As lawmakers in Harrisburg closed out the 2023/24 legislative session, they voted on who would lead the political parties in each chamber for the next session.
In each chamber, the political parties are organized as caucuses. There is a Republican senate caucus, Democrat senate caucus, Republican house caucus, Democrat house caucus.
The house caucuses voted for leadership on Tuesday, the senate caucuses voted on Wednesday.
The political winners of the 2024 elections—Pennsylvania house Democrats and senate Republicans—did not see any major changes to their leadership teams.
Identical to last session, Rep. Joanna McClinton is the Democrat choice for speaker of the house. Rep. Matt Bradford will be the party leader.
Sen. Kim Ward is the Republican choice for senate president pro tempore; Sen. Joe Pittman will be the party leader.
Chamber leaders, like McClinton and Ward, choose which bills get called up for a vote on the house and senate floors… and which bills never see the light of day. They are elected to that position by the whole chamber, which is how the party with the majority in turn has tremendous control over what happens in the chamber.
Party leaders at large listen to all the members on all the issues, and gauge what policies are popular enough to prioritize. They also are the direct points of contact for negotiations.
Besides the chamber leaders and party leaders, lawmakers also voted for the caucus chair, appropriations chair, caucus whip (the lawmaker tasked with communicating party plans/vote positions/etc. to all party members), policy chair, administrator, and secretary.
Senate Republicans voted in all the same members for all the same positions.
House Democrats did have their party whip— Rep. Dan Miller (D-Allegheny)— resign from his position. Rep. Mike Schlossberg moved from caucus chair to caucus whip, with Rep. Rob Matzie filling the former position.
For the senate Democrats and House Republicans— the caucuses that stayed in the minority in the election— multiple leadership changes were made.
Three out of the Seven leadership positions for senate Democrats are new faces.
House Republicans voted in five new faces out of their seven positions. Notably, Rep. Jesse Topper (R- Bedford/Fulton) is the new party leader, after Rep. Bryan Cutler (R- Lancaster) resigned.
In our area, Rep. Clint Owlett (R- Tioga) was elected to caucus secretary.
"I love the idea of mentoring our new members, and that's one of the main priorities in jobs that the secretary has,” Owlett said. “Being in leadership gives me another seat at the table to make sure that our voices heard we do exist. We need to be valued. We bring a lot to the table here in in Harrisburg, in our state. So being able to advocate for north of Route 80 is very exciting.”