Pa. Republicans drop effort for investigative election panel

House majority leader defends the idea but says now is the 'wrong time' for it.

• Cynthia Fernandez/Spotlight PA
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  Cynthia Fernandez covers the most important news and events from the Capitol and state legislature. She is a member of the second class of Lenfest Fellows, a program of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and supported by the Independence Public Media Foundation. Cynthia joined Spotlight PA from Boston, where she recently completed an undergraduate degree in journalism, with a concentration in computer science, from Boston University. She has interned at several news organizations, including Muck Rock, WBUR, and Boston Magazine. Most recently, she was a part-time breaking news reporter at the Boston Globe and a research assistant for their Spotlight team. A Cuban immigrant and Miami native, Cynthia is particularly interested in reporting on marginalized communities and how they interface with institutional and governmental systems.

 Kalim A. Bhatti / Philadelphia Inquirer

The Pennsylvania State Capitol.

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(Harrisburg) — Pennsylvania Republicans have dropped their plan to create a panel with subpoena power to investigate elections, an effort Democrats feared would represent a “stealth attack” on voting.

The resolution would have created a committee of five House lawmakers — three Republicans and two Democrats — to investigate and review the Nov. 3 election. The group would have been empowered to subpoena “witnesses and documents” and initiate legal filings.

In an email to House lawmakers Friday, Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R., Centre) said he had removed the controversial resolution from the voting calendar “for the remainder of this legislative session” after talking with members.

“The common themes from those conversations show that you understand this select committee was being formed with the best of intentions, but the left and their media allies distorted the image of a bipartisan committee into a nefarious effort on our part to interfere with the upcoming election,” he said. “Nothing can be further from the truth. This caucus has maintained its commitment to the security and safety of our election with on-time results for months.”

Benninghoff said forming the committee “is the right policy,” but that now is the “wrong time to run the proposal.”

Elizabeth Randol, legislative director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said when the proposal was put forward that “If the House fails to address the questions and concerns about the scope and timeline of the select committee, then we must assume that this is just the latest attempt to sow chaos and confusion in advance of the election and threatens to further undermine the public’s confidence in the process.”

At the time, House minority leader Frank Dermody called the proposal a coup attempt.

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