Keeping Pa. House on even keel

HARRISBURG - The hubbub of a packed meeting quieted last week as a man with a graying mop top shuffled in, squeezing past the television cameras, aides, and reporters jockeying for space.

His words brought groans from minority Democrats and nods from majority Republicans on the House Rules Committee.

"In my opinion," Clancy Myer said, "the amendments are not in order."

With a few words' explanation from Myer, the deadlock dissolved, and the House moved closer to passing one of the more difficult budgets in recent memory - and passing it on time.

For more than a quarter-century, Myer, the House parliamentarian, has steered the chamber's ship of state, guiding debate over thousands of bills and dozens of budgets. Little-known to taxpayers, he has played a large role in helping run the legislature.

If you watch Pennsylvania Cable Network telecasts of House sessions, Myer is at the left hand of Speaker Sam Smith (R., Jefferson). He's the guy Smith keeps turning to with questions.

"My main job is to go through amendments and assist the speaker, sorting which motions are in order and which ones run afoul of House rules," Myer, 62, explained. "Sam has a script more or less memorized that guides the normal action."

Normal action was not always the norm this session as legislators debated a budget replete with cuts, especially in education and welfare. Democrats warned it would devastate schools and human services; Gov. Corbett and his fellow Republicans said hard times called for hard choices.

But keeping the debate civil and constitutional is old hat to Myer, who is paid $164,272 a year.

"Using some old Marine Corps vernacular, Clancy has been around since Christ was a corporal. He's the kind of guy you want to marry your sister," said former House Speaker Bill DeWeese (D., Greene).

Among the first in his family to graduate from college, Myer, who hails from Ephrata, earned a bachelor's degree in economics from Pennsylvania State University and a law degree from Dickinson College. He did a four-year stint with the military's Judge Advocate General's Corps. Then he saw that the House had an opening - and was hired despite a professed lack of political ties.

Parliamentarians "are usually guys with some serious inside connections," said Chief House Clerk Tony Barbush, a longtime friend. "Clancy wasn't like that. He got the job and made his own connections."

Myer won admirers in both parties. DeWeese, who awaits trial on corruption charges, said, "I don't know anyone in the House who thinks ill of Clancy or his rulings."

In 2007, the same Bonusgate scandal that led indirectly to charges against DeWeese prompted Myer's appointment to a new post, House counsel, to advise members on ethics.

This year, he returned to his parliamentary role, working for an "R" speaker notwithstanding his own "D" leanings.

"You can't play favorites in this position," he said during a break. "Any decision that is made will be classified as precedent. If you try to bend the rules in a particular situation for a particular end, it's going to come back to haunt you."

Ron Stinson, president of the National Association of Parliamentarians, said attitude is key, especially with tempers running hot and civility cold in statehouses and Congress.

"When you have the majority pushing in one direction and the minority doing everything it can to stall measures, you need someone aloof of the process to keep tabs," Stinson said. "Someone needs to make sure the majority has its right to rule and the minority has its right to be heard."

It was Wednesday when Myer was summoned to the fiery Rules Committee meeting. With the budget's Thursday deadline looming, the chairman, House Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny), needed a ruling.

Some background: In May, Turzai's Republicans had passed a resolution requiring that any amendment to a bill already voted out of committee be "revenue-neutral." This stymied Democrats' bid to use newfound money - the state's recent surplus revenue - to close budget gaps.

When the Senate sent the budget back to the House last week, Democrats tried anew to shoehorn in surplus-spending amendments in the Rules Committee, arguing that the "revenue-neutral" rule applied only on the House floor.

Myer had the answer after a few minutes' deliberation: While the resolution did apply only on the floor, the Democrats' move would amount to giving the committee more sway than the House itself - which the rules do not allow.

So the amendments were "not in order," he said.

But the budget was on time.