New PA Speaker Leaves Democratic Party, Symbolically Reboots HouseTuesday's swearing in and reorganization of the new Pennsylvania General Assembly was unlike any other in recent memory. When all was said and done, nearly 60 new lawmakers had taken office and moderate Democrat State Rep. Mark Rozzi, on no one's radar for Speaker, had been elected in bipartisan fashion. He then promptly left the party and declared himself an independent. All before 5 p.m.
No lawsuits, no malingering procedurals. Cautiously creeping cooperation may yet pierce the prevailing pall of partisanship immemorially shrouding the Capitol. Systemically broken but symbolically rebooted, Harrisburg now has the veneer of moving on from the pandemic's age of vitriol and vicious gamesmanship.
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politics