Frustrated Rep. Kelly fights Pa. voting law
WASHINGTON — A decade into his time on Capitol Hill, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Butler, is officially frustrated with politics.
“I came here with great hope,” he explained, “and now I’m filled with reality.”
That reality, he lamented during a wide-ranging interview Thursday morning, included an end-of-the-year churn of legislation that included bills dealing with ceiling fan efficiency, driftnet fishing, the ownership of big cats (inspired by “Tiger King”), and the
“Tiger King”), and the decriminalization of recreational marijuana — four measures Mr. Kelly sarcastically feigned excitement.
“Thank God we got that in there,” he said. “Forget about Social Security, forget about infrastructure — you know what, as long as you can puff weed and go to a nether-land and feel good — all right, thank you, Congress!”
Indeed, Mr. Kelly has had other things on his mind lately.
The colorful, outspoken and occasionally controversial 72-year-old congressman from Butler, who won reelection last month by about 19 percentage points, has been arguing that the 2020 elections in Pennsylvania were administered in an unconstitutional way.
Mr. Kelly’s legal challenge — filed along with Sean Parnell, the Republican who lost last month to 17th District Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon — is part of the broader long-shot legal strategy by President Donald Trump’s campaign and its allies to claim that his loss last month to President-elect Joe Biden was somehow illegal, illegitimate or tainted by extraordinary election measures put into place this year during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Those legal efforts have been rejected by the courts. Nearly 50 lawsuits in several states have been thrown out by judges, many of them Republicans and Trump appointees. Attorney General William Barr said this month that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the election, and all 50 states have certified the election results.
On Monday, the country’s electors are scheduled make the results official by casting their votes for Mr. Biden.
Last week, the U. S. Supreme Court rejected Mr. Kelly’s emergency appeal to void the results of the Nov. 3 election in a one-sentence decision with no noted dissents from the court, which holds a 6-3 conservative majority after three justices were appointed by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Kelly’s case argues that an October 2019 state law that allowed “no-excuse” voting by mail, required an amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution. The suit sought to toss out some 2.6 million ballots cast by Pennsylvanians who requested a ballot without a reason, which would hand Mr. Trump the state’s electors.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected the case, reasoning that the plaintiffs should have challenged the law’s constitutionality long before votes had been cast.
In the interview, Mr. Kelly insisted that the fight was not over. And on Saturday, he demonstrated that: A news release from his office said he again had gone to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to consider the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s Act 77 “mail-in voting scheme.”
“I’m looking at what happened in this election,” Mr. Kelly said before that news release was issued, “and we really believe that we were harmed ... .”
“There was a great deal of fraud; there was a great deal of corruption,” he added. “We’re not sore losers. What we’re afraid of losing is not an election. What we’re afraid of losing is the greatest nation the world has ever known because of what took place.”
No support
His crusade to toss out ballots comes as lawmakers have been at odds on another round of COVID-19 relief for several months.
Mr. Kelly said he supports none of the measures currently proposed because he believes they contain too much wasteful spending. He supports neither the $500 billion bill Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, RKy., has put forth, nor the $908 billion bill a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed this month, nor the $916 billion bill the White House proposed just days later.
Mr. Kelly — whose 15th Congressional District covers the northwestern corner of the state from Butler to Erie — veered between optimism that Congress can work together and a more jaded outlook of politics being broken beyond repair.
The congressman sits on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax policy, tariffs and social safety-net programs like Medicare, Social Security and unemployment benefits. He said he had a “very good relationship” with Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chair of that committee.
“He and I were on the floor the other day, and I said, ‘Richie, let’s try to get together and have breakfast after Mass, or I [can] come to your office and sit down,’” Mr. Kelly said. (Both men are Catholic.)
Mr. Kelly said he wants the committee, which last year helped draw up the biggest retirement reform bill since 2006, to pursue further changes to make it easier for people to self-fund their retirement to ease the burden on government programs. He expects the committee to seek common ground on lowering drug costs, including his proposal to create a pathway for generic insulin.
He also called for an infrastructure bill, an elusive spending package that virtually every lawmaker supports but lacks a consensus on how to pay for it.
Mr. Kelly said he would redirect taxpayer money that he said he believes is being wasted — and would also consider new taxes.
“People are going to have to pay some kind of tax for it,” Mr. Kelly said. Americans “don’t mind paying taxes as long as the money is spent with a positive return on that investment,” which better roads, bridges, airports and internet connections would provide.
But Mr. Kelly bristled at the notion of congratulating Mr. Biden on his victory.
“Is that a serious question?” he asked.
Assured that it was, he pointed to the Democrats’ lack of willingness to work with Mr. Trump, including his impeachment by the House in 2019, which resulted in Mr. Trump’s acquittal by the Senate this year.
“Is there some type of amnesia that came with this COVID?” Mr. Kelly responded.
Some Republicans have urged Mr. Trump to accept the results, like Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., the highestranking elected Republican in Pennsylvania. Mr. Toomey told the Philadelphia Inquirer last week that he spoke with Mr. Biden by phone, congratulated him on his victory, and spoke about ways they could work together.
Mr. Toomey also criticized Mr. Trump’s efforts to change the results of the election.
“It’s completely unacceptable and it’s not going to work and the president should give up trying to get legislatures to overturn the results of the elections in their respective states,” Mr. Toomey told the newspaper.
Mr. Kelly said that, while he would not criticize Mr. Toomey’s view, “Me personally, I’m not ready to shake hands.”