When state legislators were sworn in just after noon yesterday, Brendan and Kevin Boyle became Pennsylvania’s first pair of simultaneously seated brother representatives.
The 33-year-old Brendan — first elected to represent the 170th District in 2008 — said, “It was a little surreal to see that my brother is two seats away on the House floor.” Also surreal is the fact that Kevin, 30, has an office within shouting distance.
“Once we got to talking about things, it all seemed very natural,” Brendan said hours after his brother started his first term representing the neighboring 172nd District, formerly John Perzel’s.
Kevin Boyle managed his brother’s 2008 campaign and helped craft legislation, including the “Reach Scholarship” bill. Raised in a Mayfair row home, Kevin studied at Harvard and worked as Councilman Bill Greenlee’s legislative director. Brendan studied at Notre Dame and earned a master’s in public policy from Harvard.
“The folks in our district will make independent decisions when it comes to voting for us again, but if he does really well, it reflects positively on me, and if I do really well, it reflects positively on him,” Brendan said.
Asked whether he’s worried about any cross-party blowback from defeating the seemingly entrenched Perzel, Kevin, who plans to focus on absentee landlords and poverty in the Lower Northeast, said, “They’ll probably be reveling in the fact that they won a majority; and while I’m reluctant to say it, it’s not like Perzel was personally loved by his caucus.”
