John Baer: Shapiro's call the 'tipping point' in legislative reform?

A “TIPPING POINT” is that moment in any venture, trend or course of action when change becomes irreversible.

State House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese, already embattled by a spreading legislative scandal, might have arrived at his. Yesterday, a fellow Democrat, the deputy speaker and a leading voice for legislative reforms, Montgomery County Rep. Josh Shapiro, called for DeWeese’s head.

Whether self-promoting opportunism, a show of splendid political cojones or maybe a little of both, it was, undeniably, an attention-getter.

Question is, does it work?

“I believe it is imperative that Bill DeWeese resign as House majority leader,” Shapiro said in a statement he read to reporters in the lobby of the Capitol newsroom.

The statement was blistering.

“Our state government is broken,” he said. “We need a cultural change . . . we need leaders who are committed to transformational reform. We need a monumental shift, and we need it now.”

DeWeese must go because he’s lost the public trust; because

he’ll “always be a symbol of a broken system;” because he’s “incapable” of directing needed change; because, as “the face of our caucus,” he undermines Democrats’ agenda and electoral prospects.
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Dwight Evans Needs to Wake Up

While Dwight Evans continued support of DeWeese understandable given Evans’ position in the House Democratic hierarchy, he really needs to read he writing on the wall. The old Democratic machine is being slowly dismantled by people like Josh Shapiro and Michael Nutter. The drumbeat for reform is getting louder and louder.

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