13 GOP Pennsylvania Senators Introduce New Plan To Rig The Electoral College For Republicans

Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Domini Pileggi (R)

Earlier this year, Republican National Committee Chair urged Republican lawmakers in states “that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red” — i.e. blue states with Republican legislatures and governors — to enact a plan rigging the Electoral College so that it would be almost impossible for a Democrat to win the White House. Under these plans, a large chunk of blue state electoral votes would be allocated to the Republican candidate even if the Democratic presidential candidate won the state as a whole. Although some state lawmakers in key blue states such as Wisconsin or Michigan endorsed versions of this plan, the election rigging plans were widely derided as exactly what they are — cheating — and soon, even top Republicans like Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) or Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell wanted nothing to do with election rigging. The plans to rig the Electoral College appeared dead.

Except, that is, for Pennsylvania.

Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) was one of the earliest supporters of rigging the Electoral College, backing a plan to do so as early as 2011. Republican state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi was one of the leading supporters of election-rigging the and late this week, he — along with a dozen other co-sponsors — introduced a new plan to rig the Electoral College votes in his blue state of Pennsylvania. Under this legislation, a large chunk of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes would be awarded to the Republican candidate even though Pennsylvania is a solid blue state that has supported the Democratic candidate for president in every election since 1992.

Of course, while the Republican election-rigging plan calls for blue states to give away electoral votes to Republicans, red states like Texas or South Carolina will continue to award 100 percent of their electors to the Republican:

The 13 co-sponsors on Pileggi’s bill amount to exactly half of the 26 votes he needs to pass the bill through the state senate. According to state Rep. Mike Sturla (D-PA), now that Pileggi has introduced his election-rigging plan, Republicans could conceivably ram it through both houses of the state legislature and have it on Corbett’s desk in just four days.

View the original article here