Republican state lawmakers aim to change Pennsylvania’s constitution

ORDINARILY THE swearing-in of elected lawmakers in Pennsylvania’s state House is a formality. Pictures are taken. There is lots of smiling and shaking of hands. This year was different. A brawl nearly erupted when Jake Corman, the Republican president pro tempore of the state Senate, refused to swear in Jim Brewster, a Democrat who had just been re-elected. John Fetterman, the Democratic lieutenant-governor and Senate president, objected to the refusal. The Senate Republicans then voted to remove Mr Fetterman, who was presiding over the session, and replaced him with Mr Corman. In footage of the vote Mr Fetterman sounded incredulous and then irate. At first, he refused to give up his gavel. At one point both men attempted to recognise motions from the floor. Mr Fetterman called this “a fundamental assault on democracy”, where the people’s will and the courts were ignored because one party did not like the result. Tom Wolf, the (Democratic) governor, described it as a “shameful power grab”.

Only 69 votes separated Mr Brewster from Nicole Ziccarelli, his Republican rival. His district spans two counties. Each county counted mail-in-ballots a little differently, with one allowing undated ballots and the other not. Ms Ziccarelli challenged these ballots. Pennsylvania’s supreme court allowed the disputed votes to be counted and the state’s secretary of state certified the results. This did not satisfy the Republicans, who continued to challenge the votes in federal court. When a federal judge upheld the state court’s decision, Ms Ziccarelli dropped her suit and Mr Brewster was at last sworn in on January 13th. “I hate to say this, being a political conservative,” says Joseph DiSarro, a political scientist at Washington & Jefferson College, “but we may have to federalise elections and the rules…take it out of the hands of the states.”