Mike Turzai was born on August 2, 1959, in Sewickley, Allegheny County. He was brought up in Moon Township and attended Our Lady of the Sacred Heart High School, where he graduated in 1977. In the year 1981, he acquired his Bachelor of Arts in English and Literature from the University of Notre Dame. He later earned a law degree from The University of Duke in the year 1987.

Work experience
Turzai worked for Allegheny County as an Assistant District Attorney from 1988 to 1992. During this period, he gained a lot of experience that propelled him to working in Houston Harbaugh, PC— a highly recognized and cost-effective law firm located in Pittsburgh that served large national companies in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. This engineered the decision to elect him to the Council of Bradford Woods Borough in 1998-2001. His hard work skyrocketed his career further to being the Vice President of the Council from 2000-2001.

Turzai won a competitive election on June 26, 2001, where he was elected to be the 28th Legislative District representative of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives situated in Allegheny County. He founded the House Bill(515) in 2005-2006. The Bill revised the Tax Code aimed to reform and create a decrease in Business tax retaining and attracting manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania to compete with other states effectively. House Bill 515 permitted the Senate and the House of Representatives to take part in Tax Reform.

In the year 2007, he was elected to be the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee and served for a year in the Legislative session. Mike became a Republican Whip from 2009-2010 where he was a highly respected Majority leader for two terms. He had legislative assignments such as:

  • Acting as the chair in the Pennsylvania state committee
  • As a committee key member
  • Making rules and handling Joint Government state commissions

As the Majority Leader, Mike attracted support from the Senate Bill (1131) becoming Act 17 in the year 2011. The Act put away joint liabilities and this led to defendants needing to pay a fair share of all the damages when the liability was lower than sixty percent.

Mike Turzai propelled the passing of House Bill (493) which later came to be Act 77 in 2013, known as RACP (Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project). This targeted the reduction of the Commonwealth’s debts with time bypassing the Debt Enabling Act. The Capital Facility Debt Enabling Act was to help cut the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project debt rate from $4.05 to $3.45 billion.

In the 2016 Republican Convention, Turzai became the delegate of the Nation in Pennsylvania. The fourteen at-liberty delegates in Pennsylvania and the 3 Republican National Convention were tied up by the results of the primary election supporting Donald Trump in the state. Trump had up to one thousand five hundred and forty-two delegates on July 13, 2016. To win, one needed at least 1,237 delegates, this meant that there would be no votes for candidates at the Convention.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *