Pa. House special election decision disputed
Voters will chose a replacement for the late state Rep. Anthony DeLuca in a special election Feb. 7, House Speaker Bryan Cutler announced Wednesday.
But that decision could be changed Thursday.
In an early sign of the rancor between the two caucuses, the incoming Democratic leader, Philadelphia Rep. Joanna McClinton, challenged Mr. Cutler’s authority to order a special election on the last day of the session, and his last day as speaker, and said she would issue her own order for a special election on Thursday. Ms. McClinton did not specify a date, but the earliest a special election could be called is Jan. 31, according to state law.
It’s the first of three such elections in Allegheny County that the House leader will have to schedule in the coming weeks, when two more Democratic representatives
are expected to resign to take higher offices. Taken together, the three races are likely to cement the Democratic Party’s control of the chamber for the first time in more than a decade.
“While the House Republicans and soon to be former Speaker do not have the authority to issue a writ for the next session where he will serve as minority leader, we agree that calling for a special session at the earliest possible date makes sense,” Ms. McClinton said in a statement.
Mr. Cutler, however, noted that one of his predecessors, former Speaker Keith McCall, scheduled a special election for a future session in 2010, after the death of Rep. Bob Donatucci, D-Philadelphia.
“With a vacancy created now, and more likely to come, it is a fundamental obligation [of] the House, and its speaker, to bring about predictability and certainty in representation for Pennsylvanians,” Mr. Cutler said in his statement.
Democrats flipped more than a dozen House seats across the state in the Nov. 8 midterm election, which set them up for a 102-101 seat majority in the next session. But three of those seats will have to be filled by someone other than the winner: Mr. DeLuca’s and those of Reps. Summer Lee and Austin Davis, both Allegheny County Democrats.
Both Ms. Lee and Mr. Davis ran for re-election to their House seats at the same time they successfully sought election to higher office, Ms. Lee to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 12th District and Mr. Davis to lieutenant governor. Both will have to resign their House seats before they can be sworn in to their new positions.
The impending resignations, coupled with Mr. DeLuca’s death, will create a bizarre — if brief — power dynamic in Harrisburg. Republicans will have all 101 of their seats filled, but the Democrats’ three vacancies will leave them with a 99 -seat minority until the offices are filled by special elections.
Like Mr. DeLuca, Ms. Lee and Mr. Davis represent overwhelmingly Democratic areas, making it all but certain Democrats will hold those seats and put their party back into power with the narrowest of majorities. But a special election can’t be scheduled for their seats now because both lawmakers still occupy them.
Mr. DeLuca represented the Penn Hills area for nearly 40 years. He died on Oct. 9, leaving too little time to replace his name on the ballot before the election. No Republican ran against him in the heavily Democratic district, and on Nov. 8, 86% of voters filled the circle next to his name one last time.