A Pennsylvania state court has rejected a Republican effort helmed by the state legislator who until late last year was the state House Speaker to delay three special elections for seats in the chamber most recently held by Democrats, although only two remained under dispute by the challenge’s end.
One of the three past incumbents died, and the other two were elected to other political offices. In the days after GOP legislator Bryan Cutler formally departed as Speaker, state Rep. Joanna McClinton (D) — working in a role the Associated Press described as that of presiding officer of the chamber — released the paperwork kickstarting the process of scheduling the three special elections for February 7. Cutler, however, challenged the legitimacy of McClinton using that authority, considering the slim Democratic majority in the chamber. Removing the three now former Democratic incumbents from the count left Republicans with technically more seats than Democrats. New and returning representatives took their oaths of office covering the next two years earlier this month, after weeks in which the lower chamber of the Pennsylvania state legislature technically didn’t have a Speaker, evidently per routine procedures for transitioning between terms.
Legislators in the Pennsylvania state House — including Cutler! — selected Mark Rozzi, a member of the chamber’s Democratic caucus, as the Speaker for the new session. Rozzi formally got behind the legal documents previously prepared by McClinton that set the dates for the contested special elections on February 7, so that didn’t work out well for Cutler. Cutler himself issued formal documents he contended were the legitimate election orders setting two of the special elections for the state legislature for May of this year — leaving residents of those districts potentially that much longer without direct representation in the state legislature’s lower chamber. The Secretary of the Commonwealth, which is a position in Pennsylvania equivalent to that of Secretary of State elsewhere, evidently rejected at least some of the documents released by Cutler and accepted those from McClinton.
Cutler was predictably outraged, he said, after the ruling in recent days in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania against him. “Instead of resolving a dispute where the answer was self-evident based on the numbers, the court took the path of least resistance and thereby weakened the foundations of our republic and faith in the rule of law,” he claimed. The court cited basic standards for granting a preliminary injunction in its order rejecting Cutler’s push. He can’t pick and choose which legal standards he ostensibly wants to follow and then credibly claim he’s sticking up for what he insists is the rule of law.
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
