Last year, Pennsylvania divested its government holdings of certain firms in Russia and Belarus, as well as the two countries’ governments.
This year, some legislators want to follow a similar divestment path for China.
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Pennsylvania’s Senate State Government Committee on Monday recommended confirming secretary of the commonwealth nominee Al Schmidt.
The panel voted 10-1 to back the Republican acting secretary and former Philadelphia city commissioner. In a subsequent, off-the-floor meeting, the committee approved a bill to facilitate removal of Pennsylvania from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a controversial multi-state data-sharing program supporters say helps states maintain accurate voter rolls. The bill would permit the state to use the Social Security death database and change-of-address records to identify voter-registry errors.
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Pennsylvania state Senator Doug Mastriano’s Thursday announcement he won’t seek the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Casey next year vastly boosts potential GOP hopeful Dave McCormick’s prospects.
“I know this will be disappointing for some,” Mastriano said of his decision in a Facebook Live broadcast. “At this moment, the way things are, I am not running for the U.S. Senate seat that is going to be vacated by Casey. We need to beat him.”
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Pennsylvania state Senator Doug Mastriano’s plans to soon announce whether he’ll run for U.S. Senate next year have Pennsylvania’s movement conservatives brimming with feelings — not all of them positive.
The Republican who represents Gettysburg, Chambersburg and surrounding communities suffered an overwhelming defeat last year when he ran for governor against Democrat Josh Shapiro. After Mastriano indicated he would publicly decide on a bid against Democratic Senator Bob Casey in just days, state Representative Russ Diamond (R-Jonestown) wrote a tweetstorm Monday urging fellow Republicans to entreat Mastriano not to run.
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On Tuesday, Pennsylvania voters nominated Republican Montgomery County President Judge Carolyn Carluccio and Democratic Superior Court Judge Daniel McCaffery to run against each other for state Supreme Court.
By a margin of 53.5 percent to 46.5 percent, Carluccio bested Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia McCullough in a contentious nomination campaign for the seat left open by the death of Democratic Chief Justice Max Baer last autumn. McCaffery defeated his Superior Court colleague Debbie Kunselman in his primary 59.4 percent to 40.6 percent.
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Two Pennsylvania State House members are preparing to introduce a bill to facilitate parents’ and taxpayers’ access to K-12 school curricula.
In a memorandum asking colleagues to cosponsor their measure, Representatives Kristin Marcell (R-Richboro) and Jill Cooper (R-New Kensington) argue current school transparency requirements are inadequate. While state law mandates that school boards post policies governing curriculum review, district officials need not publish the actual syllabus or name the instructional texts. Districts must provide residents access to course outlines and texts, but that usually entails an interested party visiting the school.
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A group of conservative Pennsylvania state lawmakers on Thursday voiced outrage at the Greater Johnstown School District’s “Gender Transition Plan” and “Gender Support Plan.”
Particularly troubling to members of the Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus (PAFC) are provisions in the district policies to circumvent parents’ involvement in the way their gender-dysphoric student may address his or her condition.
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Two and a half years after Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and a Republican-controlled legislature enacted no-excuse absentee voting, many right-leaning Pennsylvanians still resist adjusting to the new system.
Arnaud Armstrong can sympathize. The Allentown native and 2018 University of Pittsburgh graduate has worked in various communication and grassroots roles for GOP campaigns and always found in-person voting ideal from a civic standpoint. But the lead organizer of Win Again PAC, a committee that formally launched last weekend at the conservative Pennsylvania Leadership Conference near Harrisburg, says it behooves his party compatriots to mount more spirited efforts to win absentee votes.
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Pennsylvania state Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) this week announced he is introducing legislation requiring public K-12 schools to post their curricula online.
Should the policy become law, school districts and charter institutions must provide public web access to syllabi for all classes and thorough lists of the textbooks planned for use in those courses as well as commonwealth academic standards for all course offerings. Should a school make any curricular revisions, it would have 30 days to publish them.
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Even as Pennsylvania’s public-sector unions suffer net losses of members and dues, these groups continue to ramp up political donations, according to a new analysis by the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation (CF).
