DV Journal

Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, whose public pledge to “violate” election laws and vote to count ineligible ballots made her a national figure of scorn, apologized to the 1,000 or so angry citizens who showed up at Wednesday’s commission meeting.

“I made a mistake, and because I am an elected official, I am held to a far higher standard than everybody else. So, to the citizens I serve, I apologize, and I will continue to work hard for you and endeavor to not make such a mistake again,” she told the crowd.

They were not appeased.

Commissioners Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia

“Diane, you blatantly thumbed your nose at the voters of Bucks County,” said Fran Grous during the public comment period.

Last Thursday, while conducting her duties as a member of the Election Board, Ellis-Marseglia voted to count some 600 ineligible mail ballots. Explaining her decision, which ignored the clear directions of the courts, she said, “I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country. People violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”

While Ellis-Marseglia did offer an apology, she offered little in the way of remorse. Instead, she complained about the negative press, and claimed to have received profanity-laced phone calls and emails.

She also claimed her comments were in reference to provisional ballots, not mail-in ballots. And, she added, the comment about ignoring precedent “was referring to the United States Supreme Court and the precedent that has been lost on many issues, including Roe v. Wade.”

That remark inspired boos from the attendees. Ellis-Marseglia gaveled them into silence.

During public comment, many called upon Ellis-Marseglia and her fellow Democratic commissioner Bob Harvie — who also voted to count the ineligible ballots — to resign.

“We’ve been called election deniers, racists, conspiracy theorists,” said Bucks County resident Beth Curcio said. “Did I leave anything out? We, the people of Bucks County, are fed up. Yes, you’re hearing us loud and clear. You cheat and steal our elections. It’s exactly why you want machines and mail-in ballots because Bucks is really red, and you don’t like it, and you can’t win.”

Rochelle Porto also called on the two to resign, adding, “Josef Stalin said many years ago, ‘Elections matter, but who counts the votes matters more.’ You didn’t like the outcome, so you decided it was OK to break the law.”

Christine Figueroa told the commissions that she “wasn’t one of those election deniers in 2020,” but now she has questions about how elections are handled.

“After seeing what happened this time around, there can be no denying that certain people on the left have honed these cheating skills for a very long time before we woke up to it.”

An online petition to impeach the two Democratic Bucks County Commissioners being circulated by resident  Skip Salvesen had more than 3,000 signatures as of Wednesday.

Bucks County GOP Chair Pat Poprik was blunt: “Something’s wrong with how we’re conducting elections in Bucks County.”

“I stood at that Lower Bucks [early voting] office for eight hours, and to see people voting on a table, with no dividers, no chairs, under an awning, it’s incredible. That’s not our county. Or it shouldn’t be.

“Now it’s become the laughing stock and embarrassment,” Poprik added.

Doug Marshall of Lower Makefield said there is a “silver lining” in this situation. For the 2020 election, there was “always plausible deniability” that it was stolen. “But now, there is really no denying that the Democratic Party believes in power by any means necessary. And that is almost as significant a victory as the results of this election.”

Voting registration activist Scott Presler said they’d “flipped Bucks County from blue to red, and for the first time in modern history, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats here. Number two, voters were disenfranchised in this county.” He thanked RNC chairs Michael Whatley and Lara Trump for suing the county to add three more days to early voting. He then read Ellis-Marseglia’s quote on precedents not mattering.

Presler pointed out that the court had already ruled that misdated and undated ballots could not be counted, and “you knew that going into the meeting.”

He also told the two commissioners, “I have a message: “Peacefully, we are coming for your seat in 2027 if you don’t resign today.”

“Have at it,” Ellis-Marseglia replied.

The Bucks County Democrat who publicly declared her intention to violate election law and count inadmissible ballots now says her remarks were misinterpreted.

Bucks County Commission Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia made national headlines when a video of her statements regarding her vote to accept the improper mail ballots went viral.

“I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country. People violate laws any time they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it. There is nothing more important than counting votes,” Ellis-Marseglia said last Thursday.

On Monday, she backtracked, telling The Philadelphia Inquirer the backlash from rule of law advocates on both sides of the partisan aisle stemmed from a “misinterpretation of [an] inartfully worded statement on my part.”

“I apologize for all the upset and confusion it caused,” Ellis-Marseglia said.

Ellis-Marseglia made the initial comment during a Board of Elections meeting. Despite a Pennsylvania Supreme Court directive to the contrary, she argued that undated ballots should be counted.

