Walking the Party Line
Anyone who wants some insight into the wackiness of the Pennsylvania Legislature would be well served to go through the Daily Kos entries posted by State Representative Mark Cohen, a Philadelphia Democrat. In a nutshell – Democrats have a one seat majority in the state House, but one Democrat announced he was going to cross party lines and vote for the Republican candidate for Speaker, a Republican from Northeast Philadelphia named John Perzel. This would have given Republicans effective control of the chamber. Democrats were able to outmaneuver Perzel by nominating another Republican from Northeast Philadelphia, Dennis O’Brien. (O’Brien happens to be my state rep, and has been as long as I can remember.) Six Republicans, angry at Perzel for various reasons, crossed party lines and voted for O’Brien along with most of the Democrats. O’Brien agreed to appoint Democrats to head committees and to support the Democratic majority, although at this time it is unclear whether or not he will change parties.
One thing that the back-and-forth over the speakership has brought to the surface is the question of whether an elected public official has an obligation to support his or her party in organizational matters such as this. One side of the argument says that public officials are elected as individuals, and their job is to use their judgment to represent their constituents as well as possible. If an official’s judgment is that his or her party should not control a legislative chamber, then the official should act on that decision.
The other side of the argument is that a candidate’s party affiliation is one of the things that voters take into consideration when casting a vote. Some voters believe that control of a legislative chamber is more important than an individual official’s beliefs in setting policy, because the leaders of a chamber and relevant committees can control what legislation comes up for a vote and what does not. In this case, an official who crosses party lines is breaking an implicit campaign promise, and a very significant one.
Since I’m definitely someone who has started voting along party lines for very much this reason, I am quite sympathetic to this way of thinking. My problem is that not everyone thinks this way, and so that implicit campaign promise has some wiggle room to it. I don’t think it’s automatically wrong for a representative to cross lines or switch parties – but if one does, he or she shouldn’t be surprised by the backlash.
It does kind of make me wish we had more of a parliamentary system, where control of a chamber was clearly a key issue and where numerous smaller parties with clearly defined platforms could go at it. But I’m not holding my breath for it.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.