Pennsylvania: Postponing the 2020 Primary over coronavirus is complicated | Julia Terruso and Jonathan Lai/Philadelphia Inquirer
Everyday life is suspended. Democracy is not. And now it’s on officials to figure out how to keep it going as pandemic strikes during a presidential election year. During a public health crisis that has upended every corner of life in America, who has the power to change an election? Pennsylvania is now grappling with the question. Pennsylvania’s primary election date is set by state law — in presidential years, for the fourth Tuesday in April — and the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures and Congress the power to set the “times, places, and manners” of federal elections. A postponement would be virtually unassailable if the state House and Senate passed a bill to amend the election code and the governor signed it. “That would be best,” said Adam Bonin, a Democratic election lawyer in Philadelphia. “This is fundamental American constitutionalism, that we are happiest and the system is best when all the branches have the opportunity to weigh in on a question.”