(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania House Speaker Mark Rozzi said Friday that, despite serving as a state representative since 2012, he’s just now learned “Harrisburg is broken.”
And he wants residents to help him fix it.
“As a rank-and-file member of the House for 10 years, I was never involved in the behind-the-scenes politics of the General Assembly,” he said. “Now, having been thrust into it over the last two weeks, I can tell you one thing: Harrisburg is broken.”
Rozzi, D-Temple, ascended to leadership earlier this month after Rep. Jim Gregory, R-Hollidaysburg, nominated him. It was a deal that saw a narrow, and temporary, majority of Republicans vote for a Democratic House Speaker – the highest-ranking position in the chamber.
Gregory told The Center Square that Rozzi made multiple assurances to him he would lead “independently” of both parties and no longer caucus with Democrats – a promise he apparently broke soon after taking the post.
“I’m a little bit raw,” Gregory said. “One person has not lived up to his promise and that promise he made was to be speaker, and he has now told me he is not going to switch parties … I want to remind you of that because it’s important. I’m kind of upset about it. I’m the guy who nominated him, I’m the Republican that nominated him with the trust.”
Rozzi said Friday the controversy over his affiliation is more hyper-partisan politics meant to deflect from the severity of the gridlock.
“While some want to focus on my independence in terms of party politics, my commitment is to the people of Pennsylvania,” he said.
Instead, Rozzi said, the impasse exists because the chamber can’t agree on the “most basic question” of its operating rules that would allow legislative business to proceed. Hanging in the balance, he said, is legislation that would give adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse a two-year window to sue their perpetrators in civil court.
Former Gov. Tom Wolf called a special session on Jan. 9 to pass the bill, but Republicans balked.
Republican lawmakers support reforming the statute of limitations for survivors, but they object to passing it legislatively. Instead, they want to ask voters to decide the issue via a ballot referendum in the May primary election.
The Senate voted last week to move this and two other constitutional amendments closer to the ballot, the contents of which – enacting voter ID and implementing regulatory reforms to rein in gubernatorial power – rile Democrats.
“This is not the right way to do it,” said Sen. Carolyn Comitta, D-West Chester, during floor debate last week. “These two other amendments have nothing to do with survivors of abuse or their rights … these measures are just too important to be lumped together.”
Republican leader Bryan Cutler, R-Quarryville, said the special session was “unnecessary” given the policy’s broad bipartisan support.
“Passing this constitutional amendment was something we have done easily in the past and have already committed to running this session,” he said. “We can do this work in regular session, while also addressing other urgent needs the people of Pennsylvania expect us to address in a timely manner.”
Attempts to contact Cutler for a response to Rozzi’s comments were unsuccessful Friday.
Rozzi, himself a survivor, has championed the issue for years, and he won’t move forward without a deal to address it “swiftly” to prevent critics from leveraging it for ideological or political ends.
“To help us break this gridlock, I have decided to seek the counsel of those most often neglected: the people of Pennsylvania,” he said. “In the coming weeks I will be touring the commonwealth to hear directly from our citizenry on how they think the House can best move forward and heal the divides that exist due to the hyper-partisan politics of Harrisburg.”
Hearing details will be released soon, he said.
