Pa. House Dems are not voting for months due to a leaky roof. That’s unacceptable.
Our elected officials can't let obstacles — including leaky roofs — stop them from doing the people's work. While the Capitol is under renovation, there are many places where they could meet instead.
In 1897, after a fire devastated the Pennsylvania Capitol, the legislature met at Grace Methodist Church in Harrisburg. Even a gutted Capitol couldn’t stop our elected officials from doing the people’s work.
Fast forward to 2023, and Pennsylvania House Democratic leaders announced their chamber will not hold votes for the next three months — until mid-March — because of a leaky ceiling in the House chamber. They plan to take off the entire winter for a leak that was caused by damage reportedly discovered in December of 2022.
You read that correctly. One year ago.
This is an embarrassment.
This is an embarrassment.
My organization’s members include entrepreneurs and business leaders across our commonwealth. They routinely face problems that require creativity to solve. From broad issues like supply-chain delays or labor shortages to specific problems like — dare I say it — leaky roofs, obstacles arise. And companies solve them. They don’t simply cancel their business activity and send employees home for three months.
I recognize that many of our elected officials have never run businesses or been responsible for employees and thus perhaps have never had to solve major operational problems. And so, in the spirit of partnership, I’d like to offer several suggestions of where our House could convene until the Capitol is repaired.
The Senate chamber: Undoubtedly, the upper chamber would offer its space, including its spacious gallery, for House use when the Senate is not in session. And if not all House members fit, some could join remotely, as was common during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Grace United Methodist Church: Perhaps this historic landmark would once again open its doors to lawmakers. Indeed, the House held a ceremonial session in 2020 in this very location.
The Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex: This large venue would allow ample space for lawmakers and their staff to work — and even bring guests.
A local hotel conference center: Harrisburg and the surrounding area are home to multiple hotel conference centers. We would offer to help underwrite the cost of any rentals to ensure lawmakers can continue to do the job voters elected them to do.
Remotely: At the outset of the pandemic, state House lawmakers, under Republican leadership, passed temporary rules to allow remote voting. If a leaky roof threatens to shut down legislative operations, reinstating such temporary rules could be in order. Indeed, many lawmakers don’t show up in Harrisburg for session anyway, so remote voting would cater to their current absences.
In early 2023, the state House — led by former Speaker Mark Rozzi (D., Berks) — took another extended hiatus to allow time for special elections that would once again give Democrats a slim, one-vote majority. Even with that majority, however, lawmakers have been stunningly unproductive.
Indeed, in the first six months of 2023, an analysis by the Commonwealth Foundation determined that House Democrats led the most inconsequential and unproductive Pennsylvania legislature in half a century, sending only 15 bills to the governor.
Gov. Josh Shapiro has blamed some of the lackluster performance — such as the state’s dragged-out budget negotiations — on the fact that Pennsylvania has the only full-time divided legislature in the nation. But this partisan gridlock rests squarely on the shoulders of House Democrats, who blocked the budget for months.
Even Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, one of the least consequential governors in Pennsylvania history, accomplished more with a Republican-controlled legislature.
Not coincidentally, the current plan for an extended vacation under Democratic Speaker Joanna McClinton approximately coincides with another Democratic vacancy that’s left the House divided 101-101. This raises the question of whether a leaky roof is really behind the planned adjournment — or whether Democrats are using the roof as a scapegoat for their continued incompetence.
Citizens of our commonwealth deserve better than elected leaders who go home at the first hint of trouble.
Given that the options for reconvening are many, Democratic House leaders should immediately announce their plan to return to work. Indeed, myriad priorities demand attention, including approving school vouchers to rescue Pennsylvania’s most underserved children from failing and violent schools and implementing regulatory reform — to, for instance, reduce wait times for big projects — which have been a campaign talking point on both sides of the aisle.
Long before the age of technology or even automobiles, lawmakers didn’t let a collapsed Capitol stop them. Today, it’s inexcusable for House Democratic leaders to claim a leaky roof in an otherwise intact Capitol has rendered them impotent.
Leadership is rarely easy. I understand that.
But Democrats fought fiercely to gain the Pennsylvania House majority, and they won. It’s up to them to demonstrate they can do more than close shop and go home when things get tough.
Matthew J. Brouillette is president and CEO of Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, a 501(c)(6) membership organization dedicated to improving the economic environment and educational opportunities in Pennsylvania.