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HARRISBURG — As the 2024 presidential election approaches, the people who run voting in Pennsylvania say the commonwealth must prepare to be at the center of national scrutiny.

These officials, who administer elections on the county level, argue the state should update its century-old Election Code, make long-sought adjustments to mail voting processes, and strengthen the system against bogus fraud claims.

Former President Donald Trump propagated baseless theories about widespread election fraud in Pennsylvania and other key swing states after his 2020 loss, efforts that resulted in a large number of lawsuits in the commonwealth and subjected election workers to intense scrutiny and harassment.

In conversations with Spotlight PA, four election directors said there are a few concrete changes that would shore up Pennsylvania’s system against frivolous fraud allegations as the 2024 election — which could again feature Trump as a candidate — approaches.

Most of them are measures that election officials have pushed for consistently since 2020, but which polarized state lawmakers have not delivered. They include clarifying the state’s mail voting rules, allowing poll workers to count ballots before Election Day, and raising the bar for challenging results.

Administrative changes

Many of the policy changes that election directors want center around giving poll workers more time to do their jobs. Namely, they say the deadline for requesting a mail ballot should be earlier and that poll workers should be allowed to start counting mail ballots before 7 a.m. on Election Day, a process commonly known as pre-canvassing.

Currently, Pennsylvania voters can request a mail ballot up to a week before Election Day, which officials said leaves too little time to get ballots back to voters in time.

“Seven days is not very much time to receive an application, process the application, print and mail the mail ballots, for the voter to receive that ballot, to vote, and return it,” said Seth Bluestein, a Philadelphia commissioner who is one of three people charged with overseeing the city’s elections.

Election workers also don’t have much time to open and process mail ballots at the moment.

Since 2020, the first major election in which Pennsylvania used no-excuse mail voting, election workers have said the current rules make it very difficult to quickly release unofficial results. Pennsylvania’s slow pace in releasing vote counts during that election was a major factor in Trump’s ability to foment conspiracy theories about fraud.

Since then, pre-canvassing has been used as a bargaining chip during election law debates in the state Capitol. A 2021 omnibus bill passed by the Republican-led state legislature offered former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf pre-canvassing in return for expanded voter ID requirements — a GOP priority. Wolf vetoed the bill because of that provision.

For election directors, pre-canvassing is more practical than political.

“We’re already working 14- to 16-hour days,” said Tonia Fernandez, who has served for four years as Erie County’s election director. “We’re constantly putting out fires, dealing with issues, and overseeing the process of canvassing.”

Fernadez says pre-canvassing would spread out the work that election workers have to do and create a more manageable schedule.

Ballot counting has gotten easier since 2020, partly because county workers now have more experience under their belts and because the state has allocated money for hiring more poll workers and purchasing equipment.

There is a catch: Counties that accept grant money from the state for elections must process and count their mail ballots without stopping until finished.

Erie County received over $900,000 in state funding from Act 88, and Fernandez said she’s not sure how the counting provision will affect her process in the upcoming presidential election. She already oversaw a midterm that featured nonstop counting, but 2024 will be even bigger.

“Before the election integrity grants were offered we would spend two or three days pre-canvassing and canvassing,” Fernandez said, noting that this approach gave “everyone the chance to sleep.”

Updating the code

Forrest Lehman, an election director in Lycoming County, said his priorities have shifted since the 2020 election.

“If you had asked me this a few years ago, I think my list would have largely aligned with other directors,” Lehman said, referring to expanded pre-canvassing and other measures designed to give workers more time to process ballots.

But now, he’s more concerned with strengthening the system against misinformation.

“It’s not pre-canvassing anymore, it’s not tinkering around with deadlines or even with mail ballot requirements,” he said. “It’s protecting our post-election processes and our certification processes from people who want to prevent democracy from functioning.”

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Lehman said he saw requests for recounts that he felt were based on “dubious” evidence and that were resulting in expensive litigation.

Lehman wants the state legislature to update the cost to file recount petitions to account for inflation. The state Election Code set the price at $50 in 1937, which is equivalent to over $1,000 in 2023. Both Lehman and Fernandez, the Erie County election official, said that amount would better reflect the cost to counties when they have to administer recounts.

