The Senate of Pennsylvania, for all its protocols and traditions, is what it is because of the members who serve there. They give it its life and blood, they chart its course at every moment in its history. Some members, members like Marty Murray and Tom Lamb, are to be remembered for the influence they exerted on the body simply by the way they conducted themselves as public officials. Others who served in the three-decade period between 1970 and the turn of the 21st century deserve recognition for other reasons…reasons such as the contributions they made to public policy…or reasons such as their unique personalities or political style.
Senators like Franklin L. Kury of Sunbury in Northumberland County; or H. Craig Lewis of Bensalem in Bucks County. Senators like Henry Messinger of Allentown in Lehigh County, and Gene Scanlon of Pittsburgh in Allegheny County; and Joseph Ammerman of Curwensville in Centre County. Or Senators Ed Zemprelli of Clairton in Allegheny County and Buddy Cianfrani of Philadelphia. Each through the years stood out in his own way. Here’s why:
If government is to function truly and totally in the public interest, it can use more people like Frank Kury...
Early on, he established that he was a hard worker. Though very much aware and always sensitive to the personalities, the egos and the politics of the legislative process, he nevertheless focused his energy and intellect on issues of substance throughout his legislative career...
In the House, he played a major role in shaping and passing a landmark Clean Streams Act for Pennsylvania. He also began his work on a major Flood Plain Management bill, a project he would carry with him six years later to the Pennsylvania Senate, ultimately culminating in its enactment into law...
My professional association with Frank began when he was elected to the State Senate in 1972. Over the next eight years, we would work together, he as a committee chairman, I as a member of the staff, on a number of projects, but two in particular which truly could be classified as notable reform...
The first was reform and modernization of the Senate confirmation process...The second…was the first wholesale rewriting of public utility law in 40 years...
There was much to recommend Frank Kury as a standard for high public service: His intellect, his political skills, his focus on the substance of public policy making. But what was most impressive about him as much as any single factor in his character, in this one man’s judgment, was that he never forgot his roots...
For public service to prosper and progress, it must periodically find a way to re-energize and re-invigorate itself. Most often, the principal way to do that is through the introduction of new, talented leaders, usually but not always young people who shine and rise to the top of their class. H. Craig Lewis of Bucks County was one of those people.
He authored a report which ultimately established in law the Local Government Retirement Study Commission…Thanks to the able services of some very dedicated staff on the Local Government Commission, a bipartisan research arm of the General Assembly, Craig also authored a new law dealing with the disposition of tax-delinquent property…
Lewis was an activist sort of Senator who would have made his mark on the chamber in any number of ways. One major imprint he left came in the realm of Senate Ethics...
The ranks of the Democrats swelled beyond imaginable proportions because of their election victories. But there was a price to pay for these electoral successes. Unfortunately, the price manifested itself in the latter half of the decade in careless institutional governance and indefensible misconduct in personal matters...
The cumulative effect of these misdeeds, and the surrounding uproar in the press, public and, understandably, partisan political circles (particularly Senate Republicans), was to have the Senate establish within the formal committee structure of the body a standing, bipartisan committee on Ethics. Craig Lewis was named its first chairman…
Before he left, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he participated in the Senate trial of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court jurist, Rolf Larsen, after Larsen’s impeachment by the House of Representatives for malfeasance in office. Not a bad cumulative record for a young unknown out of Bensalem in Bucks County...
As noted at the top, there were other Democrats who served in the Senate of Pennsylvania who made their mark, mostly for the better, in the course of their tenure. I should acknowledge here and now that Senators worthy of recognition in my view certainly crossed party lines. Republican Senators like President Pro Tempore Bob Jubilerer of Blair County and Majority Leader David “Chip” Brightbill of Lebanon County…former Majority Leaders John Stauffer of Chester County and Joe Loeper of Delaware County…Senator J. Doyle Corman of Centre County…each and all, (and the list is not all-inclusive) made the Senate a better place by their presence and their service. But I write here only of Democratic Senators because, after all, it was as a member of the Democratic Senate staff that I came to know and observe them from close quarters…