Doug Mastriano’s plan to force PA voters to re-register was called out for “flatly violat[ing] federal law,” he was forced to turn over documents to Congress related to his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and he doubled down on his comments comparing gun control to Hitler.
PENNSYLVANIA — The Republican nominee for Governor, Doug Mastriano, had a very bad week. Throughout the second full week of the general election, Mastriano attracted unwanted attention for his plans to make every Pennsylvania voter re-register to vote — a concept that “flatly violates federal law,” his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection and subsequent subpoena with the Jan. 6 Congressional Committee and interview with the FBI, and his past comments comparing gun control to the policies of Adolf Hitler.
In case you missed it, check out some of what Pennsylvanians have been reading this week about Republicans’ nominee for Governor, “QAnon-loving Election Denier” Doug Mastriano:
AP: EXPLAINER: Can Pa. GOP candidate make voters re-register?
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Doug Mastriano, Pennsylvania’s Republican candidate for governor, is perhaps the state’s most prominent peddler of former President Donald Trump’s lie that widespread fraud cost him the 2020 election.
A state senator and retired U.S. Army colonel, Mastriano says he wants to make everyone re-register if they want to vote again. The concept flatly violates federal law, legal scholars say, and may conflict with state law, not to mention constitutional protections. It is also a throwback to laws designed by white people in past eras to keep Black people or newer European immigrants from voting.
But Mastriano, who was present at the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and was endorsed by Trump, is undeterred, discussing his plan for re-registration both before and after winning the Republican nomination for governor on May 17.
Pennsylvania is one of the few states where governors appoint a secretary of state who oversees elections. That means a Mastriano victory in November could make Pennsylvania — a premier presidential battleground state — a test case of whether laws meant to protect voter access to the polls can be undermined.
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State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, has submitted documents to the congressional committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol attack and has agreed to be interviewed, his lawyer said Thursday.
Mastriano submitted the documents on Tuesday, Politico first reported, including receipts for $3,354 for buses he rented to bring supporters to the rally in Washington that devolved into the Capitol insurrection. Mastriano, a leader of the election denial movement in Pennsylvania, also submitted a manifest of passengers, showing he sold more than 130 tickets for the buses.
Mastriano also submitted a tranche of documents he had tweeted after the 2020 presidential election, calling on his colleagues in the state legislature to stop the certification of the results based on false and debunked fraud claims.
Timothy Parlatore, Mastriano’s lawyer, told The Inquirer that Mastriano would cooperate with the committee but struck a combative tone about its powers and motivations to investigate the attack on the Capitol.
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POLITICO: Pa. GOP gubernatorial nominee shares documents with Jan. 6 panel, agrees to interview
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Receipts provided to the Jan. 6 panel confirm that Mastriano’s campaign committee, Friends of Doug Mastriano, paid $3,354 to a charter bus company in late December 2020, as the progressive news site The American Independent has noted.
Another document in the tranche appears to be a passenger manifest indicating Mastriano’s campaign sold more than 130 tickets to Washington to join the “Stop the Steal” protests that later metastasized into a siege on the Capitol.
Mastriano advertised seats for sale on Facebook, according to the local news station WHYY, and himself was outside the Capitol building on Jan. 6. Campaign finance disclosure records detailed by WHYY previously showed his campaign paid for buses.
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Douglas Mastriano, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, has in the past invoked Nazi-era analogies in the debate over gun control, an issue in the spotlight following last week’s mass shooting shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. As Congress remains deadlocked on legislation, many states have already begun advancing measures to tighten access to firearms.
Running for Congress in 2018, Mastriano, a retired Army colonel, called it “appalling” that Democrats were proposing gun restrictions to end mass shootings and likened it to the Nazis confiscating privately held firearms by political opponents and Jews before World War II and Vladimir Lenin’s actions in the Soviet Union.
“We saw Lenin do the same thing in Russia. We saw Hitler do the same thing in Germany in the 30s,” Mastriano said in a debate streamed on the local PCN cable network with his Republican primary competitors for the southeast Pennsylvania district, according to an archived video viewed by the Forward. “Where does it stop?”
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The Republican nominee is a strong opponent of gun control. Last year he introduced a bill that would forbid state and local government officials from enforcing federal gun laws and regulations. In answers to a questionnaire by the Pennsylvania firearms association ahead of the primary, Mastriano said he would veto legislation that limits the sale, manufacture, importation, or possession of rifles, including semi-automatic firearms and ghost guns.
At the 2018 debate, Mastriano also criticized the idea of creating gun-free zones in schools. “We didn’t declare gun-free zones and airports when a Palestinian Liberation Organization attacked American and European airports in the 70s,” he said.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer: Doug Mastriano doubles down on comparing U.S. gun control to Nazi Germany
Doug Mastriano, the Pennsylvania Republican nominee for governor, is doubling down on a comparison he made four years ago likening gun control in the United States to policies pursued in Nazi Germany before the Holocaust.
Mastriano on Wednesday shared a video – posted on YouTube the previous day by the news organization The Forward – of a 2018 debate during his unsuccessful run for Congress that year.
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Mastriano shared the video on Twitter the day after The Forward published an article that resurfaced his 2018 remarks. After a reporter posted an excerpt of the video, including the comparison to Hitler, Mastriano responded: “Historically, this is accurate.”
In response to Mastriano’s post, the Pennsylvania chapter of the Gun Owners of America wrote: “Spot on. There isn’t a better time than now to warn people of the dangers that lie ahead when gun control is forced down our throats in the name of ‘safety.’”
Mastriano retweeted the response.
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PennLive: Mastriano defends remarks comparing gun-control efforts to Hitler’s policies
Amid a renewed debate over gun control after the Texas and Buffalo mass shootings, Pennsylvania Republican governor candidate Doug Mastriano is defending and amplifying past comments comparing gun restrictions to policies in Nazi Germany under Adolph Hitler.
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Mastriano’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
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