Welcome to Joanna McClinton’s House, where the historic Pa. speaker is more of a mediator than a meddler

HARRISBURG — House Speaker Joanna McClinton was yet again about to be the first at something.

McClinton, the first woman and the second Black person to lead the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in its 244-year history, in December became the first House speaker to visit the Harrisburg Planned Parenthood office.

McClinton, a Philadelphia Democrat, toured the clinic on a day when providers administered about 20 medical abortions. It was just her first stop in a jam-packed day, just before a meeting with Philadelphia high school students. The day didn’t end until after 10:30 p.m., when she appeared at a news conference with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and Republican leaders after the legislature approved a final budget deal after a five-month standoff.

McClinton, 41, has become a rising star in the Democratic Party for her defense of reproductive health care, her role in House redistricting, and her leadership as her party flipped control of the House in the 2022 election for the first time in 12 years — and then defended its one-seat majority in four special elections since then.

Her first year as House speaker has been a challenging one, as Democrats learned how to be in the majority and had to balance their priorities with a need for compromise with the GOP-controlled Senate.

McClinton’s Republican and Democratic peers credit her ability to control a room.

“She is gracious and kind,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland), who is the first woman to lead the Pennsylvania Senate. The two differ on many policy issues, but got to know each other when McClinton was a Senate staffer. “I don’t think you can let her kind and gracious self fool you, because she didn’t get where she was without grit and know-how.”

If you ask her, McClinton says she’s spent the year listening — in monthly breakfasts with freshman members that she started, bipartisan meetings with legislative leaders, or at the grocery store with her constituents.

“I came here to listen, not with an ask,” McClinton told staff and board members at Planned Parenthood’s Harrisburg clinic in December. “I don’t think [other lawmakers] know what you all do. I’m here to know what it is that we can do at the state level to ensure access, and most importantly, the other services you provide.”

McClinton grew up in Southwest Philadelphia — where she still lives — and attended Grace Temple Christian Academy.

She said she learned relentless determination from her mother, who would save up vacation days each year to volunteer and run a camp in the neighborhood.

“You can make an impact,” she said. “You can intentionally deny yourself vacation for a year so that you can take four weeks off in July — well, three, one was always unpaid — and put together programs that help children from challenging circumstances as they grow up and realize, ‘There’s hope for me. This lady reminded me there’s a future for me.’”

McClinton graduated from La Salle University and earned a law degree from Villanova University before becoming a Philadelphia public defender. She later worked as chief counsel to State Sen. Anthony H. Williams (D., Philadelphia) until she ran for the 191st House District in 2015.

Like many female leaders, McClinton was hesitant to run for office and needed encouragement from Williams and others to do so. She said she’s a shy person beneath her colorful suits-and-sneaker ensembles, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to take that step.

“I could barely put a campaign speech together,” she said. “When you talk about a comfort zone, I did not think running around my neighborhood was something that fit my personality.”

McClinton won a special election after her predecessor resigned as part of a guilty plea for corruption charges. She and Rep. Donna Bullock (D., Philadelphia), who was elected at the same time, call each other “Sister Reps” and became two of nine Black women in the General Assembly. Their colleagues would often mix them up, Bullock said.

The two lawmakers built a special bond right away, sharing an office for their first year, Bullock said.

Since then, they’ve been growing the number of “Sister Reps” with other women of color, and have pushed for policies they care most about, such as Black maternal health, pay equity, and gun violence prevention.

“It really is a sisterhood,” Bullock added.

McClinton rose quickly into leadership, and in 2018, became the first woman to lead the House Democratic caucus.

“There’s the saying, ‘What you see is what you get.’ I don’t think people fully see her,” Williams said of his protégé. “They see the intellectual part, but I don’t know that they can see the struggle that she came from, because she doesn’t wear that.”

McClinton also serves as associate minister at Open Door Mission True Light Church in West Philly, and said her Christian faith helps her stay grounded.

“I’m here for now, but it’s just for now. It’s not forever,” McClinton said from the ornate speaker’s office. “The time that I have that I’m here, to be intentional about doing good. Because while everybody’s excited today, it’ll be very fleeting.”

And outside of her official duties, McClinton has several hidden talents, Bullock said, such as her knowledge of Spanish and American Sign Language, her ability to style hair, her singing voice, cooking skills, and even a talent for impersonations.

The steps to the speakership for McClinton were rocky, to say the least.