Earlier on Monday, the state Supreme Court ruled yet again the ballots in question can’t be counted.

“The Court hereby ASSUMES its King’s Bench authority over the instant Application to DIRECT that all Respondents, including the Boards of Elections in Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Philadelphia County, SHALL COMPLY with the prior rulings of this Court in which we have clarified that mail-in and absentee ballots that fail to comply with the requirements of the Pennsylvania Election Code SHALL NOT BE COUNTED for purposes of the election held on November 5, 2024.” (All capitalization in original).

Longtime Pennsylvania political analyst Salena Zito told Fox News the court’s frustration with county Democrats is apparent in the ruling.

“If you read the ruling, the state Supreme Court, which is 5-2 Democrat majority, literally wrote it in all caps like saying ‘You guys, we told you this already, and you’re doing it, and so we’re going to tell you again’ like they were 7-year-old children,” Zito told Fox News. “So I thought that was pretty funny.”

Pushing the counties to count the ineligible ballots is U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, who is hoping additional ballots and a recount can reverse his narrow loss to Republican Dave McCormick. McCormick currently leads Casey by more than 17,000 votes, according to unofficial returns. Both the Associated Press and DecisionDeskHQ have called the race for McCormick, making it one of the biggest upsets of the 2024 election cycle.

Despite being declared the loser, Casey has refused to concede. A state law-mandated recount is underway and is expected to be completed by Nov. 27. The recount will cost approximately $1 million in taxpayer money to reexamine all ballots.

In a PennLive op-ed, Casey argued undated ballots have been a recurring issue in state elections. He claimed voters would be disenfranchised if their ballots were not counted, though he declined to reference the state Supreme Court’s rulings on the matter.

Hours after Casey’s article was published, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against him.

Republicans were quick to criticize Ellis-Marseglia, particularly in light of her $600 donation to Casey’s campaign.

“This board should follow the clear pronouncement of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court,” advised Wally Zimalong, an attorney for Republican McCormick’s U.S. Senate campaign.

Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita expressed outrage, vowing Ellis-Marseglia and others who violated election law would face criminal consequences. “Count on it,” he posted on social media.

“We will pursue to the fullest extent that we can,” Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley told reporters Monday.

Supreme Court Justice Kevin Brobson appeared to acknowledge Ellis-Marseglia’s statements in his concurring opinion Monday on the ballot decision.

“Indeed, this Court has held that administrative agencies, like county boards of elections, lack the authority to declare unconstitutional the very statutes from which they derive their existence and which they are charged to enforce,” Republican Brobson wrote.

Ellis-Marseglia claimed she was happy the state Supreme Court ordered all Boards of Election to disregard undated ballots.

“This is exactly what I was hoping for, for the court to weigh in and give us clarity … now we have full clarity,” she said.

The eyes of the nation were on Bucks County Commissioners last week as they considered whether to count flawed ballots in the hotly-contested U.S. Senate race between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and Republican Dave McCormick.

McCormick has been declared the victor by both the Associated Press and Decision Desk HQ, but Casey continues to insist the race isn’t over. Casey and his notoriously partisan attorney Marc Elias are pinning their hopes on outstanding ballots, many of them flawed and — based on previous court rulings — ineligible to be included in the final tally.

But that didn’t stop Bucks County Commissioners Chair Diane Ellis-Marseglia. Not only did she and her fellow Democrat Bob Harvie vote to count the flawed ballots, she publicly acknowledged their decision was contrary to the law.

“I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country,” she said after the fact. “People violate laws any time they want. So for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention to it.”

A video of her admission made a hit on social media, garnering millions of views. Republicans claimed it confirmed their belief that Democrats are willing to manipulate the law to win elections. The fact that Ellis-Marseglia donated $600 to Casey’s campaign in September, and Casey had backed two Bucks County Democrats in previous elections, didn’t help.

Bucks County isn’t alone. Philadelphia, Centre, and Montgomery County Democrats are also defying both the state Supreme Court and Pennsylvania law by including mail ballots that have no date, or have the wrong date, in their county’s final count.

The goal appears to be to help Casey close the gap with McCormick, who had a 17,000 vote lead as of late Sunday.

The public rejection of state law was so egregious that Secretary of State Al Schmidt felt the need to remind county commissioners to do their duty.

“@PAStateDept has reminded our county partners that ‘it is important to remember the history of litigation regarding undated and incorrectly dated [ballots]’ and to consult their solicitor ‘to ensure any decision rendered…is consistent with current law,’” Schmidt posted to X.

