When in early 2022 the Pennsylvania Legislative Reapportionment Commission completed its work, it was predicted the November election would result in a close contest for control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Most knowledgeable observers saw an edge favoring Democrats.
To the extent state constitutional requirements — legislative districts with equal populations, compact and contiguous territory, no local political divisions split “unless absolutely necessary — were adhered to, the previous Republican gerrymander was blunted more than it had been already. Where the requirements were not adhered to — as they were not in the Harrisburg, Lancaster, State College, and Reading areas — Democrats gained an advantage.
The November election did result in a close contest to control the House. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has 203 seats — 102 were won by Democrats, 101 by Republicans.
I’ve crunched election data provided on the Pennsylvania Department of State website. This is what I found: Throughout the Commonwealth, 4,934,843 voters cast a ballot in the recent House elections — 2,264,601 for Democrats, 2,641,647 for Republicans, 28,595 for other political parties or for independents. Republican candidates received altogether 377,046 more votes than collectively did their Democratic rivals. Put another way, statewide, Republicans received 53.5% of the vote in House elections, Democrats 45.9%.
But hold the election-denial horses. The overall statewide vote for the House is not what matters. What counts is how the voters decide within each legislative district. In 47 of the state’s 203 districts, the Republican candidate ran unopposed by a Democrat. In 33 districts, the Democrat candidate ran unopposed by a Republican. Thus, in 80 districts there was no contest. Moreover, in only 9 districts was the election result decided within five percentage points. That deserves some emphasis. In only 9 of the 203 districts was the result decided within five percentage points.
As if the statewide vote matters, the Democrats would have done better had they ran in more districts. The same can be said for Republicans.
Something that does matter is the political malpractice committed by Republicans from their Donald Trump induced disdain for mail-in ballots. Democrats did not have to concern themselves that much with getting out the vote on election day because 34.6% of the House vote total came from mail-in ballots. Only 11.6% of the Republican total vote was mail-in. In the 151st District, the Republican candidate lost by 63 votes out of 33,547 cast. The winning Democrat received 39.4% of her vote by mail. In the not-so-distant past, Republicans favored mail-in voting in Pennsylvania. If they still did, it is easy to see a Republican victory in the 151st District. Had the Republican won, the Republican House caucus will have a one-seat majority
For want of a nail the shoe was lost For want of a shoe the horse was lost For want of a horse the rider was lost For want of a rider the battle was lost For want of a battle the kingdom was lost And all for want of a horseshoe nail
Not to worry, the Democrats committed political malpractice too. Knowing beforehand the contest for the House was going to be close, they nonetheless condoned two incumbents running for re-election at the same time these individuals were running for higher office. In the 34th District, Summer Lee ran for Congress to represent Pittsburgh, and won. In the 35th District, Austin Davis successfully ran for lieutenant governor on the ticket with Josh Shapiro. Both the 34th and 35th Districts are safe for Democrats. There is no reason to think a Democratic victory in these places was dependent on these incumbents. Any “generic” Democrat would have won.
Running for two offices at the same time is not illegal. Holding two offices at the same time is against the law. Lee and Davis have already resigned from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
Another Democrat chose, at age 85, to seek a 20th term to represent the 32nd District. He died about a month before the election. It was too late to replace his name on the ballot, and he won posthumously.
It is in dispute in Commonwealth Court when special elections will be held to fill these three “safe” Democratic seats — now empty. The earliest date will be in February. Meanwhile, the Democratic caucus has only 99 actual votes with which to begin the 206th General Assembly when the Assembly is sworn into office on January 3.
The Pennsylvania Constitution requires that “The House of Representatives shall elect one of its members as Speaker.” The Speaker controls the House agenda and presides over the business of the entire House. Legal precedence indicates that it takes a majority of the entire House to elect a Speaker. Not a plurality, a majority. Neither political caucus has the majority with which to elect a Speaker. The Democrats in likelihood will eventually have a majority — once the special elections take place. But that is a while away.
The caucus leaders, Joanna McClinton for the Democrats and Byron Cutler for the Republicans, are each claiming the status, whether or not they have enough votes to elect a Speaker, as “presiding officer” over the House. Indeed, both McClinton and Cutler have pre-empted custom and had themselves sworn into the new General Assembly weeks before the constitutionally prescribed “first Tuesday in January” in order to gain whatever leverage they might in their partisan bickering and jockeying for position. It may be too much to expect McClinton or Cutler to engage in a higher-minded state craft. They are party leaders. That would seem their nature. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once explained, no person can violate their nature.
But neither should this situation be regarded as an aberration for which the only answer is to somehow contrive a way for the two political parties to get back to doing “business as usual” and their self-perpetuating game of thriving on political division.
Maybe Pennsylvania still is, as James Carville once described it, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between. Maybe we have so sorted ourselves into “red” and “blue” areas that never the twain shall meet — witness just 9 elections out of 203 that can be viewed as competitive. Be that as it may, after the much-heralded legislative redistricting, it seems fair to say that the voters of Pennsylvania have spoken and — if either party could have achieved even a one-seat majority, each party bungled the opportunity.
Maybe, whether you are from inner-city Philadelphia or rural Forest County, you really would prefer for our legislators to somehow find a way to just get along.
With only nine of its members having demonstrated what it takes to win close elections, there does not seem much of a pool in the new assembly from which to draw in order to find a leader who has the political wherewithal to “speak” for both the Republican and Democratic caucuses — at least enough from both caucuses to elect such a person as Speaker. Perhaps such a legislator who will rise to the occasion. Perhaps this “crisis” is actually an opportunity to create a calming “sea change” in the manner by which the Pennsylvania House of Representatives conducts the people’s business. We shall soon see.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot and auld lang syne? For auld lang syne, my jo, For auld lang syne. We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne.