[Pic: inquirer.com]

Madison Kwiecinski 

News editor

mvk5945@psu.edu

A Pennsylvania Republican state committee meeting took place on Wednesday, February 24th to vote on the censorship of PA Senator Pat Toomey.

Censure, which is a formal public expression of disapproval, carries no real penalties. However, many Trump supporters were anxious to go on the record with their displeasure with Toomey, who they claim is a lame-duck senator. 

The chair of the Washington County GOP said, “We did not send him there to vote his conscience. We did not send him there to ‘do the right thing’ or whatever.”

The censure of Toomey is a partisan matter for many republicans, wanting to show there are repercussions to crossing party lines. They are not upset he violated his principle, but that he stood by them. 

Toomey is only the most recent in a series of Republicans who have faced censures and other challenges over their willingness to criticize Trump and his close allies. He joined six other GOP senators in the unsuccessful vote to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection. Two of those senators, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, have already been censured by their states’ Republicans for voting to convict Trump. 

The meeting was nearly four hours long, and technical difficulties on Zoom have been reported. This created difficulties when counting the votes, and it is possible the committee could still take action against Toomey at a later date. 

Clarion County chairman Rick Rathfon, whose committee was one of the first to take action toward censure against Toomey, has stated, “I hope the entire body votes to censure,”

At the end of Trump’s second Senate impeachment trial, which was a week long, Toomey and six other Republican senators joined with Democrats in voting to convict the former Republican President. Trump was acquitted of inciting an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, when Trump supporting rioters stormed the building, demanding Congress stop the certification of the 2020 election. Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial itself was unconstitutional because he was no longer in office and that his actions were protected under the First Amendment. 

However, Toomey disagreed. He said that there was, “an overwhelming body of evidence” that suggested the trial was “constitutionally permissible.” He continued to say, “No president, or anyone else, has the First Amendment right to incite a violent attack on our government.”

Toomey, who is a two term fiscal conservative, has already announced his intent to step down from his position at the end of his term in 2022. He has consistently defended his position in the vote and says he would have voted based on the evidence regardless of whether he was seeking reelection. 

Lowman Henry, the director of the Lincoln Institute for Public Policy and a member of the GOP state committee from Dauphin County, has also spoken out in opposition to Toomey’s censure.

“Dragging out this issue is backward looking. We all agree that we disagree with Pat Toomey.…” Henry said, “But at the end of the day, even if you censure him, what have you accomplished? We need to focus on getting a constitutional amendment (to limit the governor’s emergency declaration powers) passed, winning a judicial seat and looking to make sure the activist base is animated for change.”

This partisan division is not over, with Toomey’s censorship still tabled for a later date. However, the divisive issue within the GOP offers multiple perspectives, with censure still available, but not the only option moving forward. Toomey acted consciously, despite the views of his constituents, when voting to convict former President Trump, and now must feel those repercussions throughout his party.