According to the free-market nonprofit, spending from Keystone State government unions like the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13 totaled $6.34 million in the 2011-12 campaign cycle. That amount steadily rose over all gubernatorial and presidential cycles and reached a record $20.2 million in 2021-22.
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Norfolk Southern Corp. Chief Executive Officer Alan Shaw told Pennsylvania lawmakers on Monday that the response to February’s Ohio train derailment “worked” and that state officials thoroughly backed it.
Shaw’s appearance before the state Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee came about as a result of a subpoena earlier this month after the rail-company executive initially declined to speak to the panel. Senators also subpoenaed the corporation’s internal communications related to the wreck, some of which committee Chair Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) said have been turned over and others of which he says he still awaits.
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Members of the Pennsylvania Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee met in Chambersburg Thursday, just as Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued orders at the national level to increase access to mental health care in the military.
Committee Chairman Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Chambersburg, opened the meeting by optimistically noting the downward trend of suicides in recent years following a series of state initiatives meant to address mental health amongst veterans. But, he said, there’s much more work to be done.
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Alongside fellow lawmakers at the Darlington Fire Company on Tuesday, Pennsylvania state Representative Eric Nelson (R-Greensburg) asked Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency Acting Director Randy Padfield who has final say over what to do with a wrecked train carrying toxic chemicals: the rail company or state government?
At the hearing of the Pennsylvania House Bipartisan Policy Committee, Nelson said he wanted to know whether Pennsylvania emergency and environmental officials could decide whether to approve or quash plans to incinerate a certain number of rail cars on such a train if it crashed in the Keystone State.
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In the first public poll on Pennsylvania’s 2024 Republican Senate primary, State Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) has an 18-point lead against Dave McCormick.
The same survey shows former President Donald Trump besting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by the same margin in the state’s GOP presidential contest. While only Trump has officially declared his candidacy, a robust movement for a DeSantis bid has long been afoot while both Mastriano and McCormick have strongly suggested they are considering a Senate run.
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Legislation to aid Pennsylvanians affected by the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment and chemical incineration passed a state Senate panel unanimously last week.
Senator Doug Mastriano (R-PA-Chambersburg) authored the bill and chairs the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee which approved it. His measure would establish the Train Derailment Emergency Grant Program to cover impacted individuals’ medical bills, income losses, small-business expenses, property-value depletions, decontamination costs and relocation expenses. The policy now awaits consideration by the full Senate.
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Western Pennsylvanians who live near the site of the February 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment and subsequent burn went before a State Senate Committee Thursday to state that the event is causing deleterious health consequences. The 53-car train derailed in the village of East Palestine, Ohio, less than a mile from where the Buckeye State abuts Beaver County in Pennsylvania. In the crash’s aftermath, the train company proceeded to burn five rail cars containing vinyl chloride, a course of action company officials said would avert a potentially disastrous explosion. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) initially supported what has been called the “controlled burn” but has subsequently blasted Norfolk Southern for its handling of the incident, particularly its decision to burn five cars; Shapiro asserted he was only told one car would be incinerated.
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We are broadcasting live today from a packed house of about 300 local western Pennsylvania residents at the Community College of Beaver County in Monaca, just 21 miles from the site of East Palestine, Ohio’s toxic chemical spill disaster. This is the scene of the first public hearing on the East Palestine chemical catastrophe, led by PA State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg), Chairman of the Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee.
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Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) distanced himself further from Norfolk Southern in a press statement released on Thursday regarding decision-making following the February 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, one quarter-mile west of Beaver County in Pennsylvania.
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Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s opposition to Norfolk Southern Corp.’s handling of its East Palestine, Ohio train derailment contrasts strongly with his initial satisfaction with the controlled vent and burn of the rail vehicle’s toxic cargo.
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Pennsylvania State Senators Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) and Scott Hutchinson (R-Oil City) Thursday announced they would reintroduce a bill proposed in the last legislative session designed to prevent social media platforms from censoring Pennsylvanians.
