Sam Scialdone – 12/31/06

This page was last updated on January 2, 2007.

Perzel ignoring the voters; Sam Scialdone; Beaver County Times; December 31, 2006.

Nothing you read below should be interpreted as support for Mr. Perzel. I was disappointed – but not surprised – Mr. Perzel’s district re-elected him and disappointed – again not surprised – House Republicans re-nominated him for Speaker. The purpose of this critique is to show Mr. Scialdone appears to have a talent for seeing what’s wrong with the other party but not seeing the same faults in his own party.

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“I’ve been reading news articles about how former Pennsylvania House Speaker John Perzel, a Philadelphia Republican, refuses to move out of the Capitol office reserved for the speaker, despite the Democrats winning back the House majority after the recent election.”

[RWC] First, Mr. Perzel is not yet “former Pennsylvania House Speaker John Perzel” so there’s no reason for him to vacate his office, yet. The election for speaker doesn’t take place until January 2^nd.

“I also read where Perzel is trying to make some kind of back-room deals to entice disloyal Democrats to either switch parties or at least vote for him for speaker.”

[RWC] According to a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, Mr. Perzel appears to have been successful in at least one case.

“This is absolutely outrageous. If I read this right, Perzel is bargaining with our tax dollars to try to overturn the will of the voters.

“The voters put Democrats in charge for the next two years, but Perzel is making back-room deals to pay off Democrats with extra staff, extra ‘walking around money’ for their districts, plum committee assignments and campaign dollars in a shady attempt to maintain his personal power.

“This is exactly the sort of sleaze that voters all across the country rejected just a few weeks ago.

“Perzel has no right to use our tax money to pay off sleazy Democrats in order to keep his fancy office and power.”

[RWC] Note Mr. Scialdone didn’t tell us where he got his info about what Mr. Perzel was doing to entice Democrats to vote for him. The aforementioned PG article said, “Republican Perzel agreed to divide committee chairmanships equally between the two parties, and agreed the House will adjourn no later than 10 p.m. unless there is a specific vote to continue. In the past, legislators often debated past midnight on important issues.” If that’s all it took, that’s not “sleazy.”

Mr. Scialdone likely would like us to believe the Democrat speaker nominee, Rep. H. William DeWeese, is pure as the driven snow. When Democrat Rep. Thomas R. Caltagirone said he would vote for Mr. Perzel to be speaker, he also wrote, “They [Democrat leaders] have operated the caucus as a personal fiefdom, promoting their own personal and political ambitions behind a wall of secrecy and petty personal vindictiveness.” As a reminder, Mr. DeWeese took committee assignments away from Democrats who voted against the payjacking.

In truth, I believe choosing between Messrs. DeWeese and Perzel is choosing between the lesser of two evils.

“As a lifelong Democrat, I am disgusted with Democrats who would even consider selling the House majority for their own personal gain.”

[RWC] I suggest taking this comment and letter with a grain of salt. You see, in his letter entitled “Experience does politico good” (November 30, 2005), Mr. Scialdone asked, “Where would we be without Mike [Veon] and Frank [LaGrotta]?” In summary, Mr. Scialdone told us how wonderful fellow payjackers Messrs. LaGrotta and Veon were and attempted to defend their payjacking antics.

Democrats “selling the House majority for their own personal gain” is wrong when it comes to voting for Speaker, but voting for a payjacking “for their own personal gain” in violation of the PA Constitution was OK?

“I also can’t believe that the many good and honest Republicans of Pennsylvania would want to be associated with something as corrupt as this.”

[RWC] Based on what we know at this point, Mr. Perzel did nothing wrong to get Mr. Caltagirone’s vote. I could be wrong, but I doubt we’d have seen this letter if it were Rep. DeWeese or any other Democrat doing the dealing.

Just before I posted this critique it was reported Rep. Dennis M. O’Brien (R-Philadelphia) was elected Speaker 105-97. I know nothing about Rep. O’Brien.

Strangely, Rep. DeWeese nominated Rep. O’Brien when he determined he could not get enough votes to win himself. I can’t help but wonder why Mr. DeWeese didn’t nominate another Democrat, unless Rep. O’Brien is such a liberal Republican he qualifies as a Democrat. Something just doesn’t smell right about this. It would be interesting to know who voted for each candidate and if it was mostly a party line vote.

Does anyone want to bet Mr. Scialdone will still have a problem even though someone other than Mr. Perzel was elected?