Pursuit of Partisan Political Power

BY LARRY L. LIGHT RETIRED PAMED LOBBYIST

It’s easy to recap the 2022 general election in Pennsylvania. For the interested voter and the keen political observer alike, it simply exceeded all expectations! Keystone state voters elected two Democrats, sweeping the statewide races at the top of our ballots. John Fetterman defeated physician Mehmet Oz to help save the Democratic majority in the US Senate and Democrat Josh Shapiro won handily over mismatched Doug Mastriano to mark the first time in over 60 years that the office of Governor has been held by one party for 3 consecutive terms. Notably, Shapiro’s running mate, Representative Austin Davis, will become the first African American Lt. Governor. Those are significant achievements in a state considered to be “purple” and a swing state in national elections.

At the state level the State Senate elections were pro forma, incumbents won re-election and the Republicans retained their comfortable 28 – 21 majority (with one vacancy). In the 203-member Pennsylvania House of Representatives it was a different matter altogether. The solid GOP majority in the House before the election was transformed into a potentially razor thin Democratic win, a mostly unexpected outcome. And, for the first time in 56 years, a physician was elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.

So why does winning the majority matter so much? In each legislative chamber the salary and benefits for the majority and minority members are the same. Your party wins the majority, you get the same salary as your legislative colleagues in the minority. There is an equitable distribution of office space in the capitol building and the resources for staff and other administrative needs are adjusted to recognize shifts in power.

From one intriguing perspective it might even seem that being in the minority is “easier.” Legislators in the minority can concentrate on constituent services and embrace the numerous opportunities to simply vote against policy proposals advanced by the majority. In brief, they don’t have the responsibility to govern.

The functional advantage, and the primary underlying reasons to work so aggressively in the election cycle to win the majority, are control of the legislative chamber’s agenda and control of the committee structure. Committee chairs are named by the leadership of the majority party and the committee chairs traditionally have absolute control of the flow of legislative bills from their committee to the floor. And once bills are approved at the committee level the same leadership takes over to manage which bills will be considered by the full chamber or perhaps sent to another committee or tabled for further “study.” When any of those procedural actions are challenged, it is almost guaranteed that the majority leadership will have the full support of their party members and win the vote.

A well-worn political saying notes that the “majority will have their way, while the minority will have their say.” In this era of highly charged political discourse, party line votes have become commonplace. While the minority will have procedural avenues to challenge the components and process of the majority’s agenda, they will likely not be successful in prying disgruntled members of the other party from being locked in loyalists. You win the majority so you can win when you play political hardball.

Two rarely acknowledged benefits of being in the majority are certainly real, but rarely acknowledged. A key element of every political campaign is fund raising. It’s much easier to raise the campaign contributions needed to fuel an incumbent’s reelection drive from a position in the majority. Another aspect is the unending strategy to get members of the opposing party to make a “bad” vote. The thinking being that the strategic vote will displease constituents and have a negative effect on a future election.

After the 2022 election cycle all of these factors contributed to an unprecedented level of partisanship, high levels of campaign spending and a chaotic environment in the legislative chambers at both the state and federal levels.

The PA House results were unusually surprising. The total of 48 new representatives is an uncommonly high number and that turnover foreshadowed the political upheaval that followed. Unexpectedly the House GOP lost enough seats to lose control over the lower chamber. Democrats predicted that they would capture the House majority early on election night. Then reality set in as it became clear that a winning Congressional candidate, Democrat Summer Lee, would have to resign her state House seat, as would the winning Democratic Lt. Governor candidate, Austin Davis. Also vacant was the seat of longtime Democratic Representative Tony DeLuca whose name legally remained on the ballot after he passed away just weeks before election day. Special elections were held to fill all three House seats, and all are in Allegheny County. Democratic candidates won all three of the special elections, giving them a 102-101 majority in the House. The majority “head count” will likely get even more complex if sitting House member Republican Lynda Schlegel Culver wins the special election for a vacant State Senate seat. Her replacement would likely also be a Republican, but the GOP caucus would only have 100 members until the House special election is held.

In the US Senate where elections are contested at the statewide level and more easily predicted, it became clear early that the Fetterman win in Pennsylvania would mean that Democrats would at least have a 50-50 split like they did the previous two years. The subsequent win by Democrat Ralph Warnock in the Georgia runoff election provided one more seat to their “working” majority.

Against the background of the epic 15 roll calls needed to elect the Speaker of the US House, the Republican party struggled to come together even while enjoying a 222-212 edge. Meanwhile the PA House endured its own controversy as Republicans with 101 members sought to hold off the takeover by Democrats who elected 102 members, but only had 99 sitting members sworn in on January 3rd. Controlling the dates of the special elections to fill the three vacancies and the public policy agenda that could be acted on in both the short and long term became the power struggle at the center of attention.

Elections are generally about two factors, the candidate with a focus on their qualifications to hold office and the policy agenda promoted by those candidates and their respective political parties. Post-election the primary concern is always controlling the partisan agenda. Consequently, political power struggles can get real ugly really fast. In the legislative arena the principal struggle for power is obviously winning enough races on election day to emerge as the majority party on swearing-in day.

In the US Senate the priorities will include confirming the more progressive judicial appointments being made by the Biden administration, back stopping (opposing) the partisan initiatives expected from the GOP controlled House and working closely with the Biden administration on addressing pending budget and debt ceiling issues. With so much at stake, the political power of the majority was the driving force in Senate elections across the county. In the House the debacle of partisan divide in the election of the GOP Speaker highlighted issues such as government funding, repeal of tax changes and even a constitutional change to term limits for Congressman and Senators.

At the state level there are clear differences between the parties’ agendas. Since the GOP holds a clear majority in the State Senate the priority policy agenda will be passed early and moved to the House, where the GOP majority may or may not exist. But regardless, the Senate will have done their work.

In this instance, three of the priorities are constitutional amendments that face a brief window to be passed and then advertised in newspapers across the Commonwealth before they can appear on the May 2023 primary ballot. They include a two-year statutory window for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, a reform of voter identification requirements and expanded legislative oversight of state regulations. Republicans will also push for mandatory post-election audits. The proposal to aid childhood sexual abuse survivors has bi-partisan support. While the others are unlikely to have support from Democrats in either the House or the Senate. For their part, Democrats will focus on protecting reproductive rights and curbing gun violence among other initiatives on education and property tax reform.

In each legislative chamber the current two-year session should be volatile and interesting.

For two terms, Republican John Cavender, MD, was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from Susquehanna County. His last year in office was 1966. Now, 56 years later, Arvind Venkat, MD, of Allegheny County has become the next physician elected to the PA General Assembly. Representative Venkat was elected to serve the 30th District in Allegheny County. He is an emergency physician.

New Chester County State Legislators

Replacing Dianne Herrin (D): Representative Chris Pielli (D)

Replacing Tim Hennessey (R): Representative Paul F. Friel, Jr. (D)

Replacing Craig Williams (R): Representative Catherine E. Spahr (D)

Key appointments by Gov Josh Shapiro: Valeri Arkoosh, MD, Secretary of Human Services

Debra L. Bogen, MD, Secretary of Health

(neither position was staffed by a physician in previous administration)