May 24, 2006 3 min read

Popular opinion following last Tuesday’s election is, “Republicans got it, Democrats didn’t.” That 13 of the 15 incumbent state legislators ousted belong to the GOP seems to prove that theory. That the 41 legislative survivors included the two top Democrats in the House of Representative, Minority Leader H. William DeWeese and Mike Veon, provides further credence. DeWeese and Veon, you’ll recall, were the only two who refused to repeal last year’s controversial pay raise on its first vote. DeWeese capitulated on the second repeal vote, but it was clear from his comments that his change of heart was tepid at best. So how did voters in their respective districts send these men a message? By giving them 60 percent of the vote in their respective Democratic Party primaries.

At the same time, two powerful Republicans in the state Senate, President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer of Blair County and Majority Leader Chip Brightbill of Lebanon County, were being shown the door vigorously and with great gusto. Eleven other Republican incumbents went down the tubes on Election Day, for reasons that may have extended beyond the pay raise. But GOP voters in those districts should be lauded for one thing: They were paying attention, and they voted for change.

Not so in the Greene County portion of DeWeese’s district, or the Beaver County district in which Veon serves. Democrats in those areas clearly sent a signal to the rest of the state: We like our guy a lot, so we’re willing to look the other way on a host of important issues. Basically, those Democrats were saying they favor the status quo so much, they want to continue it. What didn’t matter an iota to them was DeWeese’s and Veon’s culpability, as party leaders, in the horrendous way that Harrisburg does business, which lacks accountability and transparency.

“People were very angry about the pay raise, but they’re happy with the way Mike and Bill have been leading the party in other affairs,” said Dan Wiedemer, executive director of the House Democratic Campaign Committee, who mentioned their fights to raise the minimum wage and lower property taxes.

If Wiedemer’s assessment is true, it shows just how little a legislator must do to win re-election in Greene and Beaver counties. And, quite frankly, it shows the rest of the state that those Democratic voters really didn’t get it. They sent a message, all right. But it wasn’t the right one.