Pennsylvania state GOP chair Lawrence Tobias was more direct: “What’s taking place in these counties is absolute lawlessness.”

Not surprisingly, the Republican National Committee, the state GOP and the McCormick campaign are suing Bucks County. Legal experts agree that these ballots will be thrown out by the courts.

“Attorneys from the Bucks County Republican Committee (BCRC), Republican National Committee (RNC), PA GOP. and McCormick Team continue to fight to stop the Democrats from counting illegally cast ballots,” the Bucks County GOP said in a statement Sunday. “They filed a Petition to Review the 2-1 decision by the Democrat-led Board of Elections to count undated and misdated mail ballots in Bucks County Court of Common Pleas.

“Additionally, they filed challenges to the 2-1 decision by the Democrat-led Board of Elections to count undated and misdated provisional ballots. These decisions by the Board of Elections were against the advice of their own Solicitors and violative of the decisions by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and U.S. Third Circuit law.

“These decisions were an act of partisanship and defiance. We look forward to seeing these folks in Court for an explanation for this blatant attempt to count illegally cast ballots.”

Attorneys from the Bucks County Republican Committee (BCRC), Republican National Committee (RNC), PA GOP and McCormick Team continue to fight to stop the Democrats from counting illegally cast ballots. They filed a Petition to Review the 2-1 decision by the Democrat-led Board of Elections to count undated and misdated mail ballots in Bucks County Court of Common Pleas.

Additionally, they filed challenges to the 2-1 decision by the Democrat-led Board of Elections to count undated and misdated provisional ballots. These decisions by the Board of Elections were against the advice of their own Solicitors and violative of the decisions by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and U.S. Third Circuit law.

“These decisions were an act of partisanship and defiance. We look forward to seeing these folks in Court for an explanation for this blatant attempt to count illegally cast ballots.

Bucks County’s elected legislators also released a statement decrying how Democrats have handled the voting process overall. They pointed out that, during the early-voting period, Bucks County closed the three voting centers before people standing in line were able to cast their ballots.

“Over the last 3 weeks, both Bucks County as well as the Bucks County Commissioners have been thrown into national headlines regarding this year’s election:

• A Russian misinformation campaign, which led some to make politically charged accusations.
• A county judge ruling that the Bucks County Board of Elections violated the Pennsylvania Election Code.
• An elected County Commissioner openly defying a State Supreme court order.

“While all this has been ongoing, it has been unfortunate to see how quickly accusations have been lobbed against the legislature and not those actually in charge of conducting our elections. While we are disappointed in the actions of a few, we will continue to work to ensure the public’s faith in the election system,” the legislators wrote.

The statement was signed by state Sens. Frank Farry and Jarrett Coleman; and state Reps. Joe Hogan, Shelby Labs, Kristin Marcell, Craig Staats, and KC Tomlinson.

House Republican Leader Bryon Cutler (R-Lancaster) also weighed in, calling on Casey to concede and saying the recount is “costly” and “unnecessary.”

“Democrat-controlled counties are now openly defying the courts and the plain language of the election law to try and overturn a legal election result,” he noted.

Ellis-Marseglia did not respond to a request for comment.

Democrat commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia started a firestorm last week that has turned the eyes of the entire country, including U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton and the entire Washington Post Editorial Board, to Bucks County.

In a now-viral moment posted to X by the Bucks County GOP, and shared by the likes of Elon Musk, Commissioner Marseglia motioned to accept ballots in defiance of recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings.

While Bucks is not the only Democrat-led county to ignore the state Supreme Court in seeming attempt to help Democrat Sen. Bob Casey (who previously endorsed Marseglia in her 2023 election) retain his seat, the downright hubris in her comments at the November commissioners’ meeting is the reason for her current notoriety. (It is worth noting that Marseglia’s campaign committee donated to Bob Casey’s campaign this year.)

In her rationale for ignoring the rulings of the Democrat majority Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Marseglia stated, “I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country. People violate laws anytime they want. So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention. There’s nothing more important than counting votes.”

She did not display this same level of concern for counting all votes in October, when Bucks County turned away voters in line for on-demand mail-in ballots well before the deadline, and was forced to extend the on-demand mail-in ballot deadline by a Bucks County judge.

Her tenure as both commissioner and member of the board of elections was marred by additional lies in October, when reports of individuals with seemingly official election lanyards, that were not county employees, was brought up in a commissioners’ meeting in October. Marseglia immediately pointed the finger at Republicans, stating “they weren’t from the Democratic Party,” and alleging they were Republicans, absent any evidence.