Lehman also argued there should be a penalty for counties that fail to certify elections. Currently, the main recourse the state has against a county that holds up certification is a lawsuit. Lehman pointed to the federal Electoral Count Reform Act as a possible model; the bipartisan federal law raised the threshold for Congress to object to a slate of electors during presidential elections.

Lehman also suggested criminal penalties for anyone who harasses or tries to intimidate county election officials and poll workers, and he said he supports creating a process whereby counties could defend themselves in court if recount petitions were filed.

“I think all of us have a suspicion that [2020]’s all just a dress rehearsal for next year,” said Lehman. “And the expectation is that it’s all going to happen next year if we’re not prepared.”

Some election directors also say holistic updates to Pennsylvania’s Election Code would create a well-oiled election process and head off false claims of fraud.

The code is outdated. The bulk of its language was written more than 80 years ago, and some of its provisions are even older.

Because of this, counties’ actual administration practices sometimes must diverge from what is written in state law. Election directors rely on guidance from the state and their county legal counsel to navigate these gray areas in the law, but the situation can lead to misunderstandings and lawsuits from people confused about the law. It also leaves the door open for bad faith efforts to sow mistrust.

Thad Hall, election director in Mercer County, said one area that he thinks is particularly ripe for an update is language about technology, which is broadly inapplicable in the 21st century.

“The whole problem with the code is it’s written for paper, but we have an electronic process,” Hall said.

For example, the state Election Code currently requires each polling district to have two different workers keep lists of the voters who check-in. But Hall said that would not be necessary when using electronic pollbooks, which would record voters as they checked in.

“It makes it easier for everybody,” Hall said. “Right now, I have to have two people go around and their whole job all day is just to write [voters’] names in a book. A lot easier if the system gave us leeway as to how we handle these check-ins.”

Hall added that electronic pollbooks also streamline communication between precincts and election directors, as they provide up-to-date information on the number of votes cast in each precinct, allowing him to instantly check if the right number of ballots is being uploaded for every precinct. If he saw a pollbook was offline, he would know there was an issue in that precinct.

The chance for change

All of the election directors who spoke with Spotlight PA questioned whether the state legislature would be able to pass any of the changes they’re asking for.

Fernandez was the most optimistic, saying she hopes that after the 2022 general election, Republicans would begin to support mail ballots and find areas of compromise with Democrats in the state legislature.

To some extent, her hopes came true — GOP rhetoric against mail voting has shifted slightly. That change could be seen shortly after state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin), who badly lost his gubernatorial bid to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, said in a post-concession radio interview that he didn’t see how Republicans could win elections without “embracing” mail voting.

But that change in attitude hasn’t translated to legislative progress on election issues.

As recently as October, the state legislature has been unable to pass an election reform bill. As part of an effort to move the date of the upcoming primary so it would not conflict with Passover, state House leaders tried to pass a proposal that also rolled in pre-canvassing along with a more contentious provision that would expand voter ID requirements. The bill overwhelmingly failed to pass the state House.

“They just literally can’t pass a bill that is nondescript, it’s like it’s not in their DNA. And I do not understand why,” Hall said of lawmakers repeatedly adding politically divisive elements to bills that could otherwise get bipartisan support. “Is there any political advantage to passing the bill? Absolutely not. Will it make elections work better? Absolutely, yes.”

Both Lehman and Bluestein echoed Hall’s sentiments, saying they doubt any election law would change in time for next year’s races.

“The state-level actors, the courts, the legislature will have no one to blame but themselves. We’ve been very clear about what we need. They all refused to provide it,” said Lehman. “The can just keeps getting kicked down the road. And as long as that keeps being the case, the counties are going to have to be the adults in the room.”

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HARRISBURG — A political group almost entirely funded by Pennsylvania’s richest resident has contributed one out of every three dollars raised this year by candidates running in critical statewide judicial races.

The group, Commonwealth Leaders Fund, has spent over $2.7 million, the vast majority to support just one candidate: Montgomery County judge Carolyn Carluccio, a Republican running for a seat on the state Supreme Court.

The position comes with great power. In recent years, the high court threw out the state’s congressional map for being overtly partisan, allowed a lawsuit challenging the state’s education funding system to go to trial, and upheld the state’s mail voting law.