Mastriano and Hutchinson introduced the original measure in May 2021. They secured the cosponsorship of four other senators, all Republicans, but the bill did not receive a vote in the Senate Consumer Protection and Professional Licensure Committee. The two lawmakers said new developments impelled them to try again in the new session. They cited the recently released “Twitter files,” internal documents pertaining largely to the social-media company’s decision in late 2020 to deny users access to a New York Post story concerning Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s personal computer.
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Pennsylvania just completed its third year of no-excuse mail-in voting, with Democrats scoring major victories in statewide and legislative offices. According to a political strategist from the state’s southeast, one factor affecting the Democrats’ 2022 success was its engagement in a legal form of “ballot harvesting” in the suburbs west of Philadelphia.
Athan Koutsiouroumbas, a managing director of the Harrisburg-based consultancy Long Nyquist and Associates, refers in a Monday commentary for RealClearPennsylvania to Democrats’ efforts to encourage mail-in voting in Delaware County. He called the effort a “completely legal ballot-harvesting juggernaut.”
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Pennsylvania state representatives expect to vote Wednesday on whether to impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D); a legislative panel voted to move the idea forward on Tuesday.
All 14 attending members of the state House of Representatives Judiciary Committee supported advancing an impeachment bill sponsored by Representative Martina White (R-Philadelphia). All eight Democrats present for the vote opposed the legislation.
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In the early hours Wednesday morning, multiple media outlets projected that Democrat John Fetterman would win the open U.S. Senate seat left by retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.
Fetterman, the state’s Lieutenant Governor who suffered a serious stroke just before the Democratic primary, won his party’s nomination, and then went on to defeat Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz for one of the only Democrat U.S. Senate pickups on the 2022 election cycle.
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State Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) this week announced he plans to introduce a bill banning the subjection of K-12 students to any “sexually explicit, obscene [or] racist principles.”
In a memorandum describing his upcoming bill, the senator voiced alarm at parents, students, and school staff, alerting the public to certain materials and themes they feel do not serve educational purposes. He first mentioned “racist concepts,” a reference to Critical Race Theory (CRT), an idea suggesting that history should be taught from a perspective of ethnic politics.
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Pennsylvania’s Republican nominee for governor — that would be state Sen. Doug Mastriano — is under attack by the establishment elite for not being … part of the establishment elite. And, of all people, the Republican Governors Association has signed on for the attack.
For those who have not followed the tale, Mastriano is a 30-year active-duty combat veteran who retired as a colonel in the Army. Apart from being deployed to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm (1991), assigned to the U.S. forces liberating Kuwait, in the post–9/11 world he was assigned to NATO and had three tours in Afghanistan. He ended his military career as a professor at the U.S. Army War College, in nearby (to me) Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He has four master’s degrees and holds a doctorate in history.
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Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano this weekend condemned the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s raid and arrest of Bucks County resident Mark Houck, a prominent pro-life activist.
According to a LifeSiteNews.com report citing Houck’s wife Ryan-Marie’s firsthand reaction to the SWAT team’s Friday-morning visit to the home where the two live with their seven children, between 25 and 30 armed agents arriving in approximately 15 vehicles surrounded the house.
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Pennsylvanians who support legal protections for innocent life including the unborn resoundingly celebrated the enthused showing at Monday’s Pennsylvania March for Life in Harrisburg, the Keystone State’s second such annual event.
Thousands of residents marched to the Capitol Building in support of legislation to prevent abortion, an issue that has seen a resurgence of interest since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide was nullified earlier this year. Pro-abortion activists held their own rally for Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s gubernatorial candidacy the day afterward, drawing few attendees.
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Pennsylvania earned a dubious distinction recently that underscores the economic pain wreaking havoc statewide for millions of residents struggling to make ends meet.
We, along with four other states, account for 69% of all 3.6 million utility disconnections between January 2020 and December 2021, according to a report from the Center for Biological Diversity.
It gets worse.
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In an extraordinary legal strike two months before mid-term elections, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor on Thursday sued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-run Jan. 6 committee in federal court, alleging it failed to follow its own rules and does not have the legal authority to compel him to testify.
