When is it right to deceive in order to get something you believe in? In war? In love? In business? In politics?
When Mark Rozzi was raised to the Speakership of the narrowly divided and highly contentious Pennsylvania House of Representatives, he said in his acceptance speech:
“The Commonweath that is home to Independence Hall will now be home to the Commonwealth’s first independent Speaker of the House. I pledge my allegiance and my loyalty to no interest in this building, to no interest in our politics. I pledge my loyalty to the people of the Commonwealth.”
Rozzi became Speaker with all the votes of the Democratic Caucus and 16 Republican votes — including all the votes of the Republican leadership. The Democrats, for cause largely of their own making, did not, at least temporarily, have enough votes to elect their leader, Joanna McClinton, as Speaker. Neither did Republicans have enough votes to elect a Speaker. But so close was the divide when the House convened on January 3, it would have taken just one Republican to crossover and join all the Democrats to elect a Speaker. The Republican leadership thought they saw in Rozzi, a six-term “moderate” Democrat, someone whom they could work with. But after his election as Speaker, Rozzi did not change his party affiliation to Independent — as the Republican leader, Bryan Cutler, said Rozzi had promised he would do. The Republican leadership quickly repudiated their support.
So did the “rank-and-file” Republican, Jim Gregory, who had recommended Rozzi to his leadership and who placed Rozzi’s name in nomination. Rozzi and Gregory, together, had developed a reputation in the House as champions for longsuffering victims of childhood sexual abuse. Gregory was the prime sponsor of the constitutional amendment to open a window in statute-of-limitations to allow victims of past childhood sexual abuse to seek civil damages from those who perpetrated or abetted those crimes. But within days of Rozzi’s election as Speaker, Gregory wrote in a letter to Rozzi that the “bonds of trust between friends — as close as you and I have been — are now broken” and that Rozzi’s “words directly contradicted your three affirmative answers to me of ‘yes’ that you were going to switch to independent. You made a commitment to uphold your promise to me, to the members of this body, and to the people of Pennsylvania.”
By then the House was deadlocked over the issue of its operating rules, exacerbated by outgoing Governor Wolf’s call for the General Assembly to go into special session to pass the constitutional amendment to support sexual-abuse victims in time for the amendment to go before the voters in the May primary for final approval. Frustrated, Rozzi adjourned the House in late January. He decried Harrisburg as “broken.” He formed a special work group, comprised of three Democrat and three Republican legislators, to craft rules which would be fair to both parties. He went on a four-city “listening tour” seeking public input on the rules controversy and to drum support for his rules-reform effort.
In late February, the Speaker finally oversaw, in special session, passage of the victims’ amendment. It seemed, on the surface, a triumphal moment for Mark Rozzi. But the outcome was not in doubt — for the amendment had acquired overwhelming bipartisan support. And the urgency for a special session had ended — the earliest the amendment will go before the voters now is November. Moreover, the amendment must yet be reconciled with the Republican-dominated Senate version of the amendment bill passed in regular session — in which the bipartisan victim’s amendment is included with two other amendments (about voter identification and regulatory regulation) not so bipartisan.
Also in late February, Rozzi issued a press release promising “Rozzi Rules” for the House. “While many politicians talk the talk about good governance,” he said, “I intend to walk the walk.” Without going into specifics, the press release signaled significant reforms in committee composition to reflect the partisan divide in the House, reduction in the ability of committee chairpersons to sit on legislation, and reduction in the ability of the majority leader to prevent legislation with bipartisan support from receiving a vote on the House floor. The press release made no mention of the six-member bipartisan “special work group” — apparently that effort had fizzled or otherwise had lost its usefulness.
Something Rozzi didn’t say in his press release about his “walk” was his intention to resign the Speakership in favor of Majority Leader Joanna McClinton. With three previously vacant seats now filled as the result of special elections, Democrats could now elect a Speaker on their own. Mark Rozzi, the self-proclaimed “Independent Speaker,” returned in less than two months to the Democratic fold.
Rozzi announced his resignation from the Speaker’s rostrum. Before doing so, he spoke compellingly of how, as a 13-year-old, he had been raped repeatedly by his parish priest. He spoke of how children, like him, have had their entire lives made terrible by such sexual predators. He said that, above all else, his purpose in becoming a state legislator was to obtain justice for victims of childhood sexual abuse.
I wish he had stopped there. He said that as a child he had been “used” by a priest. He said Republicans, in conspiring to make him Speaker, were attempting to “use” him for their own ends. He said, to some applause, that he refused to be “used” again. Powerful rhetoric. Powerful moment. But I don’t think it stands up. Whatever hardball the Republican leadership may have been conniving, the game was between consenting political adults. If the game was to delay until Democrats could elect Joanna McClinton as Speaker, I wonder who was “using” whom.
It may be that resigning the Speakership was the price Rozzi was more than willing to pay in order to receive McClinton’s pledge that she would support the Rozzi Rules in her Caucus. The Rozzi Rules were indeed approved by the House in an entirely partisan vote — 102 Democratic votes to 100 Republican votes. (There remains one vacant House seat.) But the Rules, as it turns out, are hardly transformative. There are incremental improvements worthy of note. And there are some devils in the details worthy of note. More on that next week.
It looks like the “rank-and-file” of either party didn’t really know what they were voting on anyway. The rules package was presented to them not long before the voting took place. The Democratic leadership contrived so that there would be no opportunity to amend the rules. And Mark Rozzi’s rhetoric in his resignation speech seems intended to gin up party animosity so that no Republican would have dared, in the moment, to vote for his rules package — or any Democrat against it.
I agreed with, and was hopeful for, with what I took to be Mark Rozzi’s professed aims when he accepted the Speakership. I believed him — even as late as last week. At least I wanted to believe him. Maybe he did the best he could. But after two months of what I now consider a false flag operation, he proved no Dread Pirate Roberts.
Sadly, politics as usual