Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers met with a controversial, Trump-aligned former elected official in Kansas on Tuesday night to discuss, among other things, model election policy legislation.
The session, organized by arch-conservative Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, included former Kansas Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an unspecified number of GOP lawmakers, as well as the top GOP election official in the House.
Metcalfe, who confirmed the details, told the Capital-Star that he believed Kobach “has a lot of expertise to add” in relation to lawmakers’ efforts to craft recent voting and immigration laws in the commonwealth.
Kobach was Kansas’ chief election official from 2011 to 2019. During that time, he built national profile Down claim without evidence that undocumented immigrants were registering to vote and casting illegal ballots.
Using the statewide office as a bully’s bully pulpit, he convinced Republican lawmakers to pass a strict voter ID law in 2013 that requires voters to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote.
Forced to defend his claims and policies in court, Kobach losthe was found in contempt of court and ordered to take remedial law courses.
Kobach also chaired former President Donald Trump’s voter fraud commission from May 2017 until Trump abruptly disbanded it nine months later without exploring no evidence of fraud.
House State Government Committee Chairman Seth Grove, R-York, attended the meeting but said he “wasn’t really paying attention.”
“I was joking with my friends,” Grove said of his time at the meeting.
Another attendee, Rep. Andrew Lewis, R-Dauphin, told the Capital-Star that Kobach is introducing model legislation. Lewis expected colleagues to introduce proposals in the near future, including “COVID-19 freedom” bills.
“Members are free to introduce bills,” Grove said of any future potential legislation. “I have a lot of election bills in my committee.”
The House State Government Committee handles, among other things, all legislation related to voting, elections and redistricting.
In response to the 2020 election, Grove held more than a dozen hearings on voting rights in Pennsylvania.
No Apologies Pa. Republicans. Republicans continue their election hearing rampage
The hearings included local Pennsylvania election officials, as well as advocates and experts from across the country, who explained everything from voting machines to voter ID laws.
Metcalfe also chaired the commission from 2011 to 2018, gaining fame for using the position to push hardline immigration policies while blocking redistricting reform. He also hosted a white nationalist at trial in 2015 on the proposal to make English the official language of the Commonwealth of Nations.
State Rep. Margo Davidson of Delaware County, the top Democrat on the State Government Committee, told the Capital-Star that the private meeting with Kobach was “horrifying and grotesque.”
She added that House Republicans bringing back a well-known anti-immigration advocate showed a willingness to nationalize policy around state election law.
“If anyone should know, Kobach should know that there is no credible, widespread voter fraud,” Davidson added.
This isn’t Kobach’s first attempt at policymaking in Pennsylvania.
Kobach was a little-known law professor until he joined former Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta’s efforts to pass a series of municipal anti-immigrant policies in the coal town, According to for the Kansas City Star and ProPublica.
These laws were challenged and defeated in court, and Cost Hazleton $1.3 million in legal fees.
Barletta would serve four terms in Congress and is currently considering a run for governor in 2022.
Kobach will continue aid crafts in Arizona controversial state immigration “show me your papers”. lawwhich supporters say would encourage racial profiling by local police.
He previously ran for and won statewide office in Kansas in 2010 in lack in the 2018 gubernatorial contest despite the Republican leanness of the Sunflower State.
