This Week in Statehouse Action: Bucks Wild edition
or, Why We're Talking About Pennsylvania, Like, At All Between Football Season and Baseball Season
Miss me?
(...um you don’t have to answer that)
I’m back, but MUCH more importantly, most legislative sessions are back (specifically 43, as of this writing).
The few remaining get going later this year, except for Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Texas, which aren’t scheduled to convene at all in 2024 (but some of those will bootstrap a special session or some such if they, like, really need to ram something through).
Editorial note: You may have noticed the new logo – both This Week In Statehouse Action and I are now fully independent, and the black and yellow never quite felt like my vibe anyway.
So yes, much statehouse, very action, so week, wow
Frankly, it’s more statehouse action than you can shake a ceremonial mace at.
But in the interest of not turning this into a full-on novel, I’m gonna kick off my Indie Era with something pretty narrow, as a treat.
Also, if I’m going to start publishing these more than once a week, I can’t go making them all into book-length ordeals.
… I mean, honestly I could, but that’s just not fair to you. One of my major motivating forces here has always been making these missives pleasant (or at least not outright painful) to read, and that’s never going to change.
So let’s talk a little bit about the Keystone State, because [[drumroll]] it’s Election Day!
… okay, just in Pennsylvania House District 140.* But it’s kind of a big one.
Up until this past Friday, it would have determined control of the VERY closely divided Pennsylvania House.
How closely divided is it, you ask?
Well, it started out after the 2022 elections as closely divided as it gets – 102 Democrats and 101 Republicans, specifically.
As an erudite consumer of this missive, you may recall that a death and two resignations kept the state House in majority limbo for the first few months of 2023.
Shenanigans ensued, and the upshot was that absolutely nothing got done until February special elections restored the 102-101 post-2022 election status in the chamber.
Democrats weren’t too keen on dealing with GOP efforts to upend majority control every time someone in their caucus resigned or died, so they passed a new rule last March that preserves the most recent post-general election majority control status quo until a special election is held to fill any vacant seat.
If Republicans flip a formerly-Democratic seat, fine, then the majority becomes theirs.
So Democrats still run the risk of losing close floor votes if more than one seat they hold becomes vacant, but Republicans can’t just up and boot the speaker, reshuffle committees, and generally restructure the House until they actually win majority control instead of just lucking into it.
Fun fact! Pennsylvania held specials for six House seats in 2023 that had been vacated by members winning election to higher office, resigning amid scandal, or dying.
Anyway, this is just a long windup to saying that Pennsylvania House Democrats started the year down a member.
On Nov. 7, 2023, Democratic Rep. John Galloway won an uncontested race for a judicial post in Bucks County, so he had to resign to start his new job.
It’s a pretty blue seat – it went for Biden 55-44 in 2020 – so Democrats are probably fine, but special elections are, well, special, and it’s never a good idea to take an apparent layup for granted.
And a fun new wrinkle came our way on Friday with the surprise resignation of a Republican representative; consequently, the House’s 101 D/101 R tie has moved to 101 D/100 R.
Rep. Joe Adams – who’d already said he wasn’t running for reelection – abruptly resigned from his seat in HD-139 last week.
He’d mentioned in his non-reelection announcement that his decision had to do with “medical news” that required him to focus on “taking care of his family,” and his sudden resignation specifically mentioned that family bit.
HD-139 is very solidly red – it went for Trump 63%-36% – so Republicans fairly expect their House caucus to refatten to 101 members whenever that special is held.
But back to today’s.
Despite HD-140’s above-mentioned blue lean, it doesn’t look like Democrats are willing to take this win for granted.
Democratic candidate Jim Prokopiak recently told WaPo that he’d raised over $140,000; Republican Candace Cabanas said she’d pulled in just $10,000.
According to his campaign, Prokopiak’s fundraising haul has enabled him to go up with TV and digital ads and send seven pieces of direct mail (which is, like, kind of a lot for a two-month race).
Additionally, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee gave $50,000 to the Pennsylvania House Democratic Campaign Committee, which the PHDCC could use on this race or lay in for their fight to retain the House majority this fall.
HD-140 is in Bucks County, which is one of those places you’ve definitely heard of if you’ve ever watched election night cable TV coverage (but if not, that’s extremely okay and maybe I envy you).
Bucks is a populous (politicalspeak translation: “vote-rich”) suburb of Philadelphia that’s often hailed as a bellwether because of its historically swingy nature.
Democrat Prokopiak, an attorney and school board member, has been working hard to paint Cabanas with a MAGA brush.
Cabana appears to be running away from her party as hard as she can; her campaign website doesn’t mention her Republican Party affiliation ANYWHERE, and reportedly her direct mail pieces also lack a party label.
Take it from someone old enough to remember when Democrats used to try to hide their party affiliation on campaign lit and such – it’s not a great sign for your campaign. Or your party.
Both campaigns have focused on fiscal issues like inflation and raising the minimum wage (okay obviously that last one is only being pushed by the Democrat).
Cabanas has reportedly refused to say whether she supports or opposes reproductive rights, and her website unsurprisingly fails to even mention abortion (something we saw Republicans pull in pretty much every competitive race in Virginia last November, so watch for Republicans in swing districts/states this fall continue to flee from the issue).
Welp, polls close in less than an hour (or maybe already have, depending on when you get around to reading this), and even the not-surprising result (a Democratic win) could be educational in terms of over- or under-performance of previous election results in the district.
So if you happen to live in Pennsylvania HD-140, get your butt to the polls if you haven’t already!
The rest of us are watching.
*Don’t @ me about NY-03, you and I both know that’s not why you’re reading this
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