Want To Restore Trust In The Pennsylvania GOP? Start By Firing Cutler

On June 25, 1876, General George A. Custer led the U.S. 7^th Cavalry to the slaughter at the battle of the Little Big Horn. Custer died as did close to three hundred of his men. It was the worst defeat the U.S. Army ever suffered in the Indian Wars and the product of almost unbelievable arrogance and incompetence on the part of Custer.

Roughly 150 years later Bryan Cutler, GOP Majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives tried to duplicate the feat.

Cutler, at the time the Majority Leader of the House, acting behind the backs of most GOP lawmakers struck a deal with the Democratic minority in the House. He and fifteen other GOP turncoats, including the entire leadership team, would side with the Democrats and vote to install a new Democratic Speaker in the House. In exchange, apparently, Cutler believed he had been promised that the new Speaker, Democrat Mark Rozzi, would leave the Democratic Party, become an Independent, and act in a non-partisan fashion.

Rozzi, whose voting record over the course of his ten years in the House showed no indication of his having any intention of acting in an independent fashion wasted no time in sticking it to Cutler and the GOP. Once elected he stated publicly that he would not leave the Democratic Party. Then using the pretext that the House had not yet adopted rules of order, he shut down the House of Representatives and locked out its members pending the results of scheduled special elections.

Dennis Owens @Owens_abc27

Rozzi says Cutler is the problem, works on crafting 'Rozzi Rules'

abc27.comRozzi says Cutler is the problem, works on crafting ‘Rozzi Rules’PENNSYLVANIA (WHTM) — The State House, which has been in a state of paralysis for more than a month, has no rules, no session day, and apparently no plan on how to move forward. It does, howe…

Then, once those special elections were conducted, Rozzi reconvened the House, and immediately stepped down. The new Democratic majority installed a different Speaker, Joanna McClinton of Philadelphia. McClinton is an outspoken, fire-breathing progressive, and her election signals that the Democratic majority is a long way from wanting to act in a bipartisan fashion.

Pennridge Area Republican Club @Pennridge_GOP

What a lying snake! Rozzi said he would become an Independent if he received the House Speaker position and reiterated that claim during his swearing in. But he didn't change parties and now admits it was all a lie to make Republicans "pay."

mcall.comMark Rozzi says he will step down as Pa. House speakerDemocrat Mark Rozzi plans to step down as speaker of the Pennsylvania House after two tumultuous months presiding over the lower chamber, he told Spotlight PA.

So, Cutler’s deal was a disaster. He gave the House to the Democrats and they took him to the cleaners, but it gets worse. Rozzi is now stating publicly that he never had any intention of honoring any agreement with Cutler and that he intended to “make him pay” all along.

Speaking to Spotlight PA Rozzi said he went into the deal with Cutler aware that Republicans were trying to use him, and he decided that they “were gonna pay for it.”

“There’s a lot of things wrong with Harrisburg. And the way I was elected speaker, that’s a prime description of what is wrong with Harrisburg because the Republicans had a majority at that time,” Rozzi said. “But they tried to manipulate, hoodwink, snooker the members of this General Assembly by electing me, thinking that I would do their bidding for them. That I would turn against my party.”

SpotlightPA.com

Rozzi also accused Cutler of lying to him and attempting to strong-arm him into doing things he had never agreed to do.

“The two biggest liars in this building are Bryan Cutler and Jake Smeltz, his chief of staff,” Rozzi said.

Rozzi says as he struggled to build a staff and find money to pay for it, Cutler offered to help, but with strings attached.

“‘I can pay for your office staff back home, I can give you money to help you run your office, but these are things that are going to have to happen.’ That’s when I looked at him and told him to get the hell out of my office,” Rozzi said.

As incredible as all this is, however, the most incredible thing is that Cutler is still in office, still in leadership, and right now is the odds-on favorite to stay there. The Republican Party, which spends so much of its time talking about accountability has taken no action of any kind against Cutler or any of the other fifteen individuals who joined him in this humiliating and nauseating epic of deceit and incompetence.

Republican leadership spends a lot of its time these days talking about the necessity for party unity in the face of Democratic Party gains. Unity implies that there is something around which to unify. It suggests leadership. It suggests integrity.

None of those things have been anywhere to be seen in Harrisburg recently. You want Republicans to trust party leadership and unify? Start by setting an example and showing that the GOP stands for something. Start by firing Cutler and putting in place a leader in the House whom we can trust.