As it turned out, the badges seemed to have the words “paid for by the Pennsylvania Democratic Party,” directly printed on them. Marseglia was wrong again, and faced no repercussions.

Marseglia’s open disrespect of  the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s authority to rule on election laws is a stain on election integrity for Bucks County. Nobody is above the law, including Commissioner Marseglia.

How can Bucks County voters have any trust in their elections when their commissioner, who is also a member of the board of elections, openly ignores the rule of law that exists to protect the integrity of our elections?

Marseglia’s carelessness has made Bucks County the epicenter of election denial. For her part, she should resign and apologize to the people of Bucks County.

Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick’s campaign, the state Republican Party and the Republican National Committee sued Bucks County over a Nov. 12 decision to accept 405 “undated and misdated” ballots.

“Dave McCormick won this election and is already participating in Senate orientation meetings,” said RNC Chairman Michael Whatley. “Meanwhile, Democrat officials and scam lawyers are aiding and abetting Bob Casey’s shameful attempts to steal back a Senate seat which he lost decisively. The RNC is filing a motion in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to ensure that Pennsylvania’s democratic process is not undermined by the inclusion of illegal ballots in the final vote count. Pennsylvanians are ready to move forward with Dave McCormick representing them in the Senate as Bob Casey torches whatever legacy he had with these anti-democratic schemes.”

“The GOP is also before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking it to uphold the law that requires mail in ballots be dated. In addition to Bucks County, Philadelphia and Centre counties, and possibly others are “took an impromptu vote to count undated or improperly dated ballots in bold defiance of Pennsylvania law and two state Supreme Court orders,” the GOP said in a news release.

“What’s taking place in these counties is absolute lawlessness and America is watching,” said Lawrence Tabas, chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party.  “We will not rest and will do everything in our power to make sure the law is upheld and voter confidence remains intact.”

The Bucks County lawsuit, filed in Common Pleas Court, says the law is clear, that voters who vote by mail must fill out the date on their outer ballot envelope.

“After years of repeatedly holding that the date requirement is mandatory, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court earlier this month reaffirmed that requirement,” the lawsuit said. It called the county Election Board’s decision not to enforce the ballot date law “baffling.”

“In what can only be understood as a confused or defiant action, the Bucks County Board of Elections has voted to count 405 mail ballots that do not comply with the date requirement. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has clearly prohibited this action. And to the extent anyone suggests that the date requirement violates the Materiality Provision of the federal Civil Rights Act, that too is wrong as a matter of law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has rejected that claim,” the suit said.

“Finally, the Board’s decision to count undated and incorrectly dated mail ballots in contravention of the Election Code violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and the Pennsylvania Constitution,” the suit said.

“Other county boards of elections have correctly decided not to count mail ballots that do not comply with the date requirement. Thus, allowing the Board to count such ballots would unconstitutionally create ‘varying standards to determine what [i]s a legal vote,’ the suit noted.

“In contravention of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s clear order that the date requirement is in force for the 2024 General Election, the Board voted 2-1 to count 405 mail ballots that were undated or that were dated but admitted ‘no reasonable interpretation of the voter’s handwritten date [that] would conform to the appropriate date range for this election.

“The Board did so even though its legal advisors recommended rejecting those ballots ‘based on the current state of law.’ Despite the recommendation from its legal advisors [and a warning that the county would likely be sued if it counted the ballots], the chair of the board, Diane Ellis-Marseglia, said ‘I just can’t vote to reject [these ballots]. I just can’t.”

She also said, “If I violate the law, I want a court to pay attention to it.”

“Vice Chair Robert Harvie then criticized the General Assembly’s decision to maintain the date requirement, arguing ‘the law needs to be changed.'”

Harvie called the law “pretty stupid.”

“It’s literally not possible for it to be a ballot from a different time period unless someone has figured out how to time travel,” Harvie said.

Harvie and Ellis-Marseglia then voted to count the undated and improperly dated ballots.  “Commissioner [Gene] DiGirolamo voted no, relying on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s admonition that the date requirement’s enforceability could not be changed for the 2024 General Election,” the suit said.

DiGirolamo is the sole Republican on the board.

James O’Malley, the spokesperson for Bucks County, did not respond to a request for comment.

Voters waiting in lines in Bucks County may see people with official looking badges on lanyards.

These people are not county election workers. They are Democratic operatives, some reportedly from as far afield as Massachusetts.

