by Jonathan Williams | December 16, 2020

We needed a King Solomon moment, but bureaucracy won instead – for the moment

On December 11, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the State of Texas lawsuit versus the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania et all:

“The State of Texas’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied for lack of standing under Article III of the Constitution. Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its elections. All other pending motions are dismissed as moot….”

The issue ceased to be about President Trump or former Vice President Biden but instead it has become about the perspective of the governed as to the justice of the election.  We the people received no resolution, no vindication, no solution, no justice and candidly, no answer.

The case was a seminal case.  It was a case in which the actions taken by the Supreme Court would determine our destiny as a Republic.  It was a Boston Tea Party moment in virtually every respect.

With the Boston Tea Party, citizens had gotten to the point of losing faith and trust in those governing.  The people responded and a nation was born.

In our current situation in 2020, no matter what happens, the U. S. Supreme Court has refused to act, and 50% of the citizens of the nation are GUARANTEED to believe that justice has not been served.

We needed resolution of the perceived inequities in the election, not a bureaucratic response.  The very survival of our Republic was at stake.  Four more years of the type of dissent that we have had in this nation for over 20 years and, most recently, in the last four will ensure that our nation will not heal and nor will we fair well if an adversary seeks to take advantage of our discord during the process.

These now famous words from our own Declaration of Independence should serve as a stark reminder of what is at stake with the governed, half of whom distrust the very election processes upon which our liberties are based:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.”

Our Declaration of Independence states that we have certain unalienable rights.  Those rights are not just words.  They mean something especially to those who served in the military supporting and defending our Constitution and our liberties.

Our government is based upon the trust of the governed.  When trust is lost, so is the basis of our Republic and that cannot stand.  This Republic of ours is too precious a gift to discard.  We must work diligently to preserve our liberties for all citizens.  Trust, once lost, is almost impossible to regain.

The concept of liberty recognizes our rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Liberty includes those inalienable rights given to all created.  Freedom implies the ability to act such as our freedoms of speech, religion, assembly and to bear arms.  The minute one’s freedoms trample on the liberty of another, then conflict ensues and must be resolved.

Our nation is at a crossroads. The U. S. Supreme Court needed to be guardians of the Republic at a time when it was needed most.  I do empathize with the Justices for the magnitude of their decision was immense.  Unfortunately, however, no decision, is a decision.

No decision will sow four more years of abject contempt, desperation, anger, retaliation and discord from those who feel disenfranchised. Trust will be lost and perhaps never regained.

This is not about President Trump.  This is not about Vice President Biden.  This is about people being heard and having trust, faith, and a belief in the government that we have chosen to represent us.

This was a seminal moment.  We failed.

January 20, 2021 will soon be before us.  The swearing in of the next President will take place but the discord will remain.  No solutions will have been offered.

I wrote the brief on my concerns about the election in Pennsylvania.  I stated in that brief which the State of Texas considered in their brief as the “Ryan Report”:

“The general election of 2020 in Pennsylvania was fraught with inconsistencies, documented irregularities and improprieties associated with mail-in balloting, pre-canvassing, and canvassing that the reliability of the mail-in votes in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is impossible to rely upon.

The above factors, when combined with the lack of the required associated internal control mechanisms to ensure legality, accountability, accuracy, and the trustworthiness of the results, effectively undermine the trustworthiness of the entire election process.”

The remedies for the Supreme Court would have taken immense courage.  A full-scale investigation and audit would be a rational mandate from the Court.  A revote in the states questioned of the mail in ballots would have been a possibility.  There were other solutions to include just hearing the case and ensuring that the process of the hearing was just.  Doing nothing was perhaps the worst of all possible solutions.

With nothing decided, nothing is likewise resolved, and it is a guarantee that 50% of the population at a minimum will not trust the election results.

Col. Frank Ryan, CPA, USMCR (Ret) represents the 101st District in the PA House of Representatives.  He is a retired Marine Reserve Colonel and served in Iraq and briefly in Afghanistan and specializes in corporate restructuring.  He has served on numerous boards of publicly traded and non-profit organizations.  He can be reached at [email protected].