Dual office controversy

In November 2009, Civera was elected to the Delaware County Council and was sworn into office on January 4, 2010.^[5] However, controversy arose when Civera would not resign from his state House seat and thus is holding both offices. During his county council campaign, Civera said he would step down from the House, but after the election said he had no plans to leave, saying he wanted to stay in Harrisburg to complete work on a table games bill needed to finalize the 2009 budget and tie up some other loose ends. He also pointed out that he had never given a definitive date for his resignation. Democrats would like Civera to resign by March so a special election could take place in the May primary at the same time a competitive primary race for a state Senate seat is expected to drive up Democratic voter turnout, hence Civera's assertion that Democrats "want to steal the election."

I thought that Mario Civera might be helpful in [the 2010] budget process, but given his votes on table games where he voted against filling a $250 million hole in the budget, it's pretty apparent that there are other things at play rather than his desire to help the budget, so I think he should just resign, go do the job he was elected to do here locally and then let the speaker of the House, as is his legal power, set the special election.

— Governor Ed Rendell^[6][7]