Pennsylvania Dems Re-Retake State House In Third Special Election This Year
It's Deja Vu all over again, again. And another special election may be on the way.
Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives re-returned to narrow Democratic control after a special election yesterday — the third special election for the body this year. In an overwhelming 64 percent to 34 percent win, Pittsburgh voters chose Democrat Lindsay Powell over Republican Erin Autenreith, giving Dems a one-seat majority in the state House.
Powell is a former congressional aide who worked for Sen. Chuck Schumer and for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries; she’s currently director of workforce strategies for InnovatePGH, a nonprofit seeking to make Pittsburgh a tech hub. Autenreith is chair of the Shaler Township Republican Committee. The district is heavily Democratic, and Powell becomes the first African-American woman to represent it. She’ll replace former state Rep. Sara Innamorato, a progressive Democrat who was reelected for a third term in last fall’s midterms but resigned in July to run for Allegheny County executive.
We at Wonkette would like to urge members of the Pennsylvania House to try sitting still for a few minutes, since this was the third special election to decide control of the body this year. Last fall, Democrats took a one-vote lead in the House, and we thought that was pretty cool, but we didn’t think we’d have to keep returning to the topic so often.
But before the 2023 legislative session began, there was GOP clusterfuckery: As you may recall — I only dimly remember it myself! — one of the winning Democrats last fall, Tony DeLuca, died before the election but won anyway. Then two other Democrats were nominated to cabinet posts by Gov. Josh Shapiro, so despite the electoral results giving Democrats a 102 to 101-seat lead, Republicans insisted that the speakership should be theirs since there were only 99 actual seated Democrats to the Rs’ 101. The People had spoken, and Republicans didn’t like what they said.
Happily, that was resolved semi-amicably in January with a surprise bipartisan vote to name Democrat Mark Rozzi speaker; he agreed to act as a caretaker until all three vacancies were filled in special elections, but there was still a lot of sniping. Finally, in the February 7 special elections, Democrats won all three open seats, and Rozzi handed the speaker’s gavel to Rep. Joanna McClinton.
Dear Readers, it pains us to admit that Yr Wonkette completely missed 2023’s second Pennsylvania power vacuum and special election, for which we’ll just take the New York Times’s word:
In May, Heather Boyd, a Democrat, won a closely watched special election in southeast Delaware County, part of the Philadelphia suburbs. Top Democrats, including President Biden and Governor Shapiro, had framed the contest as crucial to protecting reproductive rights in Pennsylvania.
But on the same day, in a separate special election, Republicans retained a state House seat in north-central Pennsylvania with the triumph of Michael Stender, a school board member and firefighter.
Then in July, Innamorato resigned, the House recessed until the special election, which Powell won, and here we are. We do at least appreciate that so far all the shuffling — a total of five seats — in the Pennsylvania House has ended up with Democrats in the majority again, hooray, which ought to be welcome news for Gov. Shapiro (the state Senate, however, has a solid Republican majority, and none of those guys seem likely to go running for something else).
Oh, hey, wanna hear something funny? In November, Democratic Rep. John Galloway is running for a judgeship, so if he wins — which is likely according to the experts — the state House will be tied up again at 101 seats per party, until whenever the special election for Galloway’s seat can be held.
In conclusion, we still love democracy, but Pennsylvania, boy I don’t know. Somebody stop the record player and we’ll see who’s still standing.
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Spent a night in a small town hotel in PA. Since no gym, I asked about a good place to run.
Clerk: "Around here, most people only run when the cops are after them".
NICE TIME! In other NICE TIME news, state lege edition, NH had a special election yesterday and the Democrat won easily, 56-44%, in a district that the PAB took both times. The winner lost the 2022 election by 25 votes to someone who resigned for health reasons. The GQP candidate that won the primary is a pastor who says things like...
𝑆𝑒𝑒, 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑛 ℎ𝑢𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟. 𝑊ℎ𝑦 𝑑𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑓𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑠𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛? 𝐼 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛, 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑙𝑢𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑧𝑦! 𝐵𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑔𝑜𝑑 𝑀𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑐ℎ. To which a NH legislator quipped after hearing about the win, "Molech wins again!"
The Democrats have won all four special elections this year with two more to go, leaving the House with a virtually even split and neutering the crazies in the GOP. Let's get excited for 2024 in the state and national elections but keep working with a focus and determination. Long way to go and some states are far from "purple" but any win is progress. As John Lewis said (paraphrased), "Ours is the struggle of a lifetime..."