DV Journal

A Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against the signature requirement of Act 77 –the 2019 law that gave Pennsylvania no excuse, mail-in ballots– may have triggered a “non-severability clause” in that law invalidating it.

The result, say Act 77 opponents say, could be, “Bye-bye ballot boxes.”

That is state Rep. Seth Grove’s premise in a July 12 letter he wrote to Acting Pennsylvania Secretary of State Leigh Chapman. Grove (R-York), chair of the House Governmental Affairs Committee overseeing elections, noted that if any section of Act 77 is ruled invalid, the remainder of the law is also invalid.

“Non-severability clauses are an important tool of the General Assembly in ensuring the legislation it enacts will be applied in a way consistent with the legislature’s intent when considering and approving the legislation,” Grove wrote. The section shows “it does not intend for the individual provisions of the law to stand on their own.”

Chapman did not respond to Grove’s letter, nor did her spokesperson respond to the Delaware Valley Journal’s request for comment.

During a Tuesday press conference, Grove noted problems with how Pennsylvania’s elections have been conducted in the past two years. Grove has released reports on the general elections of 2020 and 2021 and most recently the 2022 primary entitled “Missed Opportunities and Continued Chaos.”

“Today is July 19, 2022, over two months from the May 17 primary election. We still do not have a certified 2022 primary election,” Grove said.

“On June 30, 2021, Gov. Wolf vetoed HB 1300 without reading it or understanding the provisions contained in it. Further, his administration had refused to even discuss election changes,” Grove said, noting that a bipartisan bill would have gone a long way toward improving Pennsylvania’s elections. A new version of that law remains pending in the legislature.

“Regardless, House and Senate Republicans sent the governor sweeping election changes addressing three major areas of elections: increasing voter access; providing integrity and security in every process; and modernization.

“To date, our elections have been anything but smooth,” Grove said. “This report highlights repeated election failures, which have been categorized as ‘smooth elections’ by Wolf administration secretaries of state.”

He added, “Ask thousands of Montgomery County voters if receiving wrong ballots in the mail is ‘smooth.’ Ask candidates in Montgomery County who went to bed thinking they won and waking up losing because they, the press, and residents didn’t know…thousands of sequestered mail-in ballots existed and were sequestered because of errors.

“Ask Bucks County voters if elections are ‘smooth’ after the Board of Election had to sequester ballots because of illegal voting at drop boxes, which delayed returns. Ask Lehigh County voters if there are smooth elections after DA Jim Martin verified hundreds of illegal votes were cast in their local elections using drop boxes.

“Ask Election directors if our undated ballot soap opera created ‘smooth elections’ or the reality the last court ruling by the Third Circuit Court invoked the non-severability clause of Act 7,7 making those provisions void. Ask voters if they have ‘smooth elections’ when we had to threaten two different county Boards of Election with impeachment because they voted to violate the election laws,” Grove said.

Grove added, “We can’t continue with what has occurred in the commonwealth. Our voters are demanding change. Our election administrators are demanding change.”

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With fewer than 60 days before the Feb. 15 deadline to enact new congressional district maps, efforts to conduct the process in a less partisan and more collegial manner hang by a thread.

Throughout the year, Republican leaders in both the state House and the Senate have promised transparency and public involvement, hoping to pass a map beyond dispute and that Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf would sign so that state courts don’t intrude on the process.

In July, Rep. Seth Grove (R-York), chairman of the House State Government Committee, announced what he called the “most transparent congressional redistricting in Pennsylvania history” through direct citizen involvement in the process. Sen. David Argall (R – Berks/ Schuylkill), chairman of the Senate State Government Committee, has similarly promised to “roll back the hyper-partisan gerrymandering sins of past decades” by “making this redistricting process much more open and transparent.”

However, Democrats have looked upon these comments with skepticism and are so far not impressed by the processes being used.

On Wednesday, an adjusted version of a map drawn by a Lehigh Valley piano teacher and redistricting advocate Amanda Holt was passed on a party-line vote by the House State Government Committee. Holt, a former Republican Lehigh County commissioner, was deeply involved in the state’s map-making a decade ago and led the charge for fairer, less gerrymandered maps.

“The only thing better than a citizen-drawn map is a citizen-drawn map that incorporates the feedback of citizens all across our commonwealth,” Grove said in a statement after the vote. “The minor adjustments made to the preliminary plan reflect changes that were important to Pennsylvanians.”

Yet, a leading Democrat on the committee threw cold water on the vote while foreshadowing arguments Democrats will likely make when a map comes to the full House floor for a final vote.

“We have an opportunity to use a citizen’s map as a vessel,” said Rep. Scott Conklin (D–Centre) in comments before the vote. “But today, what we’re about to do, is we’re going to throw the citizen’s map out and we’re going to amend it again with what the elected officials wanted.”

Grove noted during the committee meeting that the map was 95 percent similar to Holt’s and that changes were made to minimize splitting municipalities among a few other technical corrections.

In the Senate meanwhile, a draft version of a bipartisan map being drawn by Argall and Sen. Sharif Street (D–Philadelphia) has drawn heated feedback from Democrats.

The leaked draft would solidify Democratic U.S, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan’s district in the Philadelphia suburbs. However, it also appears to split Philadelphia into four districts rather than three, as it is now.

That move would take a northern portion of Democratic U.S, Rep. Brendan Boyle’s Philadelphia district and move it into Republican U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick’s district, which is comprised mostly of the Bucks County and a small slice of Montgomery County north of the city. The move would reduce the White population in Boyle’s current district, making a primary challenge from a Black politician, such as Street, more likely.

Democratic political consultant J.J. Balaban told The Philadelphia Inquirer, “Any Democratic elected official should be embarrassed to support a map as bad for Democrats as that map is.”

An anonymous national Democratic official who also spoke with The Inquirer went even further, “It’s clear the Republicans have never taken this process seriously and are just running out the clock — it’s time for the court to step in,” in a comment very similar to the claims made in a new lawsuit filed by “voters” with the help of the National Redistricting Action Fund, a group aligned with Democrats.

The unanimous Democratic opposition to the citizen’s map put forward by the house committee and the harsh Democratic criticism of the leaked Senate map show how fragile the desire for compromise is in Harrisburg.

Both chambers of the General Assembly and Wolf must come to a final agreement by Feb. 15 so that candidates hoping to be on the May 18th primary ballots can circulate nomination petitions on time.

As Holt testified, her map was “Based on census data and to not break precincts.

Although Wolf will need to approve the map the legislature puts forward or the map will end up being adjudicated by the courts, he has stated that he will not negotiate.

“No one should be surprised King Wolf doesn’t want to negotiate,” Grove said on Facebook.

State Rep. Andrew Lewis (R-Harrisburg) said, “We’ve got to move this process forward. We’re going to improve this map as we move forward.”

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