Butler-area legislators continued with their plans to object to certification of Pennsylvania's electoral vote allocation, even after rioters breached the U.S. Capitol Wednesday.

U.S. Reps. Mike Kelly, R-16th and Glenn “GT” Thompson, R-15th, followed through with their objection Wednesday night, but the objection was resoundingly defeated in both the House and Senate, leading to the certification of Pennsylvania's electors and the congressional acknowledgment of Joe Biden as president-elect.

The objection was based on their argument that Act 77 of 2019, which instituted no-excuse mail-in voting among other changes, was unconstitutional. Neither Kelly nor Thompson decried the act before or after the June primary elections, when the changes first went into effect, or before the Nov. 3 general elections.

The objection went to debate in the two chambers because it was made in writing and signed by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., along with House members. While objections to certifying Arizona and Pennsylvania electors were debated — and both failed — objections to other states' electors were not debated because senators who originally planned to sign on to the objections backed off following the attack on the Capitol.

In an impassioned speech on the House floor early Thursday morning, Kelly argued that Pennsylvania lawmakers would have had to amend the state constitution to provide no-excuse mail-in ballots. Because they didn't do that, he argued, Act 77 was unconstitutional.

“They scrapped it (the amendment process) and they put (the election changes) in an omnibus bill,” Kelly said. “That is an unconstitutional change. You cannot do it. It's that simple.”

Thompson argued that the implementation of Act 77 by the executive branch, in addition to the law itself, furthered the unconstitutional nature of the law.

“The election abuses were clearly unconstitutional, and had an obvious, if unmeasured, impact on the 2020 election, particularly when it comes to the citizens' faith in the electoral process,” Thompson said. “Irregularities in Pennsylvania included uneven application of the law, ballot curing, ignoring signature validation requirements, using unsecured drop boxes, accepting ballots beyond the deadlines and interfering with certified poll watcher access, among others.”

Not all members of the Butler County delegation in the House agreed with the objections, however. Rep. Conor Lamb, D-17th, said those concerns were unfounded. He said there were 31 video cameras where Allegheny County ballots were counted, and argued the process was transparent.Lamb said the objection to the vote certification used the same logic as those who stormed the Capitol hours prior.“Enough has been done here today already to try to strip this Congress of its dignity, and these objectors don't need to do any more,” Lamb said on the House floor. “We know that attack today didn't materialize out of nowhere. It was inspired by lies, the same lies that we're hearing in this room tonight, and the members who are repeating those lies should be ashamed of themselves, (and) their constituents should be ashamed of them.”Another congressman rose to challenge Lamb's use of the word “lies,” and a screaming match ensued between the aisles. The House rejected the objection by a 282-138 margin.

While the House took until nearly 3 a.m. Thursday to vote on the objection, the Senate did not debate the Pennsylvania objection before defeating it by a vote of 92-7. Both Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa. and Pat Toomey, R-Pa., voted to not sustain the objection.Despite there being no debate on the Pennsylvania objection, both Pennsylvania senators spoke on the earlier objection to the Arizona electors, both before and after the storming of the Capitol.Toomey, speaking at around 2 p.m., urged his colleagues to vote against the Arizona objection, saying the Constitution assigns to the people, rather than to Congress, the right to choose the president.“I did not want Joe Biden to win this election,” Toomey said. “There's something more important to me than having my preferred candidate sworn in as the next president: That's to have the American people's chosen candidate sworn in as the next president.“A fundamental defining feature of a democratic republic is the right of the people to elect their own leaders. It's now our duty and our responsibility to ensure that this right is respected in this election and preserved for future elections.”Casey, who spoke around 9:30 p.m. following an hours-long recess because of the riot, addressed the objection to Pennsylvania's electoral vote allocation during the debate on Arizona's electors. The senior senator argued the objection about Act 77 was based on politics, not on law. “It was only after the 2020 election, when it became clear that President-elect Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by a little more than 80,000 votes, did some Republican politicians in our state decide to challenge the constitutionality of Act 77,” Casey said, calling the act “plainly constitutional.”Congress, in a joint session, fulfilled its constitutional duty of certifying the electors for president and vice president shortly before 4 a.m. on Thursday.

Conor Lamb