“If you look carefully, you’ll see it says ‘PA Dems’ on it,” said Pat Poprik, chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee. “People with questions see it says ‘Voter Protection’ and walk up to them. But then they make their pitch.”

They are allowed to be outside but in some cases, they’ve come inside the polling places and were asked to leave, said Poprik.

They are allowed to talk to voters outside but the ‘Voter Protection’ causes people to think they are voting officials and come over to them, she said.

“They’re as partisan as I am,” Poprik said. Once voters talk to them, instead of helping them, they give a pitch to vote for Democrats.

Voter registration in Bucks County recently flipped from majority Democrat to majority Republican. It is one of the counties that voter registration activist Scott Presler concentrated on. And Pennsylvania GOP Chair Lawrence Tabas said he’s been working toward narrowing the registration gap since he was elected to that position five years ago.

Five years ago, when he was elected state chair, the Democrats’ registration edge was more than 815,000. Now it’s down to 281,091.

Guy Ciarrocchi, a Republican strategist, said the Democratic operatives with lanyards are also showing up at polling places in Cumberland and Pike counties.

A spokesperson for Pennsylvania Democratic Party did not respond when asked to comment Tuesday.

Bucks County’s election problems have become national news, but the spotlight didn’t chase local voters away.

Instead, they waited in long lines Friday, the last day of additional early mail-in voting that a judge had ordered.

The ruling came after the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit against Bucks County, which had closed voting early during the on-demand mail-in ballot days the previous week. Those who were there before the cutoff times—5 p.m. in Doylestown and 4:30 p.m. at the two satellite locations—were given their ballots and allowed to put them in a drop box.

At the Levittown location, a crowd of more than 100 voters snaked around the building late Friday afternoon. Most had been there for two hours and had not reached the front of the line. Many wore Trump T-shirts or Trump stickers, which is not permitted at Election Day polling locations.

“It’s been crazy beyond words,” said Pat Poprik, Bucks County GOP chair, who was on hand. “These people waited in line for six hours.”

Candance Cabanas, the Republican running for state representative in the 140th district, offered people soft pretzels, bottled water and pizza from the GOP table.

Patty from Yardley had been in line for about an hour and 20 minutes.  She had come in the morning but learned the wait was four hours and decided to leave and come back.

“I will be out of the country on Tuesday,” she said, when asked why she was voting Friday. She’s traveling to Costa Rica.

Several others told DVJournal that they will be away on Election Day.

“I travel for work,’ said Dennis Sams, a data engineer from Fairless Hills resident. “I won’t be here next week. I was planning to vote Tuesday, but I found out I couldn’t.”

Nick Rampersuad had been in line for 2 ½ hours.

“I’ve got to travel Tuesday,” the Bristol resident said. “It’s my one chance to vote here. We got some pizza, free food.”

His daughter, Ariana, said, “It’s important to use your voice and you do that by voting.”

Leslie Lamonsoff of Levittown had been waiting “a couple of hours.”

“I thought it would be easier,” she said.  “But it will be just as bad on Tuesday.”

Bensalem resident Tiffany Cavitt is a first-time mom. She had a baby three weeks ago.

“I didn’t think I could bring him with me [to vote] and my husband will be out of town on Tuesday,” Cavitt said.

Some critics wonder if the long lines in Bucks County, which recently flipped from Democratic majority to Republican majority voter registrations, were intentional. Republican voter registration activist Scott Presler, was one who asked that on X. 

Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter whose Newtown Sports and Athletic Center has been the site of several Republican events, came to encourage the voters.

“I’m glad you’re covering this mess,” he told DVJournal. “This just shows you the importance of county government. You vote for these people, and they think this is the norm. It’s got nothing to do with Democrat or Republican. It’s the competency of the people you vote for.”

“Local government has nothing to do with abortion, immigration,” he said. “It has to do with keeping your roads clean, your snow plowed, voting, your parks. And people get the wrong idea, and they get snowed. They think I’m going to vote this way because they believe in this.

“National issues have nothing to do with where you live. And we have a big election coming next year, the DA election.  I’m a Republican. I believe in law and order. The fact of the matter is that it’s going be the most important election in Bucks County history. If we get a soft on crime person, this county’s in trouble,” Worthington said.

Later in the evening, the Trump bus stopped by. Trump surrogates former White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gridley, Congresswoman Victoria Spartz (R-Texas), economist Peter Navarro and Leo Terrell, a civil rights attorney, hopped off to a warm welcome from voters still waiting in line.

