Watch CBS News

Marathon Republican Party Meeting On Censuring Sen. Pat Toomey Delays Action For Another Day

HARRISBURG (KDKA) - After a five-hour marathon session Wednesday night, the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee came to no resolution about censuring U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey for his impeachment vote to convict former President Trump.

The issue is not over yet.

Many Republicans who were part of Wednesday night's meeting of several hundred GOP leaders statewide would talk but not on camera, but one who did was the chair of the Butler County Republican Party that, shortly before the meeting, voted its own censure of Pat Toomey.

"The vote was 94 to 2 in favor of censure," Al Lindsay, the Butler chair, told KDKA political editor Jon Delano. "Butler County, we have a very specific procedure that's necessary to censure. It's not something that is taken lightly."

Following this vote of the county committee, Lindsay joined the state meeting that was plagued with technical issues.

"The problem they had was that the technology was somewhat difficult," noted Lindsay.

Sources tell KDKA that many had a hard time logging into the Zoom call. When the state chair switched everyone to a different Zoom account, they lost the ability to count votes automatically.

Nonetheless, the Republican leaders did debate censuring Toomey.

"I actually thought they did pretty well at allowing people to speak about those who were for the measure censuring and those who were against, and there was a lot of sentiment both ways," reported Lindsay.

Toomey did speak, but sources say he didn't offer a reason for his vote, focusing instead on how much he supported the Trump agenda in Congress.

After hours of debate, GOP leaders voted to delay final action.

"I seconded the motion to table, so yes," said Lindsay.

Delano: "So what was that motion?"
Lindsay: "The motion was to table the matter until we can get the meeting -- see, we were almost at midnight and the meeting started at 6:30."

Another meeting is expected in the next week or so.

Lindsay, who supports censure, says he's not sure what the outcome will be.

"The answer is, of course, I don't know. I really don't know. I can't predict what they were going to do. There was substantial sentiment against censure," he said.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.