PA Headlines 5/28/21
(The Center Square) – The Center Square is reporting…Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster, has introduced legislation that would establish a Pennsylvania Bureau of Election Audits under the office of the state’s Auditor General. House Bill 1482 was referred to the House State Government Committee this week for consideration. The bureau would be required to conduct result-confirming audits of each election in the Commonwealth by the third Friday following the election. The audits would examine processes and results, including equipment, absentee and mail-in ballots, performance audits of election systems at least every five years, and any other audit deemed necessary by the bureau to ensure public trust in election outcomes. Previous elections would not be reviewed by the bureau.
Approximately $3.1 million of the state’s budget would be appropriated to fund the bureau, according to a news release from Cutler’s office. “Pennsylvanians rightly deserve and expect elections to be secure and accurate,” Cutler said in the news release. “An investment that ensures the public’s trust in our electoral process is worth every penny.” The topic of election security has been a fraught one since supporters of former President Donald Trump claimed that the November 2020 election was rife with fraud. While no evidence of widespread fraud has emerged, Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers say that their inquiries into the matter have turned up flaws in the state’s electoral processes. Pennsylvania elections officials are adamant that the 2020 election was the most secure vote in the state’s history.
HARRISBURG – Pennsylvania Capital-Star is reporting…The nationwide fight over the teaching of ‘critical race theory,’ has landed in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, throwing another log on a culture war fire that’s already seen the Republican-controlled chamber advance bills limiting abortion rights and expanding gun rights, even as some lawmakers seek to ban transgender youth athletes from participating in sports that correspond with their gender. Reps. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon, and Barbara Gleim, R-Cumberland (the prime sponsor of that transgender athlete bill), began seeking co-sponsors for their proposal to “[curtail] the divisive nature of concepts more commonly known as ‘critical race theory,’” on May 21, arguing that “teaching our children that they are inferior or inherently bad based on immutable characteristics such as race and sex can be extremely damaging to their emotional and mental well-being.”
Only a niche term a year ago, the fight over critical race theory, which scholars view as an overdue attempt to educate public school students on how racial disparities are embedded in U.S history and society, has become the latest bete noire of the right, with conservatives arguing that teachers are trying to inject race into what should be a colorblind system, the Washington Post reported on May 3. Diamond’s and Gleim’s ‘Dear Colleague‘ memo echoes that contention, arguing that “our schools should be teaching that every individual is equal under the law and that no individual should ever be labeled superior or inferior simply due to their race or genetic makeup, nor be held responsible for actions taken by others with similar traits.
Such teachings, the lawmakers contended “interfere with our constitutional duty to support and maintain a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.” Writing in the Washington Post on Wednesday, one expert said such bills are not only chilling, they also are unconstitutional at the college level, where debates over critical race theory traditionally and predominantly take place. “These laws are both misguided and unconstitutional; they constitute bad educational policy, and in the higher education context, they violate the First Amendment,” Ronald J. Krotoszynski Jr., a professor at the University of Alabama School of Law, wrote. “At a time when we desperately need to have more frank and open conversations about race, class, social justice and the concept of ‘the other,’ they hamstring educators charged with preparing young people to live and work in an increasingly diverse society.” But, “as applied to public K-12 schools, these laws might survive judicial review, because states enjoy broad constitutional authority over the curriculum,” Krotoszynski added.