Appellate court races in Pennsylvania have become increasingly high-profile — and expensive — since 2015. That year, Democrats flipped the state’s high court after spending $15.8 million to win three open seats. Republicans see this year’s race as a must-win as they move to retake control of the court by as early as 2025.

From the beginning of the year through late September, the eight major party candidates for Supreme, Superior, and Commonwealth Courts collectively raised $8.3 million.

Much of that money can be traced to libertarian billionaire Jeff Yass, co-founder of the stock trading company Susquehanna International Group and an advocate for alternatives to public schools.

Individuals and committees can make unlimited political donations under Pennsylvania’s relatively lax campaign finance law, and Yass, who has a roughly $28.5 billion net worth, has embraced that permissiveness.

He does not directly donate to candidates. Instead, he contributes money to his own political action committee, Students First. That committee gives money to another PAC, this one controlled by ​​Matt Brouillette, a conservative activist-turned-GOP power player. That group then contributes to Commonwealth Leaders Fund.

Even in an odd-year election, Yass’ dollars flow everywhere, popping up in municipal races in Philadelphia and Allegheny County and in contests for statewide benches, said Eric Rosso, a leftist Philadelphia political operative who has closely tracked Yass’ political activity.

“The fact that he is one of the biggest, almost sole, investor in the Supreme Court should raise red flags to anybody who cares about the integrity of government,” Rosso said.

In a statement, Brouillette, treasurer of Commonwealth Leaders Fund, said the group supports Carluccio because “she is a highly qualified judge who will uphold the Constitution, apply the law as written, and not make decisions based on partisan ideology.”

Traditional Democratic donors, such as the associations representing trial lawyers and many trade unions, have also thrown big money behind that party’s candidates.

As the Nov. 7 election approaches, expect more cash to flow to these candidates and to efforts to raise awareness about the stakes of the races.

Other outside groups may influence the election in its closing weeks through independent expenditures, which are done without the knowledge or consent of the political campaign they hope to aid. For instance, abortion provider Planned Parenthood’s political arm has promised to spend six figures on independent ads targeting Carluccio.

Reports of such spending, which can include TV ads, political mail, or paid canvassing, aren’t due until Election Day.

Supreme Court

One seat is vacant on the state Supreme Court, which has the final say on legal issues ranging from election policy to abortion access, because of the death of Chief Justice Max Baer, who was first elected as a Democrat, last fall. Judges elected as Democrats currently have a 4-2 majority on the seven-member court.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE PA SUPREME COURT CANDIDATES

Democrat Daniel McCaffery has raised $2 million since the beginning of the year, while Republican candidate Carluccio has raked in $3.4 million during the same time period, $2.1 million of which has come from Commonwealth Leaders Fund.

Carluccio has primarily received in-kind contributions, which are nonmonetary goods or services that a group gives to candidates with the campaign’s consent.

Commonwealth Leaders Fund has primarily supported Carluccio by paying for mail and TV ads that boost her profile or attack McCaffery. Mail ads paid for by the fund have accused McCaffery of partisanship and of receiving “smutty” emails at his official government address. In 2014, McCaffery, then a Common Pleas Court judge in Philadelphia, received two emails from his brother Seamus — then a state Supreme Court justice — including sexually explicit content, The Inquirer reported at the time.

Other ads have praised Carluccio as a “fair judge” and touted her endorsements from the PA Pro-Life Federation and the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry.

Judicial candidates in Pennsylvania operate under special rules, said Sam Chen, a GOP political operative based in the Lehigh Valley. They cannot directly share their political opinions and cannot ask directly anyone for a donation, so they instead leave fundraising to campaign staff.

That makes the races harder to sell to traditional, individual donors, and encourages big political groups to flex their monetary muscle, Chen said.

“When you have the opportunity to collaborate with an outside group that wants to help you, like Commonwealth [Leaders Fund], you definitely take the opportunity if you are the candidate,” he said.

That strategy has paid off in the past. Commonwealth Leaders Fund provided roughly two-thirds of Supreme Court Justice Kevin Brobson’s $3.4 million campaign coffer in 2021. Brobson, who ran as a Republican, won an open seat on the bench by less than a percentage point.

In a statement, Carluccio spokesperson Rob Brooks said that “while I can’t speak for Commonwealth Leaders Fund, I suspect they too are interested in electing justices of the Supreme Court who will apply and uphold the law only and reject judicial activism.”

