Metcalfe keeps wasting time
Nothing says Pennsylvania politics like pointless, partisan legislative proposals that have exactly zero chance of adoption. And when it comes to go-nowhere proposals, state House Rep. Daryl Metcalfe of Butler County leads the way.
The 12-term Republican, who has openly admitted in the past that he only advances legislation from his own party, found more than 30 other GOP lawmakers — two of whom only recently won election and haven’t yet taken office — willing to support a letter to the governor calling for a special legislative session about the 2020 election.
Mr. Metcalfe wants the General Assembly, which adjourned for the year Nov. 30, called back into session by the governor to address what he terms are election issues. His letter outlined 15 questions related to the election.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Tom Wolf provided the answer everyone knew was coming from the start: There will be no special session of the Legislature.
And that is the appropriate response to such a waste-of-time proposal. The Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly rejected baseless claims from President Donald Trump’s lawyers about election fraud. U.S. Attorney General William Barr, a consistent supporter of the president, said the Justice Department found no evidence of widespread fraud. Pennsylvania’s Department of State certified the election results and declared Joe Biden the winner of the presidential race by more than 80,000 votes over Mr. Trump.
It’s time to move on.
There is irony aplenty in Mr. Metcalfe’s request, not the least of which is the fact that he and his supporters won the election they are now contesting. Even though it is readily apparent that this effort is aimed at overturning the will of the electorate and finding a way to award Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes to Mr. Trump, Mr. Metcalfe and the others would be opening up their own election wins to further scrutiny.
The most telling example of how little interest there is in Mr. Metcalfe’s proposal can be found in the fact that no Republican legislative leader signed on to the letter.
Mr. Metcalfe’s letter requests such items as the logs indicating when dropbox ballots were collected and delivered, the list of private persons deputized to collect ballots, the number of challenged ballots cast and counted, and copies of contracts between counties and ballot-counting machine vendors.
A special session of the Legislature isn’t needed to obtain such public records. In fact, if Mr. Metcalfe is so interested in them, he should do what his constituents would do in such circumstances — file a request under the state’s Right to Know Law. That could prove to be an eye-opening experience for legislators to see what the public goes through to obtain documents.
Mr. Metcalfe routinely seeks the spotlight for absurd causes that quickly fizzle and are forgotten. Just a few months ago, he and some fellow Republicans attempted to impeach Gov. Wolf because they were unhappy with his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. That move, like this one, drew attention, but no action. Last week, he led a pointless court challenge to decertify the state’s election results, which the courts rejected.
There are serious issues ahead for the state, some of which might actually demand a special session of the Legislature. This is not one of them. It’s time for Mr. Metcalfe and others to place constructive action over publicity.