New PA Speaker Leaves Democratic Party, Symbolically Reboots House

HARRISBURG, PA — Tuesday's swearing in and reorganization of the new Pennsylvania General Assembly was unlike any other in recent memory. When all was said and done, nearly 60 new lawmakers had taken office and moderate Democrat State Rep. Mark Rozzi, on no one's radar for Speaker, had been elected in bipartisan fashion. He then promptly left the party and declared himself an independent. All before 5 p.m.

No lawsuits, no malingering procedurals. 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.

With the General Assembly essentially split even, Republican leadership took the step of supporting a sort-of Democrat, the now independent State Rep. Mark Rozzi, in the vote. The final count was still narrow, 115-85. The Berks County representative said his goal was nonpartisanship.

“Sometimes Republicans will win, and sometimes Democrats will win, and that is fine, so long as the beneficiaries are the people of this commonwealth,” Rozzi said Tuesday night.

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If democracy is indeed "the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage," as H.L. Mencken once said, this is perhaps as revolutionary a change as could be expected. And those looking for deep imperfections in this compromise need not search far. Republicans think they should have control of the body, because three of the Democratic-won seats were vacated (one died, two were elected) and must be replaced in special elections. Democrats hoped to elevate State Rep. Joanna McClinton, a more liberal Philadelphian who has gained a national profile and who would've been the first female Black Speaker of the House in Pennsylvania history.

Instead, for both sides, imperfection: the moderate Rozzi, caucusing with neither party, will hold the significant powers of deciding what issues and bills come up for debate and managing the general workflow of the legislature.

Republicans controlled both the state House and Senate for the past decade. The regular sparring between the leadership of both bodies and Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's adminstration amounted to stalemate after stalemate. Fissions in the fabric of Pennsylvania society festered along the same battle lines drawn nationally by the most aggressive elements of the Democratic war machine and the GOP's MAGA wing.

A month ago, McClinton herself expressed confidence the new group would overcome the old.

“These public servants are already on the ground in their communities, talking to neighbors, and prepared to be their voices in Harrisburg next month," she said. "Without a doubt, they will strengthen our legislature with their diverse experience and perspectives."

What actually emerged Tuesday was not what Democrats imagined when they thought they won a historic flip of the House in the midterms. But in an era where the basic tenets of the American system of government have been defied and undermined as a matter of course, an unhappy compromise in action, one that hasn't (yet) been tested by a Rudey lawsuit, might be democracy's best heartbeat.