As children, whether in school or from Saturday mornings’ School House Rock, we learned about the separation of powers in the structure of our government. It seems some elected leaders didn’t learn those lessons.
27 PA legislators filed suit against Governor Shapiro, the PA Department of State, and President Biden for actions taken that usurp the role of the legislative branch of government. The US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania dismissed the case claiming the legislators did not have “standing” to bring the case because the litigation was not brought by the entire PA legislature.
The legislators filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit and also requested that the US Supreme Court take up the issue of standing, so the merits of the case can be heard. Their Supreme Court filing, which can be seen here, quotes Justice Thomas’ warning from three years ago about the potential catastrophic impact that non-legislative actions could have on election results.
The Underlying Issues
- Presidential Executive Order #14019 – commanding all federal agencies to conduct voter registration drives with approved third-party organizations;
- Governor Shapiro’s Executive Order establishing automatic voter registration when getting a driver’s license, bypassing the legislative process which already voted against the practice;
- PA political appointees are ignoring PA law and instead issuing directives to change the manner of elections.
Bottom line…
Good legislators in the PA assembly are fighting for equal branches of government as our founding fathers intended. If the executive branch of the federal or state government is allowed to usurp the power of the legislature, then we no longer live in a representative republic, but a dictatorship. Keystone Fair Business Partners has supported the efforts of these legislators and would like to continue to do so. Join us in that effort!
