The Pennsylvania Republican Party endured an hours-long meeting last week over the issue of Senator Pat Toomey’s (R) vote to convict former President Donald Trump after his second impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. The soon-to-be retired senator narrowly avoided the formal expression of disapproval late into the night Monday, March 2; rather, the party voted 128-124 (13 abstentions) to issue a “strong rebuke” of Toomey’s vote, ending the five-hour long meeting.
According to a statement released by the Pennsylvania GOP, the party said that they are “outraged” that Toomey cooperated with an impeachment that “facilitated Democrats’ tireless obsession with partisan political retribution.” However, the statement by the party is virtually meaningless considering Toomey will not be seeking reelection in 2022.
The Republican Party also issued censures on Gov. Tom Wolf, Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and former Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine. Yet, like the Toomey action, the censures do not carry practical consequences. The action by the party comes after Toomey wrote an op-ed defending his vote in the Philadelphia Inquirer saying President Trump’s “desperate attempts to stay in office undermined the foundations of our republic, betrayed the confidence of millions who voted for him, and required a vote to convict.”
The controversy surrounding the vote to censure Senator Toomey is a microcosm of the larger conflict within the Pennsylvania Republican Party. Following the acquittal of former President Trump, Pennsylvania GOP chairman Lawrence Tabas released a statement asserting “unconstitutional theft of time and energy” which “served only to divert attention from the Biden administration’s radical agenda.” He goes on to decry the failures of the Wolf-Fetterman administration and the divisive politics “emanating from Democrat control of Washington.”
As with many state parties across the nation, the Pennsylvania Republican Party currently finds itself at the crossroads of the post-Trump era: stay the course of Trump and his allies or return to the conservatism of Toomey. According to former committee chair of the Franklin County GOP Dwight Weidman, “It’s Trump’s party. There’s no two ways about that.”
In an interview with NPR, Weidman claims there are some “never-Trumpers,” but “They kind of disappeared… I’d say 99% of them jumped on board.” On the other side of this debate is Republican Cumberland County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger who says, “We’ve got a major Stalin-like purge going on… This is the Republican version of cancel culture.” Eichelberger found himself at odds with the state party earlier this year when he publicly claimed there was not widespread fraud in the 2020 election and not openly defying Gov. Wolf’s pandemic lockdown orders.
In other statewide news, the General Assembly said it will be investigating Gov. Wolf’s oversight of Commonwealth’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities. State House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-171) said in a statement, “We believe Pennsylvanians deserve better from their government when they are seeking answers as to why something so tragic has occurred and they are not getting answers… Unfortunately, as of today, including our recent budget hearings where members directly asked the administration about this issue, Pennsylvanians and their families are left only with excuses and deflection from an administration that has been anything but transparent.”
In response, the Governor’s Office asserted that the GOP’s claims are baseless and reflect “lack of understanding of the role of the Department of Health and guidance provided to nursing facilities.” The increased scrutiny comes after months of criticism by GOP lawmakers of the Governor’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the recent revelations about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D) alleged intentional misrepresentation of nursing home deaths there over the past year.
