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Good morning and welcome to Broad + Liberty's Weekly Reads.
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By Kyle Sammin
The Washington Post has been telling us for eight years now that Democracy Dies in Darkness. Anyone who watched the proceedings in Bucks County this week knows that’s not true. It dies in broad daylight.
As we all know by now, Republican Dave McCormick came out on top in the Senate race against three-term incumbent Democrat Bob Casey, Jr. As the final votes were being counted, the race tightened, but McCormick still led by tens of thousands of votes statewide, with not nearly enough provisional and absentee ballots still outstanding for Casey to honestly believe he had a chance to pull ahead in the tally.
But even if he couldn’t honestly believe it, he and Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias sure seem to dishonestly believe it. Casey made a big deal about counting every vote, even after the Associated Press and others acknowledged that he had lost. And that’s not a crazy thing to insist on — in fact, under state law, these ballots were always going to be counted. At no point were county officials going to stop doing their duty to tally every valid ballot.
At the same time, though, we were given to understand that the officials across the commonwealth’s 67 counties would all follow the law as they did so.
Why It Matters. But what did the Casey campaign do? Ask counties to count undated ballots. Where did they do it? Not everywhere, just in the counties where they thought they would find more votes for their man. Exactly the situation the high court wanted to avoid and, in fact, ruled that counties must avoid.
In some ways, you can’t blame McCormick then or Casey now for asking. The legal system is adversarial and lawyers must zealously represent their clients’ interests. It should have been an impossible argument to win, since the state Supreme Court said no to this idea just two weeks ago, but they’re allowed to try, and allowed to lose.
What you shouldn’t expect is for the county commissioners to agree to something that they know is illegal. And yet! Here we are. Commissioners of Bucks, Centre, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties — all Democrats — voted to accept those illegal ballots, acting in open defiance of the clear and unambiguous ruling of the court.
They should all lose their jobs.
It’s not going to work. Even if they cheat, the votes are not there for Casey to prevail. But scraping the bottom of the barrel for invalid votes does get the race close enough to allow a recount. Which will also fail.
These commissioners think they’re doing something noble and brave, standing up for something. But they forget which side of the table they’re on. When a citizen refuses to obey an unjust law, it is called civil disobedience. When the government breaks the law, it is tyranny.
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By Heather Shayne Blakeslee
“We don’t care who you voted for, just bring a dish to the potluck.”
I’ve uttered that phrase hundreds of times to my neighbors in South Philadelphia the last three weeks as I passed out postcards to invite them to a Unity Picnic and concert at Old Swedes’ Episcopal Church in Queen Village this weekend.
I could see people’s shoulders relax, their brows unfurrow. Often, they looked at me with some mix of gratitude and confusion.
Sometimes the reaction was disbelief. One guy at the Sunday Headhouse Farmers Market, dressed in his Eagles gear and pushing a stroller, happily took a card but then as he walked away sheepishly admitted to me, “I voted for Trump.” And I told him again — I don’t care who you voted for, just bring a dish to the potluck.
Why It Matters. Six years ago, I started a Philadelphia-based art and ideas magazine called Root Quarterly, in part because I almost lost my relationship with my conservative father, whom I love dearly, over politics.
I wanted to create a place that got people off the hamster wheel of online insanity — our credo is print is dead, long live print. Our amazing collaborators want to employ art and beauty as a way to bridge divides, and for Philadelphia and Pennsylvania to contribute to national conversations — about housing, education, and culture. We’re probably the only arts and culture magazine in the country that was explicitly founded with viewpoint diversity and pluralism — not pro forma DEI — in mind. If we’re going to rebuild the fourth estate, we believe we need to do it with regenerative media that is rooted to its region, that is centered in elevation and celebration, and that aspires to intellectual and artistic excellence—and also to intellectual humility and curiosity.
Imagine that you are looking back on our country in 2,000 years. Its first 500 years will all be considered Early American History. That means that we are all founders, figuring it out together.
We need better political parties, yes… and, maybe we also just need better parties?
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Fact-checkers often play umpire but rarely call it fair. One side’s truths are labeled “needs more context,” while the other’s whoppers get a pass. That’s why we launched Fact-Check PA: to sort fact from fiction, no matter the source. Visit us for breakdowns of claims from Pennsylvania politicians, interest groups, and media—and send us tips on what to check.
Fact-Check PA, brought to you by Voices of Reason, officially launches this week. Visit our site today for a preview of what's to come!
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5. What we're reading
"People violate laws anytime they want” is a jarring statement from anyone, but it truly shocks the conscience when you hear it from an elected official charged with enforcement of the laws. But that’s what Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia (D) boldly stated with regard to invalid counting ballots that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decreed (twice!) should not be counted. Breccan F. Thies of The Federalist has the rundown of this scandalous abuse of power and Senator Bob Casey’s desperate effort to hang on to his seat, by hook or by crook.
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