures as a result of Act 77 of 2019, Fulton County found no fraud in their elections and faced no major challenges in conducting the 2020 elections.
During the hearing, Sen. Steve Santarsiero (D- Bucks) asked Ulsh about the election assessment conducted in Fulton County by Wake Technology services and published in February of 2021.
Ulsh said that he felt an investigation was needed after the November 2020 elections, and a member of the Senate Republican Caucus gave him the name of Wake Technology Services for the purposes of reviewing the Fulton County 2020 lection.
Ulsh repeatedly stated that he does not know where the money came from to pay Wake Technology Services, even though they were given full access to voting information in the county, and Ulsh was also unwilling to answer why a draft report of the election assessment was altered before being posted to the county website to include information regarding potential issues with county voting machines.
Despite insistence by Commissioner Ulsh that the report by Wake Technology Systems listed who paid for the assessment, no mention of this is found in the actual report found in full on Fulton County’s website.
Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus said they found it extremely disconcerting that information about payment regarding county election assessments is being withheld from the public domain.
Sen. Vincent Hughes (D- Montgomery/Philadelphia) also stated in the hearing that reporting has shown that Commissioner Ulsh, along with fellow Fulton County Commissioner Randy Bunch, contacted sitting Republican members of the legislature to urge them to support the calls of former President Trump and Sen. Doug Mastriano (R- Adams/Cumberland/Franklin/York) to label 2020 as rigged and stolen election, despite absolutely no proof of any wrongdoing.
“There is a nationally-orchestrated effort to deny people the right to vote,” said Sen. Steve Santarsiero (D- Bucks), member of the Senate Intergovernmental Operations Committee. “It’s a scam. We are standing up to protect our citizens’ right to vote and not allow some elected officials pick the winners. It’s time for us to focus on protecting our communities, our healthcare system and our economy from the ravages of the pandemic. It’s time for us to focus on helping our residents and businesses racked by the damage of tornadoes and floods that are the effects of climate change.”
Senate Democrats continue to assert that it’s time to move past further review of the fair and credible election results of 2020 and get down to doing the people’s business. This includes actual improvements to the election system that the counties are requesting to assist them in carrying out elections more efficiently. Items like pre-canvassing of mail-in ballots, drop box security and ensuring sufficient resources to support poll workers as well as any new technology requirements are the Democratic Caucus’ priorities.
###
Reload document 
Open in new tab