Power plays in Pennsylvania.

• Author: Reeves, Tim
• Position: Democrats win control of the Pennsylvania Senate

The Pennsylvania Senate is fiercely partisan. And when Democrats finally got an unexpected chance at control--they took full advantage of it.

After 12 years of toiling in the minority, Democrats in the Pennsylvania Senate are walking around the Capitol these days as if they own it.

And, indeed, they do. By the thinnest of margins. Perhaps not for long. And not by virtue of winning a majority of the Senate's 50 seats.

But no matter all that. In one of the most partisan of state legislatures, what matters is the Democrats are in control. And, like the minimum-wage worker who hits the lottery, they are vigorously flaunting their newfound power.

Republicans had controlled the Senate since 1981. Their biggest margin was 27-23. Their narrowest was 26-24--including the session that ended last November.

Those bare Republican majorities have been a pivotal fact in Pennsylvania state government, particularly since 1987.

During that time, Democrats have held the House (currently 105-98) and the governor's mansion (Governor Robert P. Casey). But Republicans stubbornly kept the Senate, wielding their razor-thin majorities expertly, if not benevolently.

Republicans almost always voted as a bloc on parliamentary matters, imposing their will on the Democrats. The Republicans decided what was voted (their bills) and what was buried (the Democrats'). They controlled the committees and virtually everything else. Casey and the House Democrats couldn't pass a resolution honoring the flag without Senate Republican input.

But through a bizarre turn of events last November, control of the Senate abruptly and unexpectedly returned to the Democrats.

It started early in 1992 with state legislative reapportionment. The gridlocked General Assembly was unable to adopt a map of its own, so the courts took over. The court's plan included moving the 44th state Senate district from outside Pittsburgh, where population was dwindling, to the booming suburbs of Philadelphia.

This was unhappy news for Republican Senator Frank Pecora, who had represented the 44th district since 1978.

Pecora, 62, was in the middle of a four-year term. When the district was moved, so was he. Pecora was outraged and blamed his fellow Republicans for sacrificing his seat (a charge the GOP vehemently denies). Pecora switched parties to run for Congress back in Pittsburgh, but lost in the general election. Resigned to serving the final two years of his term in an area he hardly knew, Pecora rented an...