Charlie Dent retiring early

[Smash255]

Originally Posted by PacoMartin

Charlie Dent (R) is my congressman.

The district voted Hillary 44.2% and Trump 51.8% so the special election might not go to a Democrat, but Dent still did not vote for Trump's health care initiative. It's no secret that Trump dislikes Dent deeply. But I think resignations should be done for important personal reasons or scandals.

On Oct 21, 2017 the Honorable Tim Murphy resigned as representative of the 18th district. Two days later Governor Wolf set the special election for Mar 13, 2018 (143 days after the resignation).

Today is 199 days from the regular election on 6 November 2018, so any special election will only be for the interim period. The time period covered may be much less than ten weeks.

In the 18th district a Democrat won the long term Republican seat, and that may happen this time as well. But special elections are costly and the Governor has to balance any public backlash against the possibility of having a Democratic congressman in power for only a few weeks.

The long game would seem to indicate that the Governor would be smart to simply leave the seat open (as is his perogative) so as not to create any bad feelings resulting from a costly special election.

It seems at this point the more likely scenario would be a Special Election to be held concurrent with November's General Election with two separate elections taking place (something similar is taking place in MI-13 (Conyers resignation), and likely will in NY-25 (Slaughter's death) and TX-27 (Farenthold's resignation) as well. Winner of the Special Election would then take office once the results are certified instead of waiting until January. The candidates in the Special could be the same or different than the candidates of the General, so if someone won in the Special that happened to be different from the winner in the General they would only serve until the new Congress takes office.

The interesting caveat in this case is, the Special Election would be under the old lines and the General would occur under the new lines. The new PA-07 takes up about 71% of the old PA-15 which Dent is resigning from.

[PilgrimsProgress]

Originally Posted by OnOurWayHome

As a Democrat, I'm very concerned with the retirement of moderate Republicans. There will be nothing left but trump sycophants soon.

That's the whole point! If they don't support the President, get rid of them. As for other Reps retiring or not running, many were heads of committees and didn't want to go back to rank and file positions. Career politicians of both parties live and breathe influence and status.

[Smash255]

Originally Posted by PilgrimsProgress

That's the whole point! If they don't support the President, get rid of them. As for other Reps retiring or not running, many were heads of committees and didn't want to go back to rank and file positions. Career politicians of both parties live and breathe influence and status.

A Democrat is likely to win the seat...

[OnOurWayHome]

Originally Posted by Smash255

A Democrat is likely to win the seat...

Amazing how Cult 45 doesn't seem to want co-equal branches of government. If congress is just going to be in lock step with potus, why not just become a dictatorship?