Carluccio also received $75,000 from the PA Future Fund — a political action committee connected to GOP power player Bob Asher — and donated at least $25,000 to her own campaign.

McCaffery, a current Superior Court judge, has brought in $750,000 came from Committee for a Better Tomorrow, a PAC run by the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association. Another $250,000 was donated by the PA Judicial PAC, which is the fundraising arm of the statewide trial attorneys association.

McCaffery also raised a sizable amount from organized labor: around $400,000 from a slew of trade unions such as the Greater PA Carpenters PAC — the political fundraising wing of a statewide association of carpenters — the Mid-Atlantic Laborer’s Political League, and Philadelphia’s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 98.

He also received $72,000 from the state Democratic Party in the form of an in-kind contribution that paid for mail ads and postage.

Superior Court

One of two intermediate appellate courts, Superior Court hears appeals on criminal trials and handles high-profile criminal cases such as the trial of Bill Cosby.

 LEARN MORE ABOUT THE SUPERIOR COURT CANDIDATES

Two of the 15 seats on Superior Court will be on the ballot this November, so each major party is offering two candidates.

The four candidates have collectively raised around $1.8 million, the bulk of which went to Democratic candidate Jill Beck.

All told, the two Democratic candidates raised about six times the amount of funds as their Republican counterparts.

Beck, a commercial litigation attorney, raised about $1 million. More than $186,000 came from the state Democratic Party in the form of in-kind contributions that went toward design, production and postage, according to campaign finance reports.

She also received $125,000 from the Committee for a Better Tomorrow and about $230,000 from union and labor organizations for operating engineers, painters and metalworkers, among others. Beck also received smaller donations from political organizations such as Conservation Voters of PA and Progressive Women of NEPA.

The second Democrat, Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Timika Lane, raised nearly $580,000 in total, with over a third of the funds coming from the Committee for a Better Tomorrow, which donated $200,000. She also received around $115,000 in donations from unions.

Lane received smaller donations, under $3,000, from organizations such as the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 PAC and the PA Democratic State Committee Women’s Caucus PAC.

Republican candidates Maria Battista and Harry Smail have raised around $250,000 collectively since the beginning of the year. Commonwealth Leaders Fund has not donated to these candidates.

Battista, who previously worked as general counsel for various state agencies, raised just $143,000, the bulk of which was a $50,000 donation from Martin Judge — chair and founder of the Judge Group, a business technology consulting organization. She also received about $10,000 from the Pennsylvania Republican Party, mostly in the form of in-kind donations, which paid for campaign literature and postage. She also received a $250 donation from former Trump ambassador to Denmark and previous U.S. Senate candidate Carla Sands.

Smail, a Westmoreland County Common Pleas judge, raised a similar amount, just under $110,000, over the course of the year.

Major donors included the For-Ward PAC — the fundraising committee of state Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland, which is chaired by her husband — which gave $27,000. The Pennsylvania Republican Party gave Smail just under $10,000 in the form of an in-kind donation for printing and postage.

Commonwealth Court

The other intermediate appellate court, Commonwealth Court hears cases relating to administrative and civil law. It is often the first court to take a look at cases concerning critical issues like redistricting and election administration. The nine-member court is also responsible for hearing cases involving state governments or agencies.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE COMMONWEALTH COURT CANDIDATES

The fundraising disparities between the two candidates for this race are huge, with Commonwealth Leaders Fund playing a major role.

Republican Megan Martin, the state Senate’s former parliamentarian, has raised just over $850,000 since the beginning of the year. The largest donation — nearly $600,000 — came from Commonwealth Leaders Fund as in-kind contributions for campaign mail.

Martin received around $46,000 from her former state Senate colleagues, including from the campaign committees of prominent members like Doug Mastriano, R-Franklin), Scott Martin, R-Lancaster, and Joe Pittman, R-Armstrong. The Pennsylvania Republican Party also donated nearly $10,000 in the form of an in-kind contribution to pay for mailing and postage.

Martin also raised $16,000 from union organizations such as the Mid-Atlantic Laborers, Boilermakers Local 154 and the Western Pennsylvania Laborers.

