HARRISBURG – Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) issued the following statement after a news report revealed Department of State officials spent weeks inviting Democrat-dominated counties to apply for private election grants before they were made available to Republican-leaning counties:
“The fact that Department of State officials – including disgraced former Secretary Kathy Boockvar – were working hand-in-hand with Democrat-leaning counties behind the scenes to award these grants raises even more questions about their blatant political bias in the 2020 General Election.
“Many lawmakers have questioned why private election grants were awarded predominantly to counties that voted for Democrats, even after accounting for population density. Now we have emails showing the Department of State, the Governor’s Office and various left-wing groups were working together to ensure private grant money was funneled to areas where Democrats were expected to vote in droves.
“This is another example of why transparency and oversight of the Executive Branch are so crucial, and why we need to continue our work to restore faith in our elections. House Bill 1300 would have prevented third-party funding of our elections, but Governor Wolf vetoed the bill without reading it. Senator Lisa Baker and Senator Kristin Phillips-Hill have already announced plans to introduce legislation that would prohibit outside groups from financially influencing our elections, and I am supportive of those efforts.
“If this kind of information is available through a Right To Know request, there is no telling what could be revealed through subpoenas of Department of State communications. It raises the question about what else we might find through the investigatory process – and why the Administration is fighting so hard to shield itself from any level of public scrutiny.”
Original source can be found here.
