Oct 2, 2005 3 min read

You’d probably need to use the outer-space Hubble telescope to find the loyal opposition in Harrisburg these days, where leadership of the Democratic minority remains in lockstep with their GOP counterparts on the incendiary pay raise issue. In a true two-party system, you’d expect the party out of power to be making noise – and lots of it – over an issue that’s causing such boil-over on the stove of public opinion. What better way for Democrats, who have a virtual stranglehold on Legislative seats in this neck of Penn’s Woods, to ingratiate themselves with voters statewide? If you’re looking to pick up a dozen or so seats needed for a House takeover, or the half-dozen or so needed to assume Senate control, wouldn’t you want to tap into this issue and make the other side squirm mightily?

But that hasn’t happened and, regrettably, it won’t. Democratic leadership in both chambers was part and parcel of the pay raise deal-cutting, so on the most divisive issue of the day, they are solidly linked at the hip – and it seems at the lip – with their supposed foes on the other side of the aisle. If politics indeed makes for strange bedfellows, on this issue Republican House Speaker John Perzel and Democratic Minority Leader H. William DeWeese are practically wearing the same night cap.

Instead of setting the table to draw aim at Republicans by opposing the pay hike, audacious pay raise supporter DeWeese axed 15 fellow Democrats who voted against the pay raise from committee chairmanships, replacing them with others who had cast a yes vote, ostensibly to reward them for their bravery.

DeWeese and other top Democrats fumbled another opportunity to differentiate themselves just this week, when Perzel assigned two pay raise repeal bills to the House Rules Committee, which is chaired and staffed by the same GOP leadership that supported the pay raise, instead of sending them to the State Government Committee that includes several pay-repeal supporters.

And when Democratic state Reps. Greg Vitali of Delaware County and Steve Samuelson of Lehigh County spoke out against the way majority Republicans had adopted rules for the special session on property tax reform, DeWeese countered that the changes were easily understood. By so doing, it appeared he was more interested in watching the back of Republican Majority Leader Sam Smith than two members of his own caucus.

Perhaps DeWeese and other top Democrats in Harrisburg should more closely study Newt Gingrich, the Georgia Republican who engineered his party’s takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives. Gingrich did so by slamming Democrats at every turn, and drawing stark and effective comparisons between his party and the one then in power.

Until we see evidence of that happening, it’s hard to believe that a two-party system really exists in Harrisburg.