Democratic candidate Matt Wolf, a Philadelphia municipal court judge, has raised just under $200,000 since the beginning of the year. His largest donor was the Greater PA Carpenters PAC, which gave him about $65,000 in total. Wolf also received about $45,000 from other union and labor organizations for plumbers, transport workers and plasterer and cement masons.

Wolf also received a $25,000 donation from Committee for a Better Tomorrow and gave his own campaign about $50,000.

Learn more about Spotlight PA.

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HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Senate is weighing a measure that would give state regulators, rather than federal ones, the power to decide where to place large wells that are used to bury carbon dioxide produced by power plants deep underground.

Carbon capture is tied to the burgeoning hydrogen production industry, which is set to receive an enormous influx of cash over the next decade. As a part of the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Department of Energy will allocate $7 billion to up to 10 projects to create “hydrogen hubs.”

So far, the federal government has received three applications to build hydrogen hubs in Pennsylvania. State lawmakers and former Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf also approved $1 billion in tax incentives last year, aimed at attracting a hub to the state.

But environmental advocates and some lawmakers argue the state Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] won’t be able to provide adequate oversight of carbon capture and storage, and that communities will be endangered if such projects are allowed without federal oversight.

The state Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee recently passed a bill along party lines that would create a legal and regulatory framework for DEP to control where companies can dig underground injection wells.

These wells are used to store liquified carbon dioxide emissions as a way to prevent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere. Such wells can cause earthquakes and contaminate drinking water.

The agency would be tasked with assessing the terrain on which wells would be constructed, enforcing regulations on the quality of storage and transportation infrastructure, and monitoring public health impacts.

Currently, the federal Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] has the primary enforcement authority, also called primacy, when it comes to injection wells. This means that projects must be approved by the federal agency and meet its construction, monitoring, and operating standards.

The bill under consideration in Pennsylvania would direct the DEP to assume this authority from the EPA.

Only two states, North Dakota and Wyoming, have this level of authority over injection wells, but other states with large energy industries, such as Louisiana and Texas, are also debating whether they should take on primacy.

State Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Lycoming, chair of his chamber’s environmental committee, said Pennsylvania needs to start pursuing carbon capture, utilization and storage.

“We need to move. And yes, there will be problems along the way, I’m sure,” Yaw told Spotlight PA. “But doing nothing and sitting back and just sitting here and talking about it — that’s not an option.”

Yaw added that the bill can show the Department of Energy, which is charged with disbursing the billions in federal funds, that Pennsylvania is ready and eager to host a hydrogen hub.

“All we’re worried about is being in the mix that we’re considered as a location. And in order to do that, we have to indicate our interests,” Yaw said.

Democratic committee members said they received the bill less than a day prior to the meeting, and have concerns about the bill’s lack of attention to environmental or community impact.

State Sen. Carolyn Comitta, D-Chester, the minority chair of the committee, said she supports the state having regulatory power over carbon capture but not without proper regulation and oversight, which she thinks this bill lacks. She also said DEP lacks the staff needed to properly oversee injection wells.

“In EPA requirements for tax credits, for projects like hydrogen hubs and [carbon capture and storage], there is a strong component addressing environmental justice, community conversation and input, and this bill does not yet include that,” Comitta said. “I will not support something that’s not being done correctly.”

While many state lawmakers agree that the federal funding would be a major win for Pennsylvania and create thousands of new jobs in the construction and energy industries, they differ over what level of government oversight should be involved in hydrogen production and its related industries.

Earlier this month, concerns from Democratic leadership halted a bill in the state House Environmental Resources and Energy Committee that would have placed greater restrictions on which companies can collect tax credits on hydrogen production.

State Rep. Greg Vitali, D-Delaware, who chairs that committee, echoed Comitta. He cited concerns regarding the commonwealth assuming financial liability for the injection wells rather than the companies that dig the wells.

“I am supportive generally of the concept of carbon capture, but it needs to be done the right way,” Vitali said. “The influence of the natural gas industry, the influence of labor is very great in this building. And I’m very concerned that legislation will be rushed through that doesn’t adequately consider environmental impact.”

For Jen Quinn, the legislative director of Pennsylvania’s chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmentalist group, the issue of which agency should oversee the construction of injection wells is not black and white. Under the EPA, the strength of regulations often depends on what administration is in power and the DEP could have a better sense of local issues, she said.

