Tag: Tom Wolf

Republicans Lament Failure to Include Lifeline Scholarships in Pennsylvania Budget So Far

Bradley Vasoli

Just four days remain until June 30, Pennsylvania’s Fiscal Year 2023-24 budget deadline and much still divides Republicans who control the state Senate from Governor Josh Shapiro and his fellow Democrats who control the House of Representatives. 

The school-choice debate is among the most concerning facets of budget negotiations so far for the GOP. Shapiro indicated last year that he wanted the commonwealth to create “lifeline scholarships,” i.e. a private-school choice program for economically disadvantaged students in poorly performing schools. Republicans hoped they could coalesce with him around the policy’s enactment.

Read More

Committee Passes Pennsylvania Measure to Facilitate Ex-Prisoner Voting

Bradley Vasoli

Incarcerated Pennsylvanias regain their right to vote after release, but Democratic state representatives worry they don’t vote enough, so they advanced legislation on Monday addressing the issue.

Voting 12-9 along party lines, Pennsylvania’s House State Government Committee approved Representative Carol Kazeem’s (D-Chester) resolution to study ex-prisoner election participation. After the Joint State Government Commission completes its research, officials would use the the information gathered to develop policies to aid former inmates’ resumption of voting. 

Read More

Pennsylvania GOP Officials Want Shapiro to Shore Up Rainy Day Fund

Bradley Vasoli

High-ranking Republican Pennsylvania officials sounded off on Wednesday in the state Capitol Building against Governor Josh Shapiro’s budget legislation which would deplete state reserve funds in five years.

Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity (R) and House Appropriations Minority Chair Seth Grove (R-York) observed that the scenario is rather sunny insofar as the Democratic governor’s projections don’t account for a potential recession. Shapiro’s calculations also assume government spending won’t surpass 2.36 percent in the next five years, a supposition so rosy it provoked Grove to snicker slightly. 

Read More

Freshman Pennsylvania Lawmaker Wants Pension Changes for Colleagues

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Senator Jarrett Coleman (R-Allentown) this week introduced a measure requiring colleagues to take defined-contribution (DC) savings plans rather than traditional pensions.

Coleman, an airline pilot and former Parkland School District director, won his first Senate election last year on a reformist platform and has since briskly worked to effect change regarding education, election integrity, regulation and other issues. Now he’s asking members of his chamber to consider a policy directly affecting their own bottom lines. He believes it’s an important initial step toward more making the commonwealth’s employee retirement programs more solvent. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Hears Tax-Versus-Fee Arguments About Whether RGGI Can Stand

Bradley Vasoli

Arguing before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday, one state agency alleged another improperly refused to publish an executive action implementing a de facto carbon tax, effectively halting the polcy. 

At issue is a decision made by the Pennsylvania Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) not to publicize a regulation decreed by then-Governor Tom Wolf (D) entering the state into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The LRB, which drafts all state legislation upon lawmakers’ requests and provides other policy reference services, declined to promulgate the rule enrolling the commonwealth in the multistate compact, citing a state House of Representatives resolution opposing it.

Read More

Possible Mastriano Senate Run Elicits Mixed Reactions Among Pennsylvania Conservatives

Bradley Vasoli

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.

Read More

Recreational Marijuana Legalization Proposed in Pennsylvania Senate

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state senators announced Friday they will draft a bill to legalize adults’ recreational use of marijuana. 

In a memorandum asking colleagues to join their effort, Senators Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) and Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) cited CBS News polling suggesting two-thirds of Keystone Staters from varied communities back legal cannabis intake. The senators suggested making pot licit could boost the commonwealth’s agriculture industry and generate scads of new tax revenue. They mentioned 2021 testimony by the state’s nonpartisan Independent Fiscal Office averring that legal adult consumption could bring between $400 million to $1 billion into the state Treasury annually.

Read More

Conservative Former Bucks County, Pennsylvania Commissioner Challenges Liberal GOP Incumbent

Bradley Vasoli

Many residents of Bucks County, Pennsylvania remember Andy Warren as one of their Republican commissioners in the 1980s and 90s. Now he’s asking them to put him back on the job by nominating him for the GOP slate on Tuesday and electing him in November.

Warren, of Middletown Township, is running for one of two seats on the county Board of Commissioners while the Bucks County Republican Committee is backing incumbent Gene DiGirolamo and County Controller Pamela Van Blunk. Two Republicans will get nominated to face Democratic incumbents Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Robert Harvie in the fall, with seats going to the top three vote getters. 

Read More

Lawmakers Propose Reforms for Pennsylvania Budget Balance and Transparency

Bradley Vasoli

Several Republicans in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives are spearheading a package of proposed budgetary reforms to strengthen transparency and prevent fiscal imbalance. 

House Minority Appropriations Chair Seth Grove (R-York) announced the series of bills with Representatives James Struzzi (R-Indiana), Eric Nelson (R-Greensburg), Sheryl Delozier (R-Mechanicsburg) and John Lawrence (R-West Grove). The lawmakers suggested their proposals are needed to avert the budgetary problems that arose in Fiscal Year 2016-17. In that period, revenues to the state Treasury totaled $1.5 billion less than the forecast amount. 

Read More

Curriculum Transparency Bill Proposed in Pennsylvania House

Bradley Vasoli

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. 

Read More

Proposal Uses Pennsylvania Rainy Day Fund To Pay Down Unfunded Pension Liability

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania lawmaker wants to use the state’s Rainy Day Fund to pay down the state’s unfunded pension liabilities that total more than $60 billion.

State Representative Joe Ciresi (D-Royersford) is asking colleagues to cosponsor a bill to move $670 million from the fund to the Public School Employees’ Retirement System (PSERS) and $330 million to the State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS). A memorandum describing his legislation avers it could save local real-estate taxpayers $2.1 billion over the next 20 years. 

Read More

Pennsylvania’s Largest Coal Plant Closure Shows Effect of Coming De Facto Carbon-Tax

Bradley Vasoli

In July, the Homer City Generation LP Plant, Pennsylvania’s biggest coal-fired energy creator, will be taken offline, meaning 129 well-paying jobs will disappear in Pennsylvania’s fifth-poorest county of Indiana. 

This event, say free-market advocates and fossil-fuel supporters, should admonish Keystone State policymakers not to let the commonwealth let its abeyant membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) become active. The pact involving a dozen northeastern and mid-Atlantic states entails de facto taxation of carbon emissions. Even pre-implementation, industry experts explain, preparation for RGGI is killing otherwise viable power plants. 

Read More

New PAC Encourages Pennsylvania Republicans to Adapt to Mail-In Voting

Bradley Vasoli

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.  

Read More

Mastriano Proposes Bill for Pennsylvania School Curriculum Transparency

Bradley Vasoli

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. 

Read More

Pennsylvania House Appropriations Republican: