{"id":321401,"date":"2026-11-05T01:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T01:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/321401\/"},"modified":"2026-11-05T01:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T01:34:14","slug":"pa-democrats-celebrate-control-of-governors-office-state-legislature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/321401\/","title":{"rendered":"Pa. Democrats celebrate control of governor’s office, state legislature"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tom<\/a>\"RachaelHARRISBURG, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania Democrats celebrated election victories Wednesday that will give them control of the state Senate and expand their majority in the House, putting both legislative chambers and the governor\u2019s office under Democratic control.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers gathered on the Capitol steps and said they plan to advance legislation on issues including the minimum wage and abortion access. They said those measures had stalled under the outgoing Republican Senate majority.<\/p>\n

\u201cFar too often, hundreds of our bills got stuck in a drawer,\u201d House Speaker Joanna McClinton said.<\/p>\n

Democrats have not held a Senate majority since the 1990s, and it has been nearly 50 years since voters elected a Democratic majority to the chamber.<\/p>\n

Sen. Jay Costa, who is widely expected to become Senate president pro tempore, said Democrats intend to move legislation to Gov. Josh Shapiro\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be voting on these things, and we\u2019re going to get them to the governor\u2019s desk, because there\u2019s so much that\u2019s been bottled up for so many years that we\u2019re going to do,\u201d Costa said.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the governor\u2019s official residence, Shapiro said voters chose a Democratic Senate majority because they were frustrated with political gridlock. He said he remains willing to work with Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m someone who wants to bring people together to get stuff done,\u201d Shapiro said. \u201cIf they want to work with us, we will work with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Rep. Tom Kutz, of Cumberland County, said he hopes Shapiro and Democratic lawmakers continue to work across party lines rather than focus solely on Democratic priorities.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the new majorities would act on skill games or sentencing for second-degree murder after lawmakers missed deadlines to address those issues earlier this year, House Majority Leader Matt Bradford said he expected a different outcome with Democrats in charge of the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe House is a nimble bunch. We\u2019re a humble bunch. We\u2019re willing to take action on anything,\u201d Bradford said.<\/p>\n

Costa said leading a narrow Senate majority would require care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tells us we have to be thoughtful. We have to be reasonable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Republican Party of Pennsylvania said in a statement that it remained committed to conservative policies despite the election results. Chairman Greg Rothman said the party would analyze the outcome and work to strengthen its organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cElections bring both victories and setbacks, but our responsibility to the people of Pennsylvania doesn\u2019t change,\u201d Rothman said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HARRISBURG, Pa. \u2014 Pennsylvania Democrats celebrated election victories Wednesday that will give them control of the state Senate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[529,79281,3193,442,4531,1084,87287,26250,2008,28,5172,30,29,35885,130435,82062,3415,4516],"class_list":["post-321401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bill","tag-congressional-district","tag-control","tag-gov-josh-shapiro","tag-governor","tag-house","tag-local-state-senate-races","tag-mcclinton","tag-office","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-democrats","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-reelection","tag-second-term-shapiro","tag-senate-democrats","tag-shapiro","tag-state-legislature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}