When historians write about the 2020 election, Pennsylvania will be a big part of the story because of the key role it had in saving our democracy.

Actors such as U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly (R-16th) will probably take up significant space. His claim that his main interest is protecting the rights of Pennsylvania citizens by channelling Act 77 and disqualifying 2.5 million votes, and nullifying the state electoral vote, would be much more credible if he wouldn’t have waited so long to make his challenge.

Act 77, a bipartisan act, was signed into law at the end of October 2019. Its provisions were used effectively in the 2020 primary election and the 2020 general election, allowing thousands more Pennsylvanians to exercise their right to vote.

Kelly’s filings to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court were both summarily rejected.

Kelly said he is looking forward to two more years of defending our values. First, he must tell his constituents in District 16 more clearly just what HIS values are.

Other than calling Donald Trump “the strongest president of our time,” Kelly remained very quiet in the midst of Donald Trump’s four record-setting years of lies, an autocratic approach to governing, very questionable policy and behavior, and eventually, by actions and words, rallying a mob of insurrectionists to overturn an election when all methods of legal challenge were expended.

Has Mike Kelly rejected the Republican Party of Lincoln, and does he now favor a party bent on following autocracy and still led by a delusional Donald Trump?

I have known Mr. Kelly as a business person for 20 or so years. I have respected his business acumen and was always treated with the utmost professional courtesy and respect. I sincerely wish he would have been more vociferous, especially regarding Trump’s more heinous and nefarious lies and behaviors.

Here’s a quote from Sen. Ben Sasse: “Politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude.” To that I say, amen.

Thomas V. Skoczlas Sr.,

Slippery Rock