How an Allegheny County state senator’s party change flipped the Senate for Democrats in 1993

The Pennsylvania state Senate will be controlled by Democrats following an Election Day victory not seen in decades – a trifecta of power in the state House, Senate, and governor’s mansion.

But in 1993, when Democrats last controlled the state Senate, the change didn’t arrive from the ballot box. Instead, it came largely from one legislator’s decision to switch parties: Sen. Frank A. Pecora, a little-known Republican who represented the 44th District in Allegheny County.

Until, that is, reapportionment — a regular redistricting process based on the decennial census — moved his district hundreds of miles east to the Philadelphia suburbs. With his political career threatened, Pecora switched to the Democratic Party as part of an unsuccessful congressional run, and later sided with the Democratic caucus in the state Senate.

His move, officially made in late November 1992, created a 25-25 split between Democrats and Republicans — but then-Lt. Gov. Mark Singel, a Democrat, could break ties on procedural matters, technically giving the party control. Republicans, however, reclaimed the Senate in 1994.

Still, Pecora’s switch lies embedded in Pennsylvania political lore. Here is a look back at the Pecora Senate flap:

A Pittsburgh native, Pecora was elected to the state Senate as a Republican in 1978. He received little attention in the Philadelphia region until the district was moved here. But once it did, Pecora briefly became something of a media darling.

The Daily News described him as a “pol who drives a Lincoln Town Car and owns a Pittsburghese accent thick enough to slice.” He had also, the People Paper said, once lost 20 pounds on what he described as a “spaghetti diet,” wore a pinky ring and double-breasted suits, and “chewed” about three cigars a day, though he had stopped actually smoking them.

He was known to work better with people than issues, and had a reputation as something of an “old-fashioned” legislator who knew everyone in town, and how to get things done, the Daily News reported. And though conservative enough to want to “bring back the whipping post,” as one friend put it, he planned to vote for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election, and disliked President George Bush for “lying to the people” about taxes.

“It’s really pretty simple,” Pecora told the Daily News in June 1992. “I don’t represent lobbyists or political parties. I took an oath to represent the people.”

In 1991, the state moved Pecora’s 44th District from Allegheny County to an area covering parts of Chester, Montgomery, Berks, and Lehigh Counties. Pecora was in the middle of a four-year term, and filed a lawsuit over it, but lost the challenge.

Instead, in March 1992, he switched to the Democratic Party as part of a run for the U.S. House, but continued to caucus with Republicans in the state Senate. The move technically altered the state Senate’s balance, but had no practical effects on Senate politics, and Pecora went on to lose the U.S. House election to U.S. Rep Rick Santorum.

In Nov. 1992, Pecora abruptly switched his caucus allegiance to the Democrats, supported a series of Democratic-run votes to oust GOP leaders, and officially gave control of the state Senate to the Democrats. Pecora said he received nothing in exchange from the Democratic Party, and made his decision while on vacation in Florida with his wife, Barbara — though the redistricting, he said, did play a role in his choice.

“Banana republic politics,” said former Senate president pro tempore Bob Jubelirer (R., Altoona) in Nov. 1992. “I assure you there’s going to be considerable litigation.”

Pecora faced a number of lawsuits seeking to oust him from office, largely arguing that he would be representing constituents who didn’t “know him from Adam,” as Douglas B. Macbeth, an attorney representing voter plaintiffs in one case, put it.

None of the challenges were successful. Pecora retained office and moved part-time to the area, staying in a $450-a-month apartment in Pottstown. When he arrived, one Daily News report said, he had no idea what scrapple was (it was “a pork product,” a local diner waitress told him), and only shared a hatred of the Dallas Cowboys with his constituents.

The Senate’s makeup saw minor changes throughout 1993, Democrats never lost control that year, and maintained enough control through July 1993 to easily pass a $14 billion state budget for the 1994 fiscal year.

“What began as a place of temporary duty has turned into a second home for me,” he told The Inquirer in February 1994. The 44th District, he added, would become “an area that I can only feel sorry for.”

Pecora did not run in 1994, and Republican Sen. James Gerlach, the man for whom the seat was widely believed to have been created at the time, won the seat. Gerlach went on to represent the district for nearly a decade before launching a successful run for the U.S. House.

Meanwhile, the reapportionment situation that resulted in Pecora’s switch was not officially addressed in the state constitution until 2001. That year, Pennsylvania voters approved an amendment that required a new election if a reapportionment moved a state Senate district to an area where the incumbent does not live.

Pecora seemed to live out the remainder of his days out of the public eye, and died from pneumonia in June 2017 at 86, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He did, however, maintain some levity about the situation into his old age.

“I went to Harrisburg one day and found out my district was moved 250 miles across the state,” Pecora told the Morning Call in 2001. “When they have a grudge against you, look out. They act like children.”