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In an extraordinary legal strike two months before mid-term elections, the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor on Thursday sued House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat-run Jan. 6 committee in federal court, alleging it failed to follow its own rules and does not have the legal authority to compel him to testify.
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Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) came to Pittsburgh this weekend to argue that his success governing Florida needs to be replicated in Pennsylvania and that state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-PA-Gettysburg) is the man to do it.
The Adams County lawmaker is running against Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, someone who Mastriano and DeSantis believe will intensify the liberal governance the Keystone State has underwent during Tom Wolf’s eight-year administration.
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Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is coming through western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio on Friday, August 19, to speak at two rallies, one for Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and the other for Ohio Senate candidate J.D. Vance.
The conservative activist organization Turning Point Action is hosting the events. In a statement, turning Point founder and president Charlie Kirk expressed his gladness to facilitate the rallies and his hope that DeSantis’s endorsement will “unite conservatives” around Mastriano and Vance.
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In May, state Sen. Doug Mastriano won the Republican nomination for governor of Pennsylvania – much to the consternation of his party. Many Republicans felt that Mastriano had no chance of winning because of the far-right positions he took in the primary and during his brief career as a state senator. They pointed out that Democrats had even spent money to help make Mastriano the nominee because he was such a weak candidate.
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Twenty Republican members of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives this week called on acting Pennsylvania Education Secretary Eric Hagarty to reverse controversial state guidelines concerning schools’ treatment of sex and gender.
On a webpage titled “Creating Gender-Inclusive Schools and Classrooms,” the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) calls “binary gender,” e.g., the idea that gender and biological sex are properly denoted as either “male” or “female,” a “faulty concept.” The document also suggests that teachers host a “gender-neutral day” for students above the second grade wherein kids would identify ways in which they will eschew gender stereotypes on that day. Elsewhere, the guidance counsels teachers to ask a student his or her gender identity before assuming the right pronouns by which to call the child.
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This week’s decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upholding Act 77 which legalized no-excuse absentee voting in the Keystone State is spurring Republican lawmakers to renew their push for election reform.
A Republican-led legislature passed and Democratic Governor Tom Wolf signed Act 77 three years ago. Moderate Democratic Senator Lisa Boscola (D-Bethlehem) initially drafted the bill to get rid of straight-party voting, a policy on which Republican legislators largely agreed with her. More Democrats came around to support the measure once a section was added allowing voters to cast mail-in ballots without providing a reason they could not come to the polls (i.e., illness, injury or travel).
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Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) on Tuesday denounced guidelines the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) has outlined for the treatment of controversial gender issues in public schools.
The senator, who is running for governor against Democratic state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, particularly objected to recommendations that teachers consider utilizing nonconventional pronouns like “ne, ve, ze and xe” that some who claim to be neither male nor female have begun using to refer to themselves. Mastriano also criticized Governor Tom Wolf (D) and PDE for denying the link between biological sex and the gendered terms (i.e., male and female) that correspond to it.
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As the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania General Assembly advances a constitutional amendment to preserve its ability to restrict abortion, Governor Tom Wolf (D) is suing to defeat that amendment and taking executive action in favor of the practice.
Keystone State governors typically don’t play a role in the constitutional-amendment process. If both the state House of Representatives and the state Senate pass an amendment in two consecutive sessions, the commonwealth submits the measure as a ballot question for voters to accept or reject at the ballot box. If a majority agrees to it, the amendment becomes law, with or without gubernatorial blessing.
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Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities are moving ahead with tuition increases in spite of Republican lawmakers’ exhortations that they freeze their prices.
Earlier this week, state Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) sent a letter to the administrators of Temple University, Lincoln University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University to urge them not to further economically burden students or their families as inflation rages. Soon thereafter, GOP leaders of the state House of Representatives sent their own message to the four schools which operate independently but rely heavily on state funding.
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State Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) this week wrote to Pennsylvania’s four state-related universities to urge them to abandon their planned tuition increases and freeze in-state tuition in light of skyrocketing inflation.
