The big news last week is that Tom Wolf, Mt. Wolf resident and former co-owner of The Wolf Organization, is stepping down from his job as state secretary of revenue.
Not only that, but another York County resident is replacing him -- former state Rep. Steve Stetler, D-York.
The word on the street -- according to my confidential informant, Huggy Bear -- is that Wolf is contemplating a run for governor in 2010 as the Democratic candidate. Huggy Bear also said that Tom Corbett, Pennsylvania's attorney general, is looking more and more like he might be the Republican candidate.
I've got plenty of time, of course, to contemplate the gubernatorial race. For now, I'd like to talk about Stetler a little bit.
At the risk of blowing my carefully cultivated political objectivity, I'm glad he landed on his feet. He was heading up the Pennsylvania Economy League, so it's not like he's been living on the street. But I'm talking more about reputation, and being in the public eye.
He announced he was stepping down in July of 2006, after more than 15 years in the state House of Representatives. State Rep. Bruce Smith, R-Dillsburg, had announced that he was stepping down the previous December, after 26 years in Harrisburg.
Stetler said he was leaving to take the aforementioned job. Smith, who was 71, said it was just time -- although he admitted that the outcry over the 2005 legislative pay raise was "a factor."
Here's the context. In July of 2005, members of the state legislature voted themselves a pay raise of 16 to 54 percent. It led to a huge outcry, especially around Central Pennsylvania. We're talking petitions, nonstop letters to the editor, and statehouse rallies with thousands of howling people and giant pig-shaped balloons.
It was so unpopular that the legislature ended up rescinding it, and every lawmaker in Harrisburg was eager to renounce it.
Stetler and Smith were the only two lawmakers from York County who voted for the pay raise. It's entirely possible that they would have stepped down anyway, but it does seem like kind of a coincidence.
I can't help but suspect that House leadership leaned on both of them at least a little. The Republican majority edge in the House was slim at the time. As it turned out, Democrats did win majority status in the 2006 elections -- by a single seat.
With the coveted prize of majority status up for grabs, I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that leaders of their respective caucuses asked both Stetler and Smith to take one for the team and step down, because their vote for the pay raise left them vulnerable in the coming races.
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