Daily News | The Pennsylvania legislature is getting a major infusion of new blood this January
Those open seats provided opportunities for new blood to join the General Assembly, though many of the successful candidates first had to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. On average, their races were some of the most expensive in state history.
Democratic and Republican leaders are both claiming they control the chamber. State Rep. Joanna McClinton has said she will stand for speaker and expects all lawmakers, regardless of party, to support her as Democrats won a majority of seats in the November election. Over a dozen newly elected state House members — both Democrats and Republicans — spoke with Spotlight PA and said they could see common ground on issues such as housing accessibility, raising the minimum wage, capping insulin prices, and commonsense gun laws.
First-time lawmakers in both chambers will need to garner the support of Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, to see any of their bills or policy proposals cross the finish line. Pete Quist — the deputy research director at OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in U.S. politics — said 2022 fund-raising totals for legislative candidates in Pennsylvania were among the highest in the U.S., behind only California, Illinois, and Texas.
“The reality is, those millions of dollars could have gone to so many other people and things to help people. That was a very hard thing to accept going into this race,” said Cerrato. “Having worked with charity organizations before, having been a part of seeing the true desperation that some people are facing economically — the amount of money that goes into these races, while necessary to get decent legislation, doesn’t need to be as extreme as it is.
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