Trump’s long-shot bid to overturn Pa. election results not likely to bear fruit - PennLive

Jenna Ellis, a member of President Donald Trumps legal team, holds up a cell phone to the microphone so President Trump can speak during a Pennsylvania Senate Majority Policy Committee public hearing Wednesday, Nov.

Giuliani is continuing his push to overturn election results in the courts.Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images.

President Donald Trump’s lawyers in a desperate plea to overturn the election results urged Pennsylvania lawmakers to change the way its presidential electors are chosen or consider calling a special election.

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his legal adviser Jenna Ellis pushed those options at Wednesday’s Senate Republican Policy Committee hearing.

“We have been clear from the beginning: the General Assembly has no role to play in the selection of electors,” said Jason Gottesman, spokesman for the House Republican majority following the hearing.

Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin County, a Trump supporter who requested the hearing to examine election issues, said it’s time for decisive action.

Throughout the hearing, Republican lawmakers heard a litany of voter fraud and election rigging allegations from more than a dozen Trump poll watchers, voters and others who cast doubt on the general election’s legitimacy.

Democratic lawmakers criticized the nearly three dozen House and Senate Republican lawmakers who participated in the hearing, either in person or via Zoom, for using taxpayer dollars for what they considered to support a partisan event.

“If Senate Republicans want to entertain conspiracy theories from Rudy Giuliani and rally with defeated presidential candidate Donald Trump, they should do so on their own time and dime – not the taxpayers’,” said Senate Democratic Leader Jay Costa of Allegheny County in a statement.

Maria Collett, D-Montgomery County, said all pretense that the Republican committee hearing was a “legislative hearing” evaporated when Trump’s lawyers suggested a special election “on behalf of our client.”.

Senate Majority Leader and incoming Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre County, said earlier this month, while the Legislature can provide oversight of the elections and call the process into question, lawmakers “certainly want to stay with the tradition of the popular vote winner getting the electors.”.

House and Senate Republican lawmakers, mostly unmasked and not socially distant, participated in a Senate hearing on election issues that focused on President Trump's legal team's allegations about improprieties in the state's elections that courts have determined to be mostly unfounded.

Senate Majority Committee Chairman Dave Argall, R-Schuylkill County, said, “There is no doubt in my mind we will pass legislation in the House and the Senate based on what we have learned today.”.

Tom Ridge, a Republican who publicly pronounced his support for Biden, took note of Gettysburg’s historic significance when he criticized Trump for trying to overturn the election