State House Speaker Turzai will not seek re-election
Pennsylvania House Speaker Mike Turzai, an Allegheny County Republican whose rise in the state Legislature over nearly two decades has made him one of Harrisburg’s most prominent conservatives, will not seek re-election this year, he announced Thursday.
At a news conference at his district office in McCandless, Mr. Turzai said he won’t run for a 10th term as state representative, opting instead to seek a job in the private sector.
“Over the course of this year, we said, you know, it may be time for others to take the torch, to pass it on,” Mr. Turzai said, flanked by his family and local Republican lawmakers.
Mr. Turzai would not commit to finishing the remainder of his term — saying he’s “going to take a look at [private sector] opportunities as they arise” — but the primary and general elections this year will proceed as usual to name his ultimate successor.
The departure of Mr. Turzai, a staunch advocate for cutting taxes and controlling state spending even when his GOP colleagues considered compromise, will leave House Republicans without one of their most well-connected power brokers in a time of considerable change in Harrisburg.
Mr. Turzai, 60, of Bradford Woods, was first elected to the House in a special election in 2001, winning every precinct against Thomas Dancison in the race to fill the vacancy left by Jane Orie. Echoing beliefs he would espouse throughout his nine terms, the former Allegheny County prosecutor ran on providing tax relief to businesses and property owners.
In the years that followed, Mr. Turzai would rise through the ranks, leveraging his position as majority leader from 2011 to 2014 —
aided by an influx of Republican representatives at the turn of the decade — into the House speakership in 2015.
He has swept to re-election several times in the 28th Legislative District, seen as one of the more reliable GOP districts in Pennsylvania. It includes the North Hills suburbs of Bradford Woods, Franklin Park, McCandless, Marshall and Pine.
Already running for the seat before the speaker’s announcement was Democrat Emily Skopov, a television writer and nonprofit founder who lost to Mr. Turzai in 2018. Though she fell short, Ms. Skopov was the first of Mr. Turzai’s many Democratic challengers to get within 10 points of him.
In a statement, Ms. Skopov said Mr. Turzai’s announcement doesn’t change anything about her campaign, and that she’ll continue to run because “we need representatives who can look past partisan politics” and work in a bipartisan manner to achieve priorities.
Candidates can start circulating their nominating petitions Tuesday to get on the April 28 primary ballot. Those petitions are due Feb. 18, which is when voters will officially know who is running for the seat.
Republican insiders in the region expect Rob Mercuri to run for the Republican nomination. Mr. Mercuri is a senior manager at PNC Bank who spent five years as an Intelligence Officer in the Army, according to his LinkedIn page.
Mr. Turzai said he has one person in mind who would be a formidable candidate, but wouldn’t name him — hinting that his endorsement might come “within a couple of days.”
If Mr. Turzai finishes out his term, the state House will elect a new speaker at the opening of its next two-year legislative session in January, though it remains to be seen which party will hold the majority.
Democrats would need to flip nine Republican seats while holding onto all of their own districts to take the House majority, a task that will be aided by millions of dollars in spending by national groups that hope to influence the redrawing of congressional maps by the Legislature in 2021.
“Speaker Turzai’s decision not to return in 2021 will mean a change in leadership for the Pennsylvania House,” said House Minority Leader Frank Dermody in a statement. “This year’s election will inspire more change and House Democrats are planning and working to be in position to elect a new speaker after the November election.”
Mr. Turzai pointed to the current Republican leadership in Harrisburg — which includes House Majority Leader Bryan Cutler and Appropriations Committee Chair Stan Saylor — as a qualified batch of candidates for the speakership.
The state Democratic party, meanwhile, sent out a fundraising plea pointing out that Mr. Turzai is the ninth Republican this cycle to announce he won’t run for re-election, and that Democrats “can now take the majority without even beating a single GOP incumbent.”
A political future for Mr. Turzai is not out of the question. At an annual state Republican Party lunch during a Pennsylvania Society gathering in New York City in December, he said he’s “very positive on the idea of running for governor” in 2022, according to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
But on Thursday, he told reporters that he has no plans to run for higher office.
“I’m going to go and be successful in the private sector and do what I’ve been doing in the public policy role” — including helping to create family-sustaining jobs, he said.
Mr. Turzai ran for governor in 2018, but dropped from the race just months after the Republican state committee endorsed state Sen. Scott Wagner — who went on to lose the general election to incumbent Gov. Tom Wolf.
If he runs in 2022, Mr. Turzai likely would face a crowded field on both sides of the aisle, as Mr. Wolf is termlimited.
As of Nov. 25, Mr. Turzai — a prolific fundraiser — had more than $750,000 on hand in his campaign account.
Mr. Turzai mounted an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1998, running his campaign on cutting taxes and downsizing the federal government but falling short to incumbent U.S. Rep. Ron Klink.
In 2012, he considered another run for Congress in what was then the 12th District, but bowed out to stay in his post as Majority Leader — though sources at the time said his decision was complicated by the refusal of fellow GOP candidate Keith Rothfus to exit the race. Mr. Rothfus eventually would win.
Mr. Turzai has since risen in Harrisburg as an essential driver of legislation for Republicans, though he hasn’t won all of his battles.
Statements from Republican leaders in the wake of the speaker’s announcement praised his work on liquor privatization, his support for the energy sector and his expansion of the Educational Improvement Tax Credit — which U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey said “has led to millions of dollars in scholarships for lower-income children so they are able to attend the school of their choice.”
But in recent days, the House shot down his legislation that would have driven state aid into private school grants in the Harrisburg School District. And when he worked to block medical marijuana legislation, the bill was still sent to Mr. Wolf’s desk in 2016 with the support of some conservatives.