St. Rep. Dwight Evans no longer ranking Democrat

HARRISBURG – Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Philadelphia) was stripped of his title as the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, unable to beat a serious challenge from a group of fellow Democrats to boot him out of the post he's held for two decades.

The caucus voted in Rep. Joe Markosek of Allegheny County, the House Transportation Committee chairman, to replace Evans.

In the run up to the vote, the threat was serious enough that the longtime Philadelphia representative spent the last week calling caucus members to shore up votes. Allies, including Mayor Nutter, also mounted an aggressive campaign over the weekend to keep Evans in power.

Markosek, now the equivalent of minority chairman, will take a backseat to Rep. William Adolph (R., Delaware), who will head the committee and control its agenda.

Tuesday's leadership election in the House Democratic caucus played out behind closed doors, and votes were cast by secret ballot.

Also elected to leadership positions: Rep. Frank Dermody (D., Allegheny) as Minority Leader; Rep. Mike Hanna (D., Clinton) as minority whip; Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny) as caucus chairman, beating out Rep. Mark Cohen (D., Philadelphia); Rep. Jennifer Mann (D., Lehigh) as caucus secretary; Rep. Ron Buxton (D., Dauphin) as caucus administrator; and Rep. Mike Sturla (D., Lancaster) as policy chair.

But all eyes were on whether Evans would survive the challenge.

Evans was on the outs with some members because they believe he was the master puppeteer behind an edict to try and cancel a House voting session this week in order to prevent a vote on a bill that contains a provision Evans did not like.

In the end, other House leaders buckled to pressure from members and called them back to vote Monday.

But the spat left Evans vulnerable. And it brought to the surface other complaints that House Democrats have had against their old leadership team, including how the controversial special-project grants nicknamed WAMs - for walking-around money - are doled out to members.

As Appropriations chairman for the last four years, Evans controlled the flow of those dollars.