Well, I've seen it.
An astute reader was kind enough to email a PDF of the lawsuit in.
Let me frame this in the usual caveats. I am not an attorney. I've never taken a law course, opened a law book or studied to be a lawyer/legal assistant/paralegal/legal secretary in anyway. Aside from one very short stint on a jury in the mid-90s, I have no experience whatsoever as a lawyer.
I've never even played one on TV.
Anyway, back to Hill v Mastriano.
This is the cover sheet:
Yea. Hill's heart is certainly in the right place but I can't see this going anywhere.
For example, he flubs a reference to the PA Constitution:
Pursuant to Amendment 14, Section 3 - PA Constitution, Pennsylvania state Senator Doug Mastriano should be barred from running for Pennsylvania governor in 2022...That's in the first page. He's referencing the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, though he gets the reference right on the fourth but still it's not a good way to open a lawsuit.
Hill does have a point, of course. That section of the US Constitution reads:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.[Emphasis added.]
Hill then lists all the stuff we already know about; Mastriano lied about how long he wandered around the Capitol that day, Mastriano's office chartered buses to the January 6 rally, Mastriano had his picture taken with fellow RWNJ Rick Saccone and so on.
All of these things are very very bad politically. I'm just not so sure they're enough to bounce him from the primary ballot.
But at the heart of the matter is this: to the extent that PA State Senator Doug Mastriano was involved in Trump's attempted coup, he's disqualified from running for public office, any public office, ever again.
Senator, any word on when you'll comment about that congressional subpoena you received?
