Pa. Senate won’t investigate Doug Mastriano for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election

A Pennsylvania Senate committee has declined to investigate State Sen. Doug Mastriano for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election results, following a Democrat’s ethics complaint against him.

Sen. Art Haywood, a Democrat who represents parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties, said he’d been notified by the Senate Ethics Committee that it would not take up the complaint he lodged against the right-wing senator earlier this year.

“I’m very disappointed that the ethics committee reached a conclusion that no investigation was going to happen,” Haywood said at a news conference this week. “And it is terrible statement, in my opinion about the body.”

Haywood filed a complaint in January claiming that Mastriano (R., Franklin), an ally to former President Donald Trump and 2022 candidate for governor, had violated the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions when he used his prominent role as a state senator to advocate that the General Assembly and its congressional delegation reject Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results based on disproved conspiracies.

Haywood declined to share the complaint and the letter in which he was notified that the ethics committee would not investigate Mastriano, saying they were confidential. He previously said his complaint was based on an April 2023 report from left-leaning group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

CREW’s report detailed Mastriano’s role in trying to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results in favor of Trump, including hosting a November 2020 Pennsylvania Senate hearing with unsworn testimony from Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and other advisers and being present on Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Haywood filed the complaint with the Senate’s ethics committee, a six-member, bipartisan panel that is usually formed once a complaint is filed and is rarely used. Haywood said he chose this route, instead of others, like impeachment, because it had multiple outcomes, such as reprimand or censure.

Mastriano could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.

After Haywood announced his complaint in January, Mastriano released a statement claiming that it was Haywood who was unethical by using his public office “to attack the freedom of speech of those he disagrees with.”

“I do not need a lecture on the U.S. Constitution,” Mastriano said in January. “I volunteered to defend it while serving our nation for over 30 years as an officer in the U.S. Army. This stunt will not intimidate or silence me.”

A spokesperson for Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland), who is tasked with appointing ethics committee members, declined to comment Friday due to Senate rules that require the actions of the Ethics Committee remain confidential.

Mastriano became a leader of resistance efforts to government shutdowns in 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. His profile continued to grow heading into the 2020 election, as he stepped into the role as one of Trump’s top advocates in the Pennsylvania, and afterward as he asked that Trump’s loss in the state be overturned.

Mastriano was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 2022, and lost by about 14 percentage points to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. He briefly considered running for U.S. Senate and continues to have a national following, particularly among Christian nationalists.

Haywood said Thursday he believes his complaint put lawmakers “on notice” that they cannot try to undermine democracy without scrutiny from their colleagues — even though Mastriano faces no consequences because he was not investigated.

“We have created a warning for any person in the future who may engage in this kind of activity,” Haywood said. “The Senate has ethical standards. They should not be violated.”