by Dwight D. Weidman 26 October 2021
It was about two years ago that the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed the election reform law that ushered in no-excuse mail-in voting and arguably led to the defeat of Donald J. Trump. To celebrate the passage of this disaster, the PA Senate has, without much consideration or any fanfare, passed an equally horrible bill called SB552, which amends the 2008 “Right to Know Law” by making it more difficult for citizens to request information on government operations, including those relating to contracts. A reading of the bill (text here) reveals that state agencies will be given extraordinary power to either shut down or delay the release of public information to anyone they deem to be a “vexatious requester”, which according to the bill, could be anyone who requests public information that the state government doesn’t want to supply them.
This horrible piece of legislation is a textbook example of everything that people find repugnant about government and the politicians who run it. It is also a prime example of what our politicians do when they think we aren’t watching them.
The bill was sponsored by none other than Senator Chris Dush, who was recently named to replace Senator Douglas Mastriano in heading the effort to conduct a forensic audit of the state’s 2020 presidential results (what ever became of that effort?).
The bill passed the Senate with overwhelming support, no doubt due to the pressure from Senate leader Jake “The Snake” Corman, with even the thoroughly chastised and staffless Senator Mastriano voting for it.
One wonders why Corman and Dush would push a bill to hide government information from the people at the same time they are supposedly trying to get to the bottom of a likely-illicit 2020 election; an effort that has disappeared. What’s going on? What are they trying to hide?
The Franklin County Journal 