Governor Tom Wolf’s two terms in office are coming to a close. He’s been a steady hand on the helm while steering the good ship Pennsylvania through sometimes turbulent waters. But the most glaring procedural oversight of his administration occurred in February 2021 when the Department of State altogether neglected its constitutional obligation to publish a duly proposed constitutional amendment from the General Assembly in at least two newspapers in each of the Commonwealth’s 67 counties “three months before the next general election.”
The amendment followed a statewide grand jury investigation into child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy. It would have retroactively extended the timeline for victims claiming childhood sexual abuse to file civil actions. The amendment had been passed. as required, by two successive General Assemblies. It had significant bi-partisan support. When it was not published by the Department of State, that procedural mistake put a constitutionally mandated end to the process which in all likelihood would have resulted in final approval by the voters and immediate inclusion of the amendment into our state constitution.
The Governor apologized profusely. The Secretary of the Department of State resigned in disgrace. The General Assembly had no other recourse than to restart the process by once again approving the amendment — which it did.
Tom Wolf, no doubt, has wanted to see this error corrected while he was still “on watch.” The next step is to have the amendment in identical form approved by the new General Assembly. When Mark Rozzi, himself a victim of clergy abuse and stalwart champion of the amendment, was unexpectedly chosen Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Governor evidently saw an opportunity to expedite the matter and called for a Special Session of the General Assembly “to address the statute of limitations for claims involving childhood sexual abuse.” Legislation resulting from a Special Session can have no subject other than that identified by the Governor as the reason for the session. If the amendment is passed by the end of January, it can be on the May primary ballot.
But the days of the Wolf Administration are down to a precious few and the Special Session for Victims of Sexual Abuse is fading into nothingness.
The problem for Speaker Rozzi is that he is presiding, or attempting to preside, over a narrowly divided and contentious House which has not yet decided on the rules by which it will conduct itself for the next two years. Moreover, Republicans want to deal with this amendment in Regular Session — because they would like to bundle it with other proposed amendments, also ready to go from the last General Assembly, in time for the May primary. When Speaker Rozzi called the House into Special Session, it lasted only minutes before it went into recess — again over the issue of rules — and remained in recess. There is no indication whatsoever that the Special Session will reconvene in the House before the new governor, Josh Shapiro, takes office on Tuesday.
Not that it really matters because the Republican-dominated Senate has ignored Governor Wolf’s call for a Special Session altogether. The Senate, in Regular Session, passed an omnibus bill of three constitutional amendments. The widely supported amendment on statute of limitations. And two Republican-supported amendments: one for voter identification and the other to make easier a legislative veto over the governor’s regulatory authority.
Republicans have only a small window in which to prevail in the General Assembly with their preferred constitutional amendments even in Regular Session. In the House, they have for the moment a two-vote edge over the Democrats. But there are currently three vacant seats in the House for which special elections are slated for February 7. These elections are in “safe” Democratic districts. Once these Democrats are sworn into the House, any leverage the Republicans have diminishes that much more. Then again, neither party can have leverage, let alone do anything, until a rules package can get enough votes to pass.
Whatever good feeling existed when Mark Rozzi suddenly rose to ascendancy with his pledge to be Pennsylvania’s “first independent Speaker of the House” hardly lasted a day. The Republican leadership who embraced him now say he has betrayed them — by refusing to change, as they say he promised them he would do, his party affiliation from Democrat to independent.
Jim Gregory, the Republican House member who advanced his friend Rozzi as a compromise candidate for Speaker, also a victim of childhood sexual abuse by clergy, and the prime sponsor of the statute of limitations amendment, has written a letter to Rozzi saying the “bonds of trust between friends — as close as you and I have been — are now broken” and that Rozzi had directly contradicted “three affirmative answers to me of ‘yes’ that you were going to switch to independent.”
Rozzi did, at the very least, publicly vow to conduct himself as an independent and not to caucus with either party. Democrats, notwithstanding, continue to claim him as one of their own. The Democratic House Caucus on its website describes him as the “Democratic Speaker of the House.” He seems to have done little or nothing to disabuse them of that notion. The political compass by which he is steering is not serving him well.
Nonetheless, however long or short his tenure as Speaker, Mark Rozzi has nailed a flag to the mast. Three days after his election as Speaker, he said “Let me be clear: As long as I am Speaker of the House of Representatives, the House will consider no other legislation until the General Assembly passes the language of Representative Gregory’s constitutional amendment.” On this issue Regular or Special may have become for Rozzi a distinction without a difference.
More recently the Speaker put out a statement that he was creating “a working group” of three Republicans and three Democrats “of varied interests from across the Commonwealth to sit down and find a way forward.” In other words, he wants to put the knives away and figure out a set of rules. Rozzi concluded his statement with this: “History will not judge us on how many Democratic Party wins or Republican Party wins we achieve, but we will be judged on what we did for the children of this Commonwealth.” Fair enough. We’ll see how it goes.