GOP meeting ends with no resolution on Toomey

A state Republican Party meeting in Pennsylvania to discuss whether to censure U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., recessed late Wednesday night without resolution after roughly five hours because of technical difficulties in counting votes, committee members on the call said.

Party officials are taking Toomey to task for his vote to convict Donald Trump during the former president’s second impeachment trial.

Toomey’s vote — and his earlier assessment that Trump had committed “impeachable offenses” in connection with the Jan. 6 attack

on the U.S. Capitol — set off a wave in Pennsylvania of pro-Trump county and local party condemnations of Toomey.

The video meeting involved the question of whether to censure Toomey, along with top Democratic officials in Pennsylvania, including Gov. Tom Wolf, or to express disappointment and

disagreement with Toomey’s vote to convict Trump, members on the call said. Toomey appeared on the meeting to defend himself, as did U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Trump supporter, they said.

The vote by Toomey was “unconstitutional, dangerous in its precedent, divisive, and lacking in due process and regard for the rights of the accused,” the resolution, authored in part by South Coventry committee member Mark Woolfrey, stated.

The state party brass have remained silent publicly about the meeting, and did not release a date to continue it, members said.

A censure vote is a symbolic gesture that may have no real effect on Toomey, who announced in October that he will not run again for office.

Thomas Donohue, GOP executive vice chairman, said the local leadership had decided to cancel the meeting Chairman Dr. Gordon Eck had announced at

the Feb. 16 nominating convention until the state committee took action.

There are 13 current members of the state committee from Chester County, including former county Sheriff Carolyn “Bunny” Welsh, an ardent and early supporter of Trump; former state Rep. Becky Corbin, former county Controller Norman McQueen, and county committee Assistant Secretary Trish Milanese, among others, according to the committee’s website.