House leader says goodbye way too soon
Unlike most other endeavors, there is no surprise associated with when an elected official’s term is due to start and stop. It’s clearly established and understood.
If you are hired to be an accountant or a lawyer or a grocery store clerk, you may face questions about that hiring date.
Did you pass your background check in time to start work on Monday or do you have to wait until the beginning of the next pay period? Is there a hiring freeze but you’re next on the list?
None of that happens with elected officials in the normal course of business.
Win your job in November and you start on cue when everyone gets sworn in. That might be December for a school board member, or as soon as offices open up in January for municipal, county or state seats, or in a very public inauguration on Jan. 20 if you win the presidency.
By the same token, the clock starts ticking on the job the minute the oath is taken. If the term is two years or four years or six, you know exactly when the sun sets on that responsibility.
Which always makes it interesting when someone chooses to buck that system.
Pennsylvania State House Speaker Mike Turzai, an Allegheny County Republican, had just six months to go in his ninth term representing the 28th District. He knew that because in January he announced he wasn’t running again.
But last week he announced he was walking away from his seat at the top of the legislative barrel. On Monday he stepped down as the guy who calls the shots in the House and from his seat in the Legislature.
Why?
There is speculation, of course. There always is when questions abound and no one is offering up answers.
Turzai would only say that he will accept a position in the private sector.
There is no reason that private sector employer couldn’t wait until Turzai’s responsibility to the people who elected him is complete.
Six months. It’s not a lifetime. In a normal year, it’s not even a hockey season.
Walking away now leaves the people of the 28th District without a voice for the rest of the year — unless, of course, House leadership decides to set an early vote.
Maybe that will happen. The Democrats would love to get their hands on the seat. Maybe it won’t. Turzai’s endorsed Republican Rob Mercuri won his party’s primary by a hefty margin, so demanding another election between now and November might seem an unnecessary expense.
But even looking at those questions as the important issues to sort out places the emphasis on the politics rather than on the people, where it should go.
Turzai isn’t the first Pennsylvania politician to do this. He came into office early, filling out the term of Jane Orie when she moved from the House to the state Senate in 2001, taking the seat vacated by Melissa Hart, who moved to the U.S. House of Representatives.
At least he didn’t do it the way others have, winning reelection in November and turning around in January to announce retirement while anointing a hand-picked successor or even a family member.
U.S. Rep. Bud Shuster, a Bedford County Republican, did just that in 2001, paving the way for his son Bill to win a special election for his seat in Congress a few months later.
But in the real world, quitting a job without burning bridges usually means leaving on good terms, not abandoning clients and co-workers, giving proper notice and making the transition seamless.
Teachers seldom walk out in October. Doctors don’t take off their gloves and say goodbye in the middle of surgery.
The people of the 28th District deserve better from the representative, and the people of Pennsylvania deserve more from their speaker.