Denny O'Brien

O'Brien announced his intention to run for one of the minority seats on Philadelphia's City Council in 2011. He, attorney David Oh, and incumbent Frank Rizzo were considered the clear favorites among the Republican contenders. On May 17, 2011, in spite of not being supported by any of the party organizations, O'Brien won one of the five GOP nominations for the City Council's at-large seats, with 17.32% of the vote. Oh won 18.50% of the vote, being first among the field of candidates, while Rizzo was soundly defeated, coming in 7th out of nine candidates—a result some have attributed to his involvement in DROP, the Deferred Retirement Option Plan. O'Brien went on to be the top finisher among the minority party candidates with an approximately 10,000-vote lead. He was sworn into Council on January 2, 2012.

He worked with Governor Ed Rendell to organize a Bureau of Autism Services within the state's Office of Developmental Programs. In 2008, one of his bills, requiring insurance companies to cover autism treatment, was passed and signed into law.

O'Brien defeated what was described as an “underground write-in campaign” in the 2008 Democratic primary election. With no Democrat on the ballot, a write-in candidate emerged in an attempt to secure a position on the November ballot as a Democrat. He organized his own campaign and defeated his opponent 1,372–416, meaning that O'Brien was listed on both parties' ballots in the general election.

Upon the election of 2008, the Democrats saw the opportunity to put their own in the Speaker's office. Representative Keith McCall of Carbon County was elected Speaker with O'Brien opting out of the race. He was named the minority chairman of the House Committee on Children and Youth. In addition to those responsibilities, O'Brien worked with the Department of Public Welfare to ensure implementation of Act 62 (mandating autism insurance in Pennsylvania) which he wrote and passed while he was the Speaker.

O'Brien lost to Dougherty by 480 votes in the primary. In 1982 O'Brien ran for his old seat in the Pennsylvania House and won. He was re-elected in every succeeding election he contested. Prior to his elevation to the Speakership, he served as chairman of the House Committees on Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness, Health and Human Services, Consumer Affairs, Judiciary. Upon leaving the Speaker's office, he served as chairman of the Committee on Children and Youth.

O'Brien was first elected to the Pennsylvania House in 1976 and served two terms before giving up his seat in 1980 to challenge fellow Republican Charles Dougherty for his congressional seat.

Dennis Michael O'Brien (born 1952) is an American Republican Party politician who served as the 137th Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 2007-08. First elected in 1976, he represented the 169th Legislative District in the state House for the most part of four decades. He served as a member of the Philadelphia City Council for one term, from 2012-16.