PA Bill Number: SB945
Title: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals.
Description: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals. ...
Last Action: Third consideration and final passage (199-0)
Last Action Date: Apr 17, 2024
In state House, challenger Emily Skopov may represent Dems' best chance to defeat Mike Turzai :: 10/29/2018
HARRISBURG — House Speaker Mike Turzai and his Democratic challenger, Emily Skopov, met for the first time last year, on the night of a Republican dinner at a hotel outside Pittsburgh.
She remembers it vividly. He says he does not.
As Ms. Skopov tells it, she thought she should introduce herself, shake his hand and propose that they remain civil throughout their state House race. Her campaign was still in its infancy, her name relatively unknown.
Her “panic-stricken” friends tried to talk her out of it.
“It’s very interesting to me how nobody in this business wants to talk to their opponent,” she said in an interview earlier this month. “Even in boxing, the two guys come in and they touch gloves before they fight.”
She approached the speaker. The people with him said something to him, she recalled, then it appeared as if a flash of comprehension spread across his face as he realized who she was.
“He looked really thrown off his game,” she said. “It was awkward. He was awkward. I actually felt really bad for him, because he looked so caught off guard.”
The two recovered and spoke about their children — a boy and a girl for her, three boys for him — then went their separate ways.
They haven’t had many interactions since — “nor would I expect us to,” Mr. Turzai said — as they compete to represent the 28th Legislative District, which includes Pine, Bradford Woods, McCandless, Franklin Park and Marshall.
It’s a district where Republicans feel confident that Mr. Turzai can cruise to victory. But Democrats see their best chance to oust an influential incumbent who, so far, has been unbeatable.
Mr. Turzai, of Marshall, was elected to the House in 2001, during a special election to replace Jane Orie after she moved to the state Senate. Democrats have challenged him five times since then, losing each time by wide margins.
D. Raja, chairman of the Republican Committee of Allegheny County, said he sees it as “a certainty” that Mr. Turzai will win again.
The speaker’s values, Mr. Raja says, are “reflective of the residents of the district.”
The district went comfortably for Republican Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and GOP registration continues to outpace Democratic registration — 24,103 to 18,591 at last count. But roughly 8,000 more people in the district are registered with other parties or as independents.
Democrats see reasons to hope.
Some note that the state House district falls within the new congressional district that is home to Democrat Conor Lamb, who surprised Republicans when he won a special election this year. They cite Ms. Skopov’s grassroots campaign and a sense of frustration with the Trump administration.
“I think Emily’s race looks a lot closer than a lot of people would have expected, and I’m looking forward to an interesting, and hopefully a successful, election night,” said Rep. Dan Frankel of Squirrel Hill, who serves as chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.
The differences between the two candidates are wide-ranging.
Mr. Turzai, 59, has been in the House for 17 years and in politics longer. He worked as an attorney, served as a Bradford Woods council member, then unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 1998. It was a heated race during which Mr. Turzai used what one reporter described as “scorched-earth tactics.”
When the state House seat opened during a special election three years later, he softened his tone and ran a generally positive campaign. He focused on tax issues for businesses and homeowners and called for improvements to infrastructure, according to news stories from the time.
In the years since, he has worked his way through the ranks of the House, rising to majority leader in 2011 and speaker in 2015. He has worked with the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee, a national group that works to elect GOP candidates to state government, and at one point served as the organization’s chairman.
At times he has shown aspirations for higher office. Earlier this year, he announced a campaign for governor but withdrew before the primary.
Yet in an interview last week, many of his campaign messages echoed those of his first state House race. As if they have been burned into his memory — with only a few pauses here and there — he rattles off projects in the district: grants secured for public parks; another stoplight for a bottlenecked intersection; future plans for improving highways in the state.
Asked about his priorities, he talks about bipartisan efforts to promote career and technical training, past efforts to privatize the liquor system (with a promise to do more) and blocking taxes.
He has a theory: If you avoid increasing state taxes and find other ways to improve the economy, property values will go up and local revenue will increase, freeing up money for a variety of projects, such as schools.
It’s part of why his supporters love him.