When Bucks County filed a lawsuit in March attempting to blame international energy companies for the alleged impacts of climate change on local communities, it was pursuing a controversial legal strategy that is likely to be challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court.

But now lawyers for these energy companies are asking the Common Pleas Court to throw out the Democrat-backed effort for failing to meet local standards, such as compliance with the Sunshine Act.

Across the nation, at least eight states and more than two dozen local governments– all governed by Democrats– have filed similar lawsuits. (In Bucks County, Republican minority Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo originally backed the lawsuit, but later reversed his position and no longer supports it.)

In the most prominent case, the City of Honolulu is suing many of the same large energy firms, including Exxon and Chevron, on a similar basis. The Supreme Court has indicated it is interested in taking up the issue.

But lawyers for those energy companies aren’t waiting to find out. They claim that in Bucks County, commissioners needed to advertise and vote at a public meeting on suing the oil companies “as mandated by the second-class county code.” Because they failed to do so, the attorneys argue, the case should be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning the county could not file it again.

“The authority to enact such resolutions or ordinances is held only by a majority vote of a quorum of the commissioners at a properly noticed meeting compliant with the open meeting requirements of the County Code [and the Sunshine Act],” the brief said.

The brief, filed Aug. 5, also cited other reasons Judge Robert J. Mellon should dismiss the case, including the fact that the federal Clean Air Act would preempt the county’s authority.

The county filed its action in Common Pleas Court, not federal court, an action taken by other local jurisdictions. Critics claim it’s a strategy to avoid federal rulings that would have a national impact on the lawsuits and instead force the energy companies to spend time and money fighting in state and local courts.

“Addressing climate change requires a coordinated international policy response, not meritless local litigation over lawful and essential energy production,” said Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr. of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, counsel for Chevron Corporation. “This lawsuit is baseless, just like the identical claims dismissed by the Second Circuit in New York City and state court judges in Delaware and Maryland.”

“A Baltimore city judge recently held that ‘global pollution-based complaints were never intended by Congress to be handled by individual states.’ In addition, there is no record of Bucks County’s lawsuit being publicly approved, and consequently, the case cannot move forward,” he added.

Also, the brief notes the county is “seeking damages under Pennsylvania law for increased emissions resulting from alleged failures to warn in, say, Texas, China, and Zimbabwe, even if there was no duty to warn in those jurisdictions. This, [Bucks County] cannot do. The global causal mechanism on which plaintiff’s claims depend triggers the exclusive and preemptive effect of federal law.”

In its lawsuit against BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, Exxon Mobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute, Bucks County claims the companies knew their product was causing climate change and failed to warn the public. Bucks County argues those companies should be held liable for the local impacts of warmer temperatures.

Previously, a Delaware judge dismissed most portions of a similar lawsuit, finding that in-state Delaware emissions cannot have a material effect on the global nature of climate change.

Similarly, the oil companies’ brief argues that “every federal court to consider this question has held that state law cannot be used to obtain relief for the alleged consequences of global climate change.”

Also, “fossil fuels support the safety, health, security, and wellbeing of our nation–and that of billions of people worldwide. The plaintiff is asking the court to ignore the central importance of fossil fuels in the world economy and, instead, to impose liability and damages on a select group of energy companies under Pennsylvania law because of their [and] many other’s global production, promotion, and distribution of those lawful products and their end-use emissions. Neither federal nor Pennsylvania law support such a suit,” the brief said.

James T. O’Malley, a spokesman for Bucks County, said county officials would not comment since “this is pending litigation.”

A Jan. 9 hearing is scheduled.

Please follow DVJournal on social media: X@DVJournal or Facebook.com/DelawareValleyJournal

For the first time since George W. Bush was in the White House, there are more registered Republicans than Democrats in Bucks County. Pennsylvania Republicans say it’s just one part of a push to increase GOP registrations in the Keystone State before November’s election.

As of Monday, Bucks County had 264 more Republican voters than Democrats. The last Republican presidential candidate to win this Philly suburb was George H.W. Bush in 1988.

“That’s major,” said Pat Poprik, chair of the Bucks County Republican Committee. Republicans lost their registered vote advantage when Barack Obama was swept into the White House in 2008.

“It’s a long time getting it back,” Poprik said.

As recently as February, Poprik said, Democrats held a 2,400 lead in the county. But she saw movement toward the GOP and the county party made registration a priority.

