There are times when the political planets align so that politicians might do great things. Usually, politicians don’t recognize the opportunity. Or they ignore it until it is too late. Sometimes they rise to occasion. Sometimes they don’t.
On January 3, Mark Rozzi, in a fleeting hour of seeming bipartisan accord, was raised to the Speakership of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Upon taking the rostrum, he proclaimed: “The Commonwealth that is home to Independence Hall will now be home to this Commonwealth’s first independent Speaker of the House….I pledge my loyalty to the people of the Commonwealth.”
Rozzi is a six-term Democrat. Since becoming Speaker, he has allowed no discernible daylight to come between him and the Democratic House Caucus.
On January 6, Governor Wolf, trying to correct an egregious oversight of his administration, asked the new General Assembly to go into special session to pass, before the end of that month, a constitutional amendment to support survivors of childhood sexual abuse — so that the amendment, in time for the May primary, could go before the voters for final approval. In special session, the General Assembly considers only legislation on the subject designated by the Governor. The proposed amendment has overwhelming bipartisan support. It could have been simple. Just pass the amendment in order to remedy the grave administrative error made by Tom Wolf’s Department of State.
Instead, the Republican-dominated Senate thumbed the eye of the outgoing Governor by ignoring the call for a special session and passed the constitutional amendment in regular session — joining in the same bill two more constitutional amendments, both partisan, one to implement voter identification and the other to limit executive regulatory authority.
In the House, Republican leadership was already expressing regret for their support of Rozzi. While they still, temporarily, had more votes than Democrats, they were anxious to get a set of House operating rules in place. The Democrats, on the other hand, anticipating the majority in February after special elections to fill three vacant seats, were in no hurry for a set of compromise rules.
January came and went. With it disappeared the opportunity to get the amendment on the May ballot. Rozzi, a main sponsor of the amendment and himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, expressed frustration and described Harrisburg as “broken.” He adjourned the House. He put together a “special work group” comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans to craft, with him, reform rules to get the House functioning again. He conducted public hearings to elicit public comment and to drum public support.
The Speaker seemed clear that he wanted to put together a set of rules, for regular session, fair to both parties. Rules that would reflect the narrow division in the House. Rules that would lessen the dominance of party leadership. Rules that would lessen the power of committee chairpersons. Rules that would increase the leverage of individual House members. Rules that would enhance the opportunities for the two parties to cooperate rather than antagonize each other.
The Speaker set February 21 as the date for the House to reconvene in regular session. He not only promised reform rules, he promised those rules would be available beforehand to all House members — so they could know exactly what they would be accepting or rejecting.
But a few days before reconvening, the Speaker changed the session from “regular” to “special.” He said, in doing so, that he was prioritizing justice for victims of childhood sexual abuse. No one should deny his sincerity or conviction. “Justice delayed is justice denied” is a legal maxim. But the earliest, now, the amendment will go before the voters is in November. (There has been no discussion in the General Assembly about a special election between now and then.) Maybe he means putting supportive statutory changes in place beforehand — but any such statutes seem problematic without constitutional change.
When it comes down to it, “regular” or “special,” Mark Rozzi, for the time being anyway, is Speaker. The Speaker sets the legislative calendar — meaning what bills are considered when. The eventual outcome for the constitutional amendment is not in doubt. It has overwhelming support.
So, it seems the root cause to defer a regular session is that the Speaker has no reform rules to present — and that he is extracting what he can from the fire. Indeed, from how the first day of the special session went, it is evident that any comity that may have existed among his six-member bipartisan group has fractured, for public consumption anyway, into rancor.
The Democrats now have a one-member majority in the House — counting Speaker Rozzi. The Democratic leadership advanced House Resolution 7 as a set of rules for the special session. It is unclear whether the entire House had an opportunity to read the proposed rules before voting on them. Republicans complained that HR 7 was not appearing on the screens on the legislators’ desks in the House chamber. The resolution passed in a strictly partisan 102 to 99 vote. Those 102 votes included that of Speaker Rozzi. (Two Republicans had excused absence.)
According to these special-session rules, a five-member committee comprised of three Democrats and two Republicans, mostly drawn from leadership, were designated to consider House Bill 1 — the constitutional amendment for victims of childhood sexual abuse. Whatever the committee recommended, by the rules, required a 2/3rds vote of the house to amend. Thus streamlined, House Bill 1 passed in the House on February 24. But it remains to be seen, however, how House Bill 1 will be reconciled with Senate Bill 1 — the bill passed by the Senate in regular session which contains three constitutional amendments.
The Democratic leadership of the House has demonstrated, under cover of concern for victims’ rights, their ability to ramrod operating rules for the House — as long as they can count on Speaker Rozzi’s vote. Rozzi has said that passage of the constitutional amendment has been his main purpose. He has achieved that. It is not clear he is really a part of Democratic leadership. It is not clear, having passed the amendment, how much he wants to remain Speaker. It does seem unlikely he will have a set of reform rules to offer when the House returns to regular session on February 27.