The heat on the Civera Watch went up several notches yesterday.

Under fire for the past week since taking his seat on Delaware County Council – and at the same time holding on to his 164th District state House post – the longtime Republican yesterday adjusted his position.

Now Civera is giving up his seat as the minority leader on the House Appropriations Committee. That likely will happen next week. But when he will step down from the House – as he pledged he would – is still uncertain. And it’s becoming increasingly clear why.

After saying during the campaign that he would not hold both seats, Civera changed his tune after the election. He said he wanted to take care of some unfinished business, including getting table games legislation passed, getting fellow Republican Bill Adolph into his old spot on Appropriations, and maybe sticking around to work on an expedited budget process in the spring. Civera points out he was asked to do so by members of both parties.

Well, he can cross table games off that list. Rendell signed the legislation last week. Civera, by the way, joined with most of his Republican brethren in voting against it.

Now it looks like Civera will be leaving his House seat at the end of the month.

But he’s got some strings attached. He’s not happy with the idea of holding a special election to fill the seat on Primary Day. No kidding.

That’s because the Democrats are likely going to have a huge turnout that day because of the race between Congressman Joe Sestak and Sen.
Arlen Specter for the Dem nomination to the U.S. Senate seat.

Instead, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Civera is looking to stick around long enough so that the election to fill his seat could not be held on primary day.

Upper Darby Democrats, as you might expect, are not even a little bit happy about this.

And again, this is all about politics. They say on one hand that they want to avoid the substantial cost of an election held on a date other than lining it up with the primary. Yeah, sure.

Make no mistake. This is all about politics. The Dems want the election on primary day because it helps their chances; Civera is delaying for the same reason.

Democrats have fired off a letter to Gov. Ed Rendell asking him to ask Civera to step down immediately, thus clearing the way for that special election on primary day.

Don’t hold your breath on that one.

Rendell and Civera are not exactly acting like buddies these days. The governor was not especially thrilled about Civera’s vote against the table games measure.

Rendell was asked about the possibility of Civera stepping down last week in Harrisburg.

He was not exactly fawning in his comments about his longtime ally.

“I have not heard that he is stepping down,” Rendell told Capitolwire.com. “But at this point of his career, it ‘s not much of a loss. Given his vote against table games, that is how I feel.”

Ouch!

Rendell wasn’t done.

“I would have thought someone who cared about the budget would have voted for table games to fund the budget. I thought that was the whole point of being in legislative leadership.”

Yeah, that and making sure the seat you’re vacating stays in Republican hands.