“When [Democratic] Gov. [Tom] Wolf tries to do cradle-to-grave taxing, Mike’s the one who stand ups,” said Mr. Raja, the county Republican party leader.
He added that Mr. Turzai was “a true leader” and “salt of the earth.”
Mr. Turzai’s latest messages seem to have attracted attention from some big names. A photo on his campaign’s Facebook page shows him with former Steelers running back Jerome “The Bus” Bettis at a political event last month and thanks the athlete “for his kind words on my behalf.”
But not everyone supports Mr. Turzai.
Some in state government say he can be erratic and mercurial. His critics outside the Capitol say they feel he has lost touch with his constituents.
Ms. Skopov has questioned his handling of several bills, including one aimed at preventing hazing, another designed to limit gun access for people with certain protective orders, and another seeking to protect human trafficking victims from criminal prosecution. Mr. Turzai voted in favor of all three bills on final passage, but Ms. Skopov questions why they didn’t come up sooner in the House. Each passed the House for a final time in late September or October.
Ms. Skopov sees it as a sign that her campaign is progressing better than expected and that Mr. Turzai was pressured to move bills that otherwise seemed to have been stalled
“The fact that he stood in the way of those things passing until it was about him keeping his job is just totally unacceptable, and people deserve so much better than that,” she said. “He is admitting by doing that that he knew all along that that is what people wanted. If he used them to save his job, he has also said, ‘And I didn’t give a damn about it before.’”
Mr. Turzai seems uncomfortable when Ms. Skopov’s name comes up. As a reporter begins to ask about her remarks regarding the timing of those bills, he interrupts: “I don’t respond. I don’t see you as a mouthpiece for my opponent, and I certainly would not use you as a mouthpiece to my opponent. I don’t really have a response.”
He later said that while he chooses when the chamber comes in to vote, the majority leader selects which bills come up for a vote on any given day. That is accurate, but many in the chamber also say the speaker holds large sway over the calendar as well.
Any insinuation that he timed the bills for political gain is “false,” Mr. Turzai said. “All of the accusations I’ve seen are false.”
Ms. Skopov, 52, believes there are too many “career politicians” and that Mr. Turzai is “really the epitome of that kind of a politician.”
She said she became disheartened in recent years when she heard people — including her children — say they were disenchanted and cynical about the state of American politics. She taught her children to fix problems when they see them. So, like some of Mr. Turzai’s challengers before her, she thought she would support the person running against him. And then she realized there wasn’t one.
“I thought, ‘How am I really going to not be a hypocrite?’” she recalled.
After some reflection, she began her campaign. Her platform focuses on investing in public education, tackling student debt, making voting more accessible, and reforming the state’s campaign finance laws, among other issues.
Campaigning has been a switch from her other careers.
The Marshall resident has worked as a writer and producer for films and television, at one point encountering Pittsburgh native Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock in the latest Star Trek movie franchise and who has donated to her campaign.
Ms. Skopov also founded No Crayon Left Behind, which collects crayons that otherwise would be tossed by restaurants and other businesses and works with other groups to hand them over to children who normally wouldn’t have access to art supplies. The nonprofit has distributed more than 1 million crayons to groups in 20 countries, according to its latest available tax forms.
When the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette dubbed her early in her campaign as a “tattooed mother of two” — a headline that drew a quick rebuke from some readers — she embarked on another, informal project. She began a Facebook page where mothers could share photos of their tattoos and describe their accomplishments. It has taken a backseat to her campaign but currently features an oil painter and single mother of four.
Ms. Skopov said she has spent recent months connecting with local leaders and meeting with residents. She estimates that her campaign has knocked on more than 20,000 doors since June.
She said many of the people she has encountered have seemed sad and frustrated. She notes that she has “shared these same sentiments, but I never ever believed that it couldn’t be fixed.”
Mr. Turzai and his supporters have been at work, too. The speaker said he has been knocking on doors on weekends and during evenings when he’s not in the capital. He said he’s hearing from people who are in his corner.
“I feel very, very positive,” he said. “We have a lot of volunteers coming into the office. We are out door-knocking. We have a strong message.”
In the end, voters will decide.
