Pennsylvania Republican Dickishness Fails, In Surprisingly Decent Outcome

Hey, that worked out pretty well!

Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives yesterday surprised themselves with a vote to elect a new speaker of the House, Mark Rozzi, breaking a partisan clusterfuck resulting from Republicans refusing to admit that Democrats won control of the House in November's midterm elections. As you'll recall, once all the votes were counted, Democrats had flipped the Pennsylvania House of Representatives , with a final outcome of 102 Democratic seats to 101 Republicans.

However, there was a catch, and like many catches, it was a beaut: One of the winning Democrats, Rep. Tony DeLuca, had actually died before being reelected, so he'll need to be replaced in a special election, and two others were appointed to jobs by new Gov. Josh Shapiro. That meant that despite the outcome of the election, Republican bodies on the floor outnumbered Democrats 101 to 99, and no way were Republicans going to let a mere election keep them from exercising power, because The People had spoken and Republicans didn't like what they said. Democrats rightly should have held the speakership, but they were clearly outvoted, so they didn't really win, you see?

 The Philadelphia Inquirer explainers:  

State Rep. Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) was sworn in last month in a private ceremony and scheduled special elections for the three vacant offices on Feb. 7. House Republican leader Bryan Cutler sued, alleging McClinton lacked the authority to do so, and accused her of orchestrating a “paperwork insurrection.”

Yeah, how dare McClinton do insurrection by acting as if the will of the voters mattered!

Cutler is no stranger to ratfuckery; in 2020, he tried to help Donald Trump reverse the election outcome in Pennsylvania, without success. Following the midterms, he was sworn in as GOP leader and proclaimed that no, he would be in charge of these special elections, because he's clearly the leader of the most people inside the House chamber.

Eventually, Republicans agreed to allow the special election to replace DeLuca to go forward on February 7, but insisted that a judge would have to rule on whether McClinton had the authority to set the other two special elections for that date. If the decision came down in time, heh heh, otherwise it'll have to be later.

Cutler, ever concerned for fairness and efficiency, wants the other two elections to wait until the day of the state primary elections in May. Locking in a GOP majority was surely just a happy accident that would allow the House to vote to put some leftover constitutional amendments on the 2024 ballot. The amendments would be really good for the people of Pennsylvania, too, if those people are Republican legislators:

The amendments — including one that would impose stricter voter ID requirements and another that would make it easier for lawmakers to reject administrative regulations — need to pass both chambers again in order to make the ballot for voters to render their judgment. The governor isn’t involved in the amendment process.

Happily, it seems unlikely that Rozzi will bring up any very partisan amendments up for a vote. He was reelected in November as a Democrat, but says that as speaker, he will not caucus with either party, which was why some Republicans backed him.

“As many of you know, I’ve never been an ideologue,” Rozzi said on the House floor late Tuesday afternoon. [...]

“The commonwealth that is home to independence will now be home to the commonwealth’s first independent speaker,” said Rozzi, who is perhaps best known for his work to change the law to allow survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue.

He sounds like a pretty good guy, honestly!

The House had been deadlocked over holding a vote for speaker all day Tuesday, but in the late afternoon, state Rep. Jim Gregory (R) nominated Rozzi, saying he had "proven himself to be an independent voice" and that Rozzi "has a proven history of making tough decisions for people over politics."

A second Republican backed Rozzi’s nomination, as did McClinton, the Democratic leader who had hoped to claim the speaker’s gavel herself.

But most GOP lawmakers weren’t on board with the deal and made a last-minute push to elect Rep. Carl Walker Metzgar (R., Somerset).

When the clerk held the roll-call vote, Rozzi ended up with 115 votes to Metzgar’s 85.

Among the Republicans voting in favor of Rozzi was Cutler, who was also named House majority leader.

You know, at least for now, until those special elections are over (all three seats are in safe D districts) ... once they can be scheduled . We're sure that, in the spirit of bipartisanship, Cutler won't be an asshole in the meantime and try to delay the special elections to artificially preserve a GOP advantage, right? It's a new day, after all!

Sure sounds like it's always going to be sunny in the Pennsylvania House going forward.

[ Philadelphia Inquirer ]

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