Pennsylvania’s State Representatives and Senators were sworn into office for the 2021-2022 legislative session in Harrisburg today. While the swearing-in ceremony in the House ran rather smoothly, .
| Updated January 6, 2021
Republicans who control the Pennsylvania Senate have refused to seat a Democrat elected in November because of a lawsuit brought by his rival, plunging the chamber into chaos Tuesday afternoon.
The Democrat, Jim Brewster, had defeated his GOP opponent Nicole Ziccarelli in his bid to represent Allegheny County, an area that includes Pittsburgh. Although the race was a close one, state officials certified Brewster’s win last year.
Upon Pennsylvania lawmakers’ return to the state Capitol in Harrisburg, where they were to be sworn in for a two-year term, the scene quickly dissolved into mayhem. Democrats loudly protested the Republicans’ decision not to seat Brewster, leading to Republicans voting to oust John Fetterman, the Democratic lieutenant governor, as the state Senate’s presiding officer.
Pennsylvania Republicans block seating of Democratic state senator, take control from lieutenant governor Updated: January 6
Print article The seating of new Pennsylvania legislators turned into a bitter partisan spectacle Tuesday, as Republicans in the state Senate blocked a Democratic lawmaker from taking his oath of office and removed the Democratic lieutenant governor from his role overseeing the proceedings. Lawmakers shouted and spoke over each other, at one point trying to conduct dueling sessions in a stark showcase of this year’s party divides over normally routine functions of democracy. “There’s nothing about his day that is appropriate,” one state senator yelled. “Nothing!”
What would normally be a rite of passage in the Pennsylvania Senate, with members being sworn in at the start of a new legislative session, quickly devolved Tuesday into a partisan fight.
Senators returned to Harrisburg and the battle soon started: first over masks and whether state senators should wear them on the Senate floor.
Then it took a sharper turn to whether incumbent Sen. Jim Brewster, a Democrat from McKeesport, Allegheny County, should be seated after a close victory last November.
And the fight reached its pinnacle when a vote was held by the Republican-controlled chamber to replace Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman as president of the Senate.