Who's House is it anyway?

It's been a month and a half since my last blog... o.k. there's my confession.

But needless to say, things have been quite busy with the elections... and still the outcome of those elections have yet to be determined here in Harrisburg.

We know the Governor won by one of the largest margins in history.

We know the State Senate remains in Republican control with no change in balance... bucking the national and state trends.

We know the House currently has a vote differential of 102-101.

We know who the new leaders that have been elected in three of the four caucuses (Senate D leaders remain unchanged).

What we don't know is who "controls" the House, if there is such a thing. Originally, two Chester County races were declared for the Republicans allowing them to temporarily maintain the majority. Today, we learn that one was indeed decided in favor of the Republican, but the other, however, was decided in favor of the Democrat.

The outcome of those unofficial results temporarily switches control of the House to a 102-101 majority for the Ds.

But I can gaurantee two things: 1. There WILL be legal challenges (one race was decided by less than two dozen votes); 2. Both Ds and Rs are burning the phone lines trying to get members to switch parties.

On the former, I'm not convinced it will affect the outcome. On the latter, however, anything is possible. It's happened before (Tom Stish in the 1990s) and it's likely to happen again. The question is, will it happen before the House reconvene's in January?

How this will play out is anybody's guess. But as a political "insider," it's been the most interesting election cycles in recent history.