The senator noted that the Keystone State’s Fiscal Year 2022-23 budget allots $600 million in total to Lincoln University, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania State University. Those institutions are also getting $40 million in new discretionary funding from Gov. Tom Wolf (D). With such generous state subsidies, Mastriano reasoned, partially public universities should make every effort to avoid putting new pressures on students and their families.
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A major change in public records requirements for some of Pennsylvania’s best-known universities is working through the General Assembly.
Yet, while expansive, it would leave the public with less information about higher education than is available in other states.
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A Pennsylvania Senate bill to allow a voter to act as a poll watcher outside of his or her own county passed the state House of Representatives this week, though Gov. Tom Wolf (D) said he will veto it.
Sponsored by Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg), the “Poll Watcher Empowerment Act” received the support of every Republican and no Democratic representative. When it passed the Senate earlier this month, every Republican voted for it and every Democrat voted against it except for Sen. Lisa Boscola (D-Bethlehem).
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Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on Friday, Pennsylvania Senate Democrats proposed codifying abortion rights by state statute.
Sen. Katie Muth (D-Royersford) circulated a memorandum asking Senate colleagues to cosponsor the legislation that would keep the practice legal in Pennsylvania. So far, Sens. Amanda Cappelletti (D-Norristown), Lindsey Williams (D-Pittsburgh), Maria Collett (D-North Wales), Judith Schwank (D-Reading), Christine Tartaglione (D-Philadelphia) and Carolyn Comitta (D-West Chester) have signed onto the measure.
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A Pennsylvania Senate panel this week passed a measure sponsored by Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) to strengthen the commonwealth’s tracking of overdoses.
All Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee supported the bill. It awaits consideration of the state House of Representatives.
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Pennsylvania’s House State Government Committee on Wednesday passed a Senate bill to move the state’s presidential primary date and another measure to allow out-of-county poll watchers.
The first of the two bills was sponsored by Sen. John Gordner (R-Bloomsburg) and passed his chamber unanimously last December. And yet only two of the House panel’s 10 Democrats, Kristine Howard (D-Malvern) and Ben Sanchez (D-Abington), backed the legislation during Wednesday’s vote.
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Pennsylvania’s state Senate passed legislation this week that would permit a Pennsylvania voter to serve as a poll watcher in an election precinct outside of his or her county.
Current law lets candidates and parties appoint poll watchers — volunteers who are often party committee members — to election precincts only in those watchers’ respective counties. State guidance allows these appointees to “make good-faith challenges” to an elector’s residence, identity or voting eligibility.
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Pennsylvania Republicans on Tuesday gave State Senator Doug Mastriano (R-Gettysburg) the nod to face state Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) in the race for governor this year.
The Democratic Party also nominated Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) for the Senate seat from which Republican Pat Toomey will retire at the end of 2022. At this writing, the GOP primary contest for that seat remains too close to call between top-tier candidates David McCormick and Mehmet Oz.
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Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the GOP gubernatorial primary in Pennsylvania with only three days before the election, endorsing Doug Mastriano.
Mastriano, a state senator, has been leading the crowded field, according to the latest polls, and will likely be boosted by the Trump endorsement.
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Lou Barletta picked up two high-profile endorsements in his campaign for Pennsylvania governor on Thursday: newly withdrawn gubernatorial candidate Jake Corman and former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA).
Corman, who serves as state Senate President Pro Tempore and represents a district that includes State College, polled consistently in the single digits throughout the Republican gubernatorial primary. Despite his ending his bid, his name will remain on the ballot as the deadline has passed for removing it.
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Gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano and U.S. Senate contender Mehmet Oz are leading their respective GOP primary fields, according to a new poll.
The survey, conducted by the Trafalgar Group, spoke to 1,080 likely GOP voters in order to gauge each candidate’s support ahead of the May 17 primary election.
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A new poll shows the GOP primary race for U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania continues to be tight, but with Kathy Barnette now inching ahead of David McCormick to reach second place behind Mehmet Oz.
Barnette, an army veteran and political commentator, is polling at 23.2 percent. Oz, the celebrity surgeon, received 24.5 percent and former hedge-fund executive McCormick got 21.6 percent.
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