But Quinn questioned whether the state will be able to create environmental regulations that are more stringent than those of the federal government.

“The state can always do something stronger than the federal standard, but it doesn’t mean that we’re in a state that will do that,” Quinn said. “I think we have the opportunity to put good safeguards in place. So it’s sort of like, what are we rushing for? But historically, that’s what we do.”

Learn more about Spotlight PA.

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HARRISBURG — In 2020, Pennsylvania Republicans grew deeply frustrated with the normal legislative process.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf had rejected several of their attempts to roll back decisions his administration made during the pandemic to close businesses, implement a mask mandate and order schools to provide classes online rather than in person.

They moved the bills through committees, voted on them, and sent them to Wolf, who responded with vetoes.

Their solution? Constitutional amendments.

Constitutional amendments are a way of advancing policy by sending decisions to voters in the form of a ballot measure, an approach that circumvents the executive branch.

As Wolf prepares to leave office in less than a week, legislative Republicans continue to push priorities like expanded voter ID requirements and additional election audits through this avenue.

However, the process itself is as complex as the politics driving its increased use.

Any lawmaker can introduce a constitutional amendment, but the chair of the committee it is referred to must agree to bring it up for a vote. If a simple majority in the committee votes for the amendment, then it moves to the floor of that chamber for consideration. The other chamber must then repeat the same steps.

Once the state House and Senate have both passed the amendment, the Pennsylvania Department of State advertises the exact language of the amendment and the changes it makes to the Pennsylvania Constitution in at least two newspapers in each county.

However, that’s only the first half of the process.

The constitutional amendment then has to be introduced in the following session with the exact same language and go through the cycle again — both chambers must pass the amendment in committees and on the floor.

Next, at least three months must go by before the amendment can appear on ballots in order to allow the Department of State enough time to publicize the proposed text.

After this step, the amendment appears as a referendum on ballots in the next statewide election. The Department of State writes the language of the referendum, and then voters decide its fate.

Once an amendment is placed on the ballot, it has a high chance of succeeding. Nearly 90% of proposed amendments have been approved by voters since 1968. Many have been put in front of voters in off-year elections, which typically have lower turnouts.

Some good-government groups criticized the legislature for its frequent use of constitutional amendments last session, calling it a strategy that sidesteps checks and balances and lacks public oversight. Democrats, the minority party in recent years, also contested this approach, saying it shuts them out of legislative conversations.

Republicans, with support from a handful of Democrats, advanced extremely controversial amendments last session, including ones that would expand voter ID requirements, declare there’s no constitutional right to abortion in the state, and further scale back the governor’s executive powers.

Some of those measures could reach voters this May.

In early January, the state Senate, in a 28-20 vote, passed four amendments bundled together in one package:

• a mandate for universal voter ID,
• a directive for the Office of Auditor General to conduct annual review of elections and election results,
• a provision to give the General Assembly more power to override regulations,
• and a long-sought amendment that would extend the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to file civil suits.

But in order to reach the ballot in May, these proposals would have to clear the state House by the end of this month so the Department of State has time to fulfill the advertising requirements.

That outcome seems unlikely given the status of the chamber.

Though lawmakers gathered in early January for a special session called by Wolf, a disagreement over rules has brought the chamber to a standstill.

Wolf asked the legislature to consider only the amendment to provide relief to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. The proposal has been championed by the new state House Speaker Rep. Mark Rozzi, D- Berks, who called the amendment his sole priority and pledged that no other issue would be addressed by the state House until it is approved.

However, Democratic and Republican leaders were unable to come to an agreement about operating rules for the special session, leading Rozzi to send legislators home.

To find a way forward, Rozzi organized a group of three Democrats and three Republicans to negotiate operating rules. They are set to meet for the first time Tuesday, Jan. 17.

A call for Rozzi to resign from state Rep. Jim Gregory, R-Blair, one of Rozzi’s closest allies on this issue and the representative who first nominated him for the speakership, has upped the uncertainty of the amendment.

In a statement, Gregory urged Rozzi to step down because the Democrat had yet to change his party registration to unaffiliated — a condition that was a part of the deal that gave Rozzi the Republican support he needed to be elected speaker.

Learn more about Spotlight PA.

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