The Pennsylvania Republican Party voted to rebuke Sen. Pat Toomey over his vote to convict former President Donald Trump.
The vote was close, with 128 members voting to rebuke the Republican senator and 124 voting against the measure. Thirteen members abstained. Censures and rebukes are political functions, and the reprimand from the party carries no formal weight or additional punishment.
“We are outraged that Senator Toomey took part in an impeachment process that facilitated Democrats’ tireless obsession with partisan political retribution,” the party said in a statement.
Party members were offered a choice between a censure of Toomey and a rebuke of the senator. Both Republican statements included reprimands of Democrats in Pennsylvania, including Gov. Tom Wolf, Attorney General Josh Shapiro, former Health Secretary Rachel Levine, and former Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, targeting their COVID-19 restrictions and management of the 2020 election.
LOCAL GOP OFFICIALS CLOSING THE TENT TO TRUMP APOSTATES
Pennsylvania became a postelection battleground for Trump’s election challenges, with allies of the former president zeroing in on last-minute changes to election procedures, particularly a state court ruling that allowed ballots that were received up to three days after Election Day to be counted.
Toomey, who has represented Pennsylvania in the Senate since 2011, was one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump on a charge of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The senator announced he would not seek a third term in October of 2020, citing personal reasons.
Trump was acquitted of inciting an insurrection.
State and local party officials have been on something of a censure-spree, with local parties censuring Sens. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana for their votes to convict Trump and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming for her vote to impeach Trump. Calls for censures of Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah have not yet come to fruition.
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Following his vote to convict Trump, Toomey faced censure measures from multiple county-level Republican parties. Leaders in Lawrence, Washington, York, Centre, and Clarion counties voted to censure the senator.
Following the Washington County GOP censure of Toomey, the local party’s chairman, Dave Ball, said voters didn’t send the senator to Washington, D.C., “to vote his conscience” or “do the right thing. … We sent him there to represent us.”
Toomey’s office did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
