Chaos, Uncertainty, And Politicking Swirl Amid New PA House Leadership Crisis

HARRISBURG, PA — In what was obstensibly a gesture to end decades of increasingly paralyzing partisanship in Pennslyvania politics, new Speaker of the House Mark Rozzi has, at least publicly, foresworn allegiance to either major party. Once a Democrat, Rozzi was chosen to lead a nearly dead-even split House by declaring himself an independent.

Cautiously, bells of victory rang in the halls of Harrisburg. Optimists and communications directors had a field day: a massive new slate of legislators, an even balance of power in the House, a new governor, a waning pandemic. A new era for Pennsylvania and its politics.

The reality, however, appears to simply be a new era of politicking, with a different face. Almost immediately after Rozzi's announcement that he would be the new Speaker, his longtime friend and Republican ally who had championed Rozzi's selection, State Rep. Jim Gregory (R-Blair), declared that the "bonds of trust between friends - as close as you and I have been - are now broken."

They were broken because Rozzi told Gregory something different than he'd told the people of Pennsylvania days before: that he was "only thinking" of switching his party affiliation from Democrat to Independent.

"I placed great faith and belief that you would live up to the words I spoke in my nomination speech for you," Gregory wrote in a public letter to Rozzi. "As a result of your broken promises, I must sadly and respectfully ask for you to immediately resign the office of speaker."

Rozzi and other Democrats have largely avoided the subject in public. And Rozzi's website still lists him as a Democrat as of Monday afternoon.

A small coalition of Republicans, including Gregory, made Rozzi's election possible in the first place. The final count was still narrow, 115-85.

But to hear other members of the Democratic Party say it, putting Rozzi at the helm was a temporary, strategic move and ideas of lasting bipartisanship were not on the top of the minds.

There are still three special elections that must be held to fill now vacant seats. All of them are in solidly left leaning districts. Longtime State Rep. Tony DeLuca died shortly before the election, too late to have his name removed from the ballot. Two other Democratic winners from the fall were not sworn in back in January: former State Rep. Austin Davis, the state's new lieutenant governor, and State Rep. Summer Lee, who was elected to U.S. Congress.

Banking on a Democratic majority once these seats are filled, Democrats plan on holding a new election for Speaker, according to State Sen. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia)

"When the house has its full complement of members Leader Joanna McClinton will become Speaker Joanna McClinton," Kenyatta said plainly in a lengthy Twitter thread.

McClinton, also of Philadelphia, has long been the Democratic favorite for the Speaker role. The switch to Rozzi, Kenyatta said, was the "least worst option."

Rozzi, meanwhile, is still touting bipartisanship. He just released a new series of what he's calling "Rozzi's Rules" aimed at eliminating gridlock and getting Harrisburg to work again. They're basically procedural changes to House business, but they're not immaterial: one rule prevents a leader from holding legislation hostage from the majority of the House, another says that committee composition must be proportional between parties, a third mandates that constitutional amendments cannot be put on a primary ballot, because only a small percentage of Pennsylvanians vote in primaries.

"I pledged to introduce a fair set of House Rules that would rein in hyper-partisanship and allow measures supported by a majority of the Members of the House, whether that be Democrats, Republicans, or a coalition of both, to pass legislation regardless of where legislative leaders are on the subject," Rozzi said.

Upon Rozzi's surprise election to Speaker in January, Patch wrote "cautiously creeping cooperation may yet pierce the prevailing pall of partisanship immemorially shrouding the Capitol. Systemically broken but symbolically rebooted, Harrisburg now has the veneer of moving on from the pandemic's age of vitriol and vicious gamesmanship."

It may be too early to declare that lost. But for now, all that appears to remain is the veneer.