Pa.’s top House leader wants you to help fix gridlock in Harrisburg

Philadelphians and their neighbors will have the chance Friday to pitch House Speaker Mark Rozzi on their solutions to Pennsylvania’s partisan gridlock.

Rozzi (D., Berks) pledged Wednesday to keep the doors to the state House locked until lawmakers compromise on two items: reaching fair agreements on the rules that govern session and promising to pass a constitutional amendment to allow adults who suffered childhood sexual abuse to file civil suit in a two-year window.

“I’m ready to call the House back to session when we have a fair compromise for the people of Pennsylvania, and good government ready to roll,” Rozzi said Wednesday during his first listening tour stop in Pittsburgh.

Rozzi’s listening tour will meet Friday at St. Joseph’s University at the Cardinal John P. Foley Campus Center at 6 p.m. If you want to attend or speak at the event, you can register here.

The first listening tour session in Pittsburgh on Wednesday included a number of good-government advocates from groups like Fix Harrisburg and CeaseFirePA, asking that House leaders commit to passing bipartisan rule changes and gun-control measures. Special-interest groups like the good-government group Common Cause PA and the Commonwealth Foundation also got the chance to speak.

Some of the most passionate remarks came from adult survivors of childhood sexual assault.

Shaun Dougherty, the board president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and a Pennsylvania resident, spoke last.

“We are exhausted, and we are angry,” Dougherty said, after watching Pennsylvania’s efforts stall and other states passing laws providing survivors their long-awaited justice. “Why are child sex abuse survivors being used as a political beach ball?”

Rozzi, who was also sexually abused by a priest and built his political reputation on the fight for justice, said he’s committed to getting this constitutional amendment passed.

“My first priority as speaker, and I have made it clear, it’s to get victims of childhood sexual assault — children who have been raped — justice,” Rozzi said.

He called Senate GOP efforts to couple this sexual abuse amendment with voter ID and regulatory reform amendments “disgusting” and “shameless.”

With House leaders unable to reach an agreement on the most basic part of their jobs — the rules that govern the session — Rozzi launched a work group of six rank-and-file members of the House, three from each party. The listening tour was born out of that group’s work so far.

“To help us break this gridlock, I have decided to seek the counsel of those most often neglected: the people of Pennsylvania,” Rozzi said in a release announcing the listening tour. “In the coming weeks I will be touring the commonwealth to hear directly from our citizenry on how they think the House can best move forward and heal the divides that exist due to the hyper-partisan politics of Harrisburg.”

Both the House and Senate are recessed until Feb. 27, unless sooner recalled by their leadership.

At this point, it’s unlikely that any constitutional amendments will make their way onto the May primary ballot. Any ballot measures would have needed to be passed by both chambers by the first week in February to be advertised properly by the state Department of State.