Who will be Pennsylvania House speaker come next week? No one is quite sure
It seems no one knows whether Democratic leader Joanna McClinton will replace Mark Rozzi as speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives after special elections take place on Tuesday for three Democratic-held constituencies—including Rozzi or McClinton themselves. The Philadelphia Inquirer says that the chamber has traditionally required a two-thirds vote to recall a speaker, though Rozzi, who won the post in a surprise last month, could voluntarily choose to step aside.
But it doesn't seem like he's eager to do so. Rozzi, a moderate who remains a registered Democrat a month after he pledged to run the chamber as an independent, told the Associated Press this week that he wants to keep his gavel and wouldn’t commit to stepping down to support McClinton, who'd been the chamber's speaker-apparent after Democrats won a majority of seats in November. The Inquirer also recently asked McClinton, who would be the first Black woman to run the state House, if she anticipated becoming speaker “any time soon,” to which she responded, “The answer is, I don’t know.”
Republicans began the week with 101 members in the 203-person House compared to 99 for Rozzi and the other Democrats, with those three blue constituencies vacant. (Democrats won a 102-101 edge in November, but Republicans have still enjoyed a small advantage in membership.) Republicans, though, will lose a representative for a few months because state Rep. Lynda Schlegel Culver won a Tuesday special election to the state Senate: Schlegel Culver defeated Democrat Patricia Lawton 70-30 to hold a district that Trump took 67-31, and the contest to fill her comparably red House seat likely won't take place until May 16, the same day as Pennsylvania's regular statewide primary.
Until then, assuming they successfully defend all three seats next week in the Pittsburgh area, Democrats would hold a 102-100 majority. It's likely they will: A prominent conservative organization said in December it was “evaluating opportunities” as far as those three races go, but so far, Republican outside groups don’t appear to have deployed any serious resources in any of these contests.
The most competitive race on paper is for House District 35, a 58-41 Biden seat that Democrat Austin Davis won in November before resigning to become lieutenant governor. (Pennsylvania allows candidates to run for the legislature and another office at the same time.) This race pits Democrat Matt Gergely, who serves as finance director for the community of McKeesport, against Don Nevills, the Republican who lost to Davis 66-34 last year.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/1/2150591/-Who-will-be-Pennsylvania-House-speaker-come-next-week-No-one-is-quite-sure