The House Republican who last week nominated Democratic state Rep. Mark Rozzi for House speaker is now calling on him to resign from the post for wavering on his commitment to change his party affiliation to independent.
Several Republican lawmakers confirmed that Rozzi of Berks County had told House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler of Lancaster County that in exchange for GOP leaders’ support for his nomination as speaker, Rozzi would change his party affiliation to independent in the narrowly divided chamber.
Currently, Republicans control the House with 101 seats to the Democrats’ 99 seats, including Rozzi, with three vacancies.
However, as of Monday, Rozzi had not changed parties, several Republican leadership sources confirmed.
In a letter to Rozzi, Rep. Jim Gregory, R-Blair County, said he was saddened when Rozzi admitted to him on Saturday that he was “only thinking about switching.”
“Those words directly contradicted your previous three affirmative answers to me of ‘yes’ that you were going to switch to independent. You made a commitment to uphold your promise to me, to members of the body, and to the people of Pennsylvania,” Gregory wrote.
He wrote that Rozzi’s inaction had broken the bonds the two shared as survivors of childhood sexual abuse.
”The bonds of trust between friends – as close as you and I have been – are now broken. As a result of your broken promises, I must sadly and respectfully ask for you to immediately resign the office of Speaker.”
Attempts to reach Gregory and Rozzi for comment on Monday afternoon were unsuccessful.
The blow up comes as a special session called by Gov. Tom Wolf began to address the inability of some survivors of childhood sex abuse assaulted decades ago to seek justice. The goal of the session is to move forward a referendum to put before voters in the May primary that would open a two-year window for lawsuits by survivors of childhood sex abuse.
In a speech following his election as speaker, Rozzi pledged to hire Republican and Democratic staffers and said he would not caucus with either party. But immediately after his election, he joined a closed-door caucus meeting with his Democratic colleagues. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery County, said afterward, that Rozzi was still a Democrat but would govern independently.
Members of both caucuses confirmed they were aware of the letter but were uncertain of what the next step would be or if a move would be made yet on Monday to vacate Rozzi from the speakership.
In describing the disarray this leaves the House leadership, one longtime representative said, “Does it matter who the speaker is? Does it matter who the majority is? Does any of this stuff matter? We have embarrassed ourselves so much that it doesn’t even matter.”
As of mid-afternoon, the House had not returned to session.
Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JanMurphy.