Rendell, GOP scrap over a special election

Gov. Rendell got into a scrap yesterday with a Senate Republican leader over a special election for a Senate vacancy in the northernmost reaches of the Philadelphia region.

It was further evidence that the protracted budget battle in Harrisburg has become a vortex that sucks in everything else in state politics.

Lt. Gov. Joe Scarnati, the Senate president, announced that he would order a special election Sept. 29 to replace Rob Wonderling, a fellow Republican who resigned Wednesday to become chief executive of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.

Rendell and other Democrats screamed that the special election would be a waste of money, particularly when Pennsylvania faces huge budget problems. The vote to fill the seat could take place during the general election, just five weeks later on Nov. 3, they argued.

A special election in Wonderling's district - which includes parts of Bucks, Montgomery, Northampton and Lehigh Counties - would cost Pennsylvania between $250,000 and $375,000, Secretary of State Pedro Cortes said, calling the expense unnecessary. Rendell, in a letter to Scarnati, put the cost at "nearly $400,000."

"I am particularly confused about your willingness to spend almost $400,000 of the taxpayers' money when you have publicly demanded cuts to every facet of the state budget regardless of the public benefit they provide," Rendell wrote.

Rendell made his letter available to reporters. Then, at a news conference in the Capitol, he called the Republican position hypocritical.

The $400,000 would be enough to save the state Commission for Women, which could lose funding because of the $3.3 billion budget deficit, Rendell said.

A new state budget is a month overdue. Senate Republicans, led in part by Scarnati, have refused to budge on Rendell's proposal to raise the state income tax by 16 percent to preserve his priorities for spending on education and other state services.

Republicans have been holding out for a budget of $27.1 billion. Rendell said this week that he had whittled his proposal down to $28.2 billion.

Democrats said it appeared that Republicans believe they will gain a political advantage by having the election on a day when fewer voters might notice.

Marcel Groen, the Democratic leader in Montgomery County, said the GOP might be counting on the axiom that Republican voters turn out in higher percentages than Democratic voters in a low-profile election. "They made the calculation that their chances of winning are greater," Groen said.

Scarnati's motivation for setting the date was not political, said Erik Arneson, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans.

"We felt it was important for the residents of that district to be represented," he said.

Given the slow pace of budget negotiations, he said, it is likely that legislators will cast important votes between Sept. 29 and the November election.

"I don't know why people who want to support a Democratic candidate would be less likely to come out on a Tuesday in September than the people who want to support a Republican candidate," Arneson said.

Almost lost in the battle were the likely candidates to fill the vacant seat. Party leaders, who will choose the nominees, have known for weeks that Wonderling planned to step aside.

Republicans appear to have settled on State Rep. Bob Mensch. Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce L. Castor Jr. took himself out of the running this week.

Democratic leaders were "not 100 percent sure yet" whom their candidate will be, Groen said. Most likely, it will be Glenn Reibman, a former Northampton County executive.

The winner could be seated immediately to serve the remaining 14 months of Wonderling's four-year term.