Editorial: Mental health is more important than political power
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The Pennsylvania state House of Representatives could be changing yet again.
For the last two years the legislative chamber has been on a roller coaster as lawmakers have been voted in, stepped down or moved on. That’s meant special elections, keeping the House with its hair-thin majority question in a perpetual balancing act.
Most of the changes have been more positive. Some took higher offices, like U.S. Rep. Summer Lee moving from the state House to Congress or Austin Davis taking on the role of lieutenant governor. Others have been under a cloud, like Mike Zabel stepping down amid sexual harassment allegations.
But the latest issue adds the complication of criminal charges.
State Rep. Kevin Boyle, D-Philadelphia, has a warrant for his arrest as he is accused of violating a protection from abuse order. It comes two months after he lost his security access following an altercation in a Montgomery County bar. Then there was the 2021 arrest on charges of harassment and another PFA violation.
There is only so much the House — or the party — can take, and Boyle apparently hit that wall. On Thursday, House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, introduced a resolution to create a new way to expel someone based on an inability to do the job.
The Boyle family is something of a political dynasty. For four years, Kevin Boyle and his brother, Brendan, were the only pair of siblings serving together in the House. Brendan Boyle moved on to Congress in 2015.
Both Bradford and Brendan Boyle are addressing the situation as a mental health crisis.
That legislative steps are being taken shows how serious the situation is. The Pennsylvania House has expelled only 15 members since 1683. The most recent was in 1975, when Allegheny County’s Leonard Sweeney was convicted of mail fraud.
The seriousness is underscored by the timing. A push to make it possible to remove Kevin Boyle from the House would negate the one-member majority the Democrats hold, putting the two parties on an even footing pending yet another special election.
But political power is not as important as mental health. It is also not as important as having a qualified and capable person making decisions for Pennsylvanians.