I just saw on the evening news that a Pennsylvania legislator has promised to vote for Republican John Perzel as house speaker instead of Democrat Bill DeWeese, which puts control of the state house back in Republican hands:
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) - December 30, 2006 - A veteran Democratic lawmaker told colleagues Saturday he supports Republican John Perzel for speaker of the state House of Representatives, a dramatic move that could foil his own party’s hopes of assuming the leadership reins.
Rep. Thomas R. Caltagirone of Berks County wrote in a letter to the Democratic caucus that he will cross party lines to help keep the speaker’s gavel in Perzel’s hands.
“I have always found Rep. Perzel to be a man of his word, and serious about issues of public policy,” Caltagirone wrote. “I believe the people of Pennsylvania will be best served if he is elected as speaker on January 2, and he will have my support.”
The speaker sets the House’s voting agenda and moves bills into committees, making it the most powerful job in the chamber. Perzel has been speaker since 2003.
To get Caltagirone’s support, Perzel agreed to push for rule changes to divide legislative committees equally between the parties, to split the chairmanships evenly and to adjourn at 10 p.m. unless there is a specific vote to extend session hours, Perzel spokesman Al Bowman said.
“In 300 years of this democratic body, there’s never been anything like this,” Bowman said Saturday. [...]
One senior House Democrat, Rep. David K. Levdansky, D-Allegheny, cited heavy gains by Democrats in the Nov. 7 election as a sign that voters want the Democrats to set policies.
“This is an act that refutes and flies in the face of the choices made by the electorate this year,” he said. “In the end, that’s more important than what any member feels about Bill DeWeese personally, politically or legislatively.”
Caltagirone, he said, should have looked within his own caucus for solutions to his problems or disagreements with DeWeese. He called the decision “a betrayal of what the voters chose.”
It “denies me and other Democratic chairmen the opportunity to serve in the majority and for us to help lead on public policy matters,” Levdansky said. “And that I think is wrong.”
With the margin so close, Caltagirone’s decision may not be the last surprise before the votes are cast.
If DeWeese is defeated, it will not be the only time a fellow Democrat has denied him the speakership. Rep. Tom Stish, a Democrat from Luzerne County, changed parties in 1994, giving Republicans a one-seat majority. Stish lost his next election.