Democrats flipped the House by one seat in the 2022 election. But they had three vacancies to start the legislative session after two resignations and one death so they had 99 members to Republicans’ 101 when the House convened last January.

McClinton was poised to become speaker, but instead, House Republicans installed Rep. Mark Rozzi (D., Berks), who promised to be an “independent” speaker. At the time, McClinton called her denial of the speakership “a dream deferred,” referencing a Langston Hughes poem.

Democrats then took back their one-seat majority, Rozzi stepped down, and McClinton was elected speaker on Feb. 28, 2023.

She is the second Black speaker; the first was K. Leroy Irvis, who was speaker in the 1970s and 1980s andfor whom a wing of the Capitol building is named. McClinton has a photo of Irvis hanging in her office that she received two years ago from former House Speaker Bill DeWeese.

“I’m a proud person, I don’t like to cry in public. But it did bring tears to my eyes,” McClinton said of that gift.

At the time of her election, Republicans broke from the long-held tradition of unanimously electing the speaker and opposed McClinton. And just as she was elected, allegations of sexual harassment against a Democratic representative were made public on the House floor.

“Black women, we don’t get a day,” McClinton said. “We don’t get a day. Old news comes out immediately. … It’s amazing.”

House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) — a former House speaker himself — said the GOP caucus opposed her speakership because Democrats failed to negotiate bipartisan operating rules, as Rozzi had promised.

Cutler said he has a very good personal relationship with McClinton but has accused her of making partisan decisions on bills while presiding over the chamber, denying Republicans the right to make amendments to bills or participate in debates hundreds of times.

“While being a speaker is an honor, it’s also a very heavy mantle,” Cutler added. “I do understand what she’s going through.”

McClinton said she’s focused on making sure all voices are heard. And she has consistently said she sees making sure many women follow in her footsteps as part of her job.

“This is, right now, an opportunity to do good, to make a difference, and pave the way for more women,” she said.

Some past speakers of the House have used their roles to push their own personal agendas. That’s not McClinton’s style.

While she presides over the chamber, she lets Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D., Montgomery) choose which bills will be voted on.

“A lot of people conflate the speaker’s role with the leader,” McClinton said. “We’re on the same team, but that’s not my role.”

McClinton moderates debate and runs through the legislative script necessary so a bill can pass the chamber.

“My role is to make sure that there is stability in the chamber, respect in the chamber, to make sure that voices are heard on every issue, every perspective,” McClinton said. “My role is to make sure that our voting sessions are run in a way that this institution that’s almost 250 years old now, is respected.”

Her peers appreciate her leadership.

”She has a grace that is strong at the same time,” Bullock said.

And she’s learned a balance her leadership role with serving her district, which includes parts of Southwest Philadelphia and Delaware County.

As she first got into leadership, she realized she hadn’t previously visited other districts across the state. One constituent, McClinton recalls, gave her a hard time about traveling away from Philadelphia.

“‘Oh, you’re back in Pittsburgh,’ he would comment. ‘We miss you on 60th Street,’” McClinton said. “But that same constituent has never been prouder to say that his state rep is the speaker.”

McClinton is now leading the House through an election year, as Democrats hope to maintain and expand their House majority. And she’s confident that the General Assembly will pass a few major Democratic priorities, once legislators return in mid-March from a four-month recess, including raising the minimum wage and revamping public school funding.

McClinton first learned about a lawsuit challenging Pennsylvania’s school funding system while she was a law student at Villanova in 2004, when she was 22. Two decades later, the state still hasn’t chosen an equitable school funding system, but the Commonwealth Court has ruled that it needs to do so.

McClinton’s district includes part of the William Penn School District in Delaware County, the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit. Shapiro pitched increasing basic education funding by $1 billion this year, and he and McClinton now need to reach a deal with Senate Republicans in the coming months.

She will be touting Democratic successes for working families from the last year, including a child- and dependent-care tax credit and an increased property tax rebate for seniors that a Democratic representative had been trying to raise since 2006.

Pennsylvania has one of the few state legislatures on which a different party controls each chamber. So many top Democratic priorities such as protections for reproductive rights or legalizing recreational marijuana didn’t get to Shapiro’s desk last year, since the House needs buy-in from Senate Republicans on every bill.

“In one year, we have accomplished what Republicans have not,” McClinton said. “Our leadership is making an impact. And I’m looking to see what we can accomplish in 2024.”