As of May 23, Representative Dave Zimmerman (R-99, Lancaster/Berks) is no longer part of three legislative committees that he had been appointed to for some time. Although it has been reported that he resigned, he has stated that he was actually removed from the committees by Republican leadership.
The House’s daily session update for May 23 included a supplemental report from the House Committee on Committees, submitted by committee chairman Stan Saylor (R-94, York). The report said, “Representative David Zimmerman, Lancaster County, resigns as a member of the Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee, Appropriations Committee, and the Insurance Committee.”
“I did not resign,” Zimmerman told The Lancaster Patriot. “They basically took me off these committees.”
Representative Mike Jones (R-93, York) was also removed from three committees: commerce, finance, and labor and industry. His removal was also presented as a resignation, but Jones told The Lancaster Patriot that he did not resign from any of his committees.
According to Zimmerman, House Speaker Bryan Cutler (R-100, Lancaster) approached him prior to the announcement and told him that he would be removed from the committees. Zimmerman stated that Cutler claimed not to know why Zimmerman was being removed. He told Zimmerman that the decision had been made by “leadership,” but that he could find out why the decision had been made.
Zimmerman said he was later told by a group of GOP leaders and their staff — a group that included Cutler and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-171, Centre/Mifflin) — that the reason he was removed was because he did not support Senator Ryan Aument (R-36, Lancaster) in the May 17 primary and instead supported Mike Miller.
Although Zimmerman did not support Aument during his primary campaign, he denied that he supported Miller or worked against Aument. There were events he did attend and speak at where Miller was also invited — but he thinks it is likely that Aument was also invited to at least some of the same events and simply chose not to attend. Aument succeeded in winning the race, but Miller garnered 40% of the vote, likely because of his engagement with grassroots organizations.
The numerous grassroots groups that have cropped up recently were the main reason why Zimmerman chose to remain neutral and not endorse candidates in general — he wanted to keep his influence out of the races and leave the decisions solely in the hands of the people, who were showing a clear pattern of involvement and awareness.
Zimmerman’s choice to not support the GOP-endorsed Aument seems to have broken an unwritten rule and offended the hierarchy within the state’s Republican Party. However, Zimmerman does not embrace party-driven uniformity. The idea behind elections, he pointed out, is to give people the freedom to choose. The leadership of the GOP seems to be working against the idea that the people, a group that includes representatives, should be free to support — or to decline to support — anyone, whether incumbents or newcomers.
This is just one element in the current Republican Party that has concerned Zimmerman. “I really believe the Republican Party in Lancaster County and the larger Republican Party really needs to be looking at — internally and at themselves — on just what they’re doing and what’s really going on within the party,” he said.
The people are starting to make their discontent known, too. Despite the attempts by GOP leadership to keep incumbents in office, major blows were dealt to the status quo during the primary with the defeat of incumbents Stan Saylor in the House and Patrick Browne (R-16, Lehigh/Bucks) in the Senate. The party needs to grapple with the voters’ decision to remove some of the top-ranking GOP legislators, Zimmerman said.
“People are saying, basically, ‘enough already,'” Zimmerman said. “I think the Republican Party needs to be looking at that. ‘What are we doing wrong? Why are people not satisfied?'”
Zimmerman thinks his removal from the three committees is the GOP leadership sending a message to anyone else in the party who might be thinking about questioning the status quo. “By punishing several of us, is that all about trying to get the rest of the members to cooperate better and to conform to whatever they’re asking?” he asked.
People have shown that they want less government control, not more, he said. But removing representatives from committees for failing to toe the party line is just another example of control — in this case, within the party. “Why are they trying to take some of my voice away from my constituents,” he asked, “when I was duly elected by them?”
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Chris Hume is the host of The Lancaster Patriot Podcast and the author of several books, including Seven Statist Sins. He can be reached at info@thelancasterpatriot.com.
