GOP seeks May vote for Pa. House vacancies in Allegheny County as power struggle continues

[Joe Cool]

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2022/12/15/pennsylvania-house-majority-vote-special-elections/stories/202212150132

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania House’s Republican leader on Thursday submitted paperwork seeking to wait until the May primary before holding special elections in two vacant districts, the latest move in a power struggle over control of the nearly evenly divided chamber.

Republican Leader Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County sent Allegheny County and the Department of State “writs of election" for Pittsburgh-area seats that became empty last week when Democrats who won re-election resigned after also being elected to Congress and as lieutenant governor.

Mr. Cutler had previously also put in a writ of election to hold a Feb. 7 vote for the House's third open seat in another Allegheny County district. It became vacant because the incumbent, Rep. Tony DeLuca of Penn Hills, died of cancer a month before voters returned him to the Legislature in November.

Mr. Cutler's counterpart, Democratic Leader Joanna McClinton of Philadelphia, last week moved to schedule all three special elections for Feb. 7.

[Probatim]

1. Democracy delayed is democracy denied.

Gawd I hate the republicans in this state.

[FakeNoose]

2. All 3 of these special elections will take place in Allegheny County

... which is an overwhelmingly Democratic area. There's a good chance the Dems who declare themselves candidates will run unopposed, which is what often happens. The only likely opposition is from other Dem candidates - and I believe the ballots will have ranked choices. A Repuke has almost no chance of winning any of these three special elections.

What's the point of delaying these? Other than just to play more games in Harrisburg, in the meantime.

[ColinC]

3. The only point is to hold onto power longer

Looks like this is going to a court, so hopefully a court rules on the reasonable side.

[FakeNoose]

4. The 3 seats in question have already been won by Democrats

There's not much for the court to decide.

[ColinC]

5. I think both sides have a reasonable claim to power

My take: The GOP has a physical majority. After Democrats are replaced in those seats, they clearly would not. There is no question who is in charge right now because republicans have a physical majority. But the real question is whether the GOP should be allowed to schedule out the special elections later simply so they can keep power longer. I don’t see a court siding with them on that.

[Deminpenn]

6. Keeping R control is about passing their kooky constitutional

amendments. They need to pass in a second consecutive session which is the one that begins in January.
They've already passed last session. If the 3 D seats remain open, Rs have 101 seats and Ds 100. If they can manage to keep DeLuca's seat open, they could pass the amendments. But the problem is Cutler, when he was still majority leader, called the special election for that seat for Feb 7th. McClinton selected the same date, so they agreed. Given that, it makes no sense to have the other two special elections in May. Just fill all the open seats at once.

While Culter may be the leader of the party that currently has 1 more seat than Dems, he isn't the majority leader or speaker and really has no standing to call for elections.

The Rs did just select candidates for the open seats, but Carrie DelGrosso, who lives in DeLuca's district and just ran for LtGov and lost, decided not to run for the seat. Clayton Walker (DeLuca's seat); Robert Pagane (Lee's seat) and the same guy who lost to Davis in Nov for that seat.

https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-local/2022/12/17/republicans-nominees-house-allegheny-county-deluca-clayton-walker-robert-pagane-don-nevills/stories/202212170087