“A lot of people said, ‘It’s doable,’” she said. Various outside organizations came to help Bucks Republicans register voters. Voters first registered Republican at the pace of 100 a week, then 150 a week.

Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College, said the Bucks County flip is “a warning for Democrats as they have become more reliant on suburban Philadelphia for statewide success. While having more registered Republicans in the county boosts the prospect for Trump in the state, it will be interesting to see how these improved numbers translate into gains across Republican candidates.”

Activist Scott Presler and his Early Vote Action have been leading the charge to register new Republican voters in Bucks and statewide in Pennsylvania. He’s been working in the trenches to register Bucks County voters for five years.

“It’s done — this major Philadelphia suburban county, which voted for Hillary & Biden, is now red. This is huge, monumental, monstrous, & earth-shattering news. We did it!” Presler posted to X.

Poprik also gives credit to the Biden-Harris administration.

“The voters in Bucks County are fed up, not just with Joe Biden, but with Democrat policies,” Poprik said. “People see what’s happening when they go to the grocery store or get gas.”

Noting that she saw a local gas station Tuesday selling regular for $3.89 a gallon, she added: “All the resources we’re not using. Pennsylvania is a big fracking state.”

Presler has emerged as the pied piper of GOP voter registration. “Since 2016, people are saying Republicans are losing the suburban mom vote. We’re seeing suburban moms come back to the Republican Party,” he told DVJournal,

“One theme I hear from them, they say to me, ‘I can’t afford anything.’ They say, ‘Scott, my kids are eating me out of house and home.’ And ‘We can’t afford to take family vacations. We don’t have the money to spend we had four years ago.’”

And it’s not just parents.

“Two years ago, Pennsylvania Democrats had an advantage of 95,000 more registered Democrats aged 18 to 24. Now it’s down to 66,000, basically meaning 18- to 24-year-olds are trending to the right.”

And since Oct. 7, more Jewish residents of Bucks County are switching to the GOP after seeing how the Biden administration has treated Israel, he said.

“Four weeks ago, we flipped Doylestown Township red,” said Ed Sheppard, chair of communications for the Doylestown Republicans. “Yesterday, Bucks County flipped red.”

“Flipping Bucks County was a team effort spearheaded and inspired by renowned national activist Scott Pesler. No one group can claim sole credit for this flip. Numerous groups, elected committee people and candidates across the county all registered people sick of the Biden/Harris agenda, supported by Bob Casey.”

Republican strategist Christopher Nicholas gave credit to “grassroots Republican activists and leaders in Bucks County whose hard work has helped turn the county back red.

“As someone who grew up in Bucks County and cut my teeth there and local politics, it’s good news and it’s important. Now GOP candidates there start from a higher level, and that’s good news for us and bad news for our Democratic friends.”

While this is good news for the GOP, Borick said there is a lot of work for both parties to do before November, particularly with the Democratic presidential ticket still in flux.

“It’s clear that the change [from Biden to Harris] has helped increase enthusiasm among Democrats who were quite downtrodden about the state of the race. Its impact on areas like fundraising is obvious at this point, but just how much Harris will move the polls in Pennsylvania and beyond remains to be seen.

“In all likelihood, the shifts will not be dramatic given the entrenched polarization at this moment. But even modest movement can be incredibly impactful in a state like Pennsylvania where presidential races have been so tight.”

Poprik points to one more bit of good news for her party: Research shows voters who just registered or who switched their registration are more likely to vote.

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(This article first appeared in Broad + Liberty.)

The nonprofit trying to persuade local governments to sue “Big Oil” producers for damages allegedly caused by climate change has been making steady advances to Chester and Delaware counties, according to an email provided to Broad + Liberty.

The revelation comes just two months after the Bucks County Board of Commissioners announced it would sue major oil producers like BP, Chevron, Exxon, and others, arguing that the companies knew for decades that their products would cause climate change yet took no action. Several days after the announcement, the only Republican on the three-person board, Gene DiGirolamo, withdrew his support for the suit.

Indeed, it appears as if the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI) was eager to use its success with Bucks County as a springboard.

Bucks County became the first local government in the commonwealth to take up the kind of suit that first began to sprout up about a decade ago. For example, in 2016, San Francisco and some other California municipalities sued longtime oil producers. Bucks County is being represented by the law firm DiCello Levitt on a contingency basis, meaning the county does not pay the lawyers unless the lawyers win the case.

In an email sent March 18, 2024, a senior political associate for CCI emailed Delaware County Councilmember Christine Reuther, and cc’d Bucks Commissioner Bob Harvie, both Democrats.

“My name is David Zeballos and I’m with the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), a nonprofit that helps elected officials and their communities hold oil and gas corporations accountable for the massive costs of climate change. I’ve met with a number of folks who have told me about the southeast PA regional call that you are now leading! That includes Council Member Elaine Schaefer, Commissioner Bob Harvie, Commissioner Josh Maxwell, and Commissioner Marian Moskowitz, who all expressed support about the work CCI does,” Zeballos wrote.

“Do you have any availability for a 30 min Zoom meeting to talk about our work in Pennsylvania and areas for collaboration?” Zeballos wrote later in the email.

The Center for Climate Integrity is a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that says its mission is to “educate communities and elected officials about the role of polluters in causing climate change and the need to hold polluters accountable for their actions.”

A spokesperson for Chester County said no action is imminent, but noted that could change.

“Chester County is not considering a similar lawsuit at this time,” spokesperson Michelle Bjork said. “However, we will continue to monitor any developments in Bucks County’s case and will reevaluate as needed.”

“Chester County’s commitment to protecting the environment and our residents is demonstrated by our efforts to preserve more than 30 percent of the County as permanently protected open space and we will continue to explore all avenues to safeguard our community,” Bjork said.

Requests for comment to Delaware and Bucks counties were not returned. A request for comment to CCI was also not returned.

Delaware County already has something of an established relationship with CCI. County Council Chair Monica Taylor (D) is listed as a member of CCI’s “leaders network” and recently participated in the press roll out of a major CCI study.

In November, Taylor rattled her rhetorical sword about the need to punish oil producers in a Politico article.

“I agree that it’s not fair for this burden of addressing climate change to fall only on our residents,” Taylor said. “Polluters should and must pay.”

Yet the politics of oil are very different between Bucks and Delaware counties. In Delaware, thousands of people are employed in the industry at places like the Marcus Hook LNG terminal.

Counties do receive annual payouts from Pennsylvania’s “Act 13” of 2012, commonly known as the “impact fee” imposed on “unconventional” gas wells and distributed to counties and municipalities to help them maintain the environment, or to offset the wear on infrastructure from oil and gas drilling.

For example, for the five years from 2019 to 2023, Bucks County received $2.76 million from the impact fee, even though there are no active wells in the county. Delaware County took in $2.45 million over the same period, according to a state website devoted to Act 13 revenues and disbursements.

The impact fee delivered $179 million across all governments in the commonwealth in 2023.

In Western Pennsylvania, CCI gave a presentation in April on “climate accountability” to an environmental subcommittee of the Allegheny County Council. At the time, a council member said it would be premature to assume the county would sue oil producers.

Some of the initial lawsuits against Big Oil have already failed. In 2019, a New York judge ruled in Exxon’s favor, but as is often the case, the message of the ruling was nuanced, with Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York State Supreme Court writing, “this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case.”

Other cases remain in progress, and, “[t]he number of climate-related cases against Exxon continues to grow,” the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

“In February, the city of Chicago sued Exxon and other major oil companies alleging they deceived Chicagoans about climate change. In March, Bucks County, Penn., filed a similar suit. The Center for Climate Integrity, an environmental group the Rockefeller charities helped create, swayed officials in both places to bring the suits.”

IRS filings show CCI is predominantly funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund, the philanthropic endeavor established by the legendary New York family whose business pursuits in the earliest parts of the 20th century produced Standard Oil, the petroleum monopoly whose most prominent corporate successor is Exxon.

The Journal also reported that the Rockefeller Family Fund “influenced President Biden’s decision in January to pause approval of new liquefied natural gas exports,” — a decision that touched off bipartisan condemnations in Pennsylvania, the nation’s largest LNG exporter.

“While the immediate impacts on Pennsylvania remain to be seen, we have concerns about the long-term impacts that this pause will have on the thousands of jobs in Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry,” Democratic U.S. Senators Bob Casey and John Fetterman said in a joint statement. “If this decision puts Pennsylvania energy jobs at risk, we will push the Biden Administration to reverse this decision.”

Numerous other politicians, including many Republicans, and associations also heavily criticized the Biden LNG “pause” — something that could easily become an issue in the presidential election this year if circumstances continue to make Pennsylvania a crucial battleground state.

The email cited in this story was obtained via the Pennsylvania Right to Know Law by the nonprofit organization Government Accountability and Oversight. A database search of nonprofit tax filings did not reveal any significant grant donations to GAO in order to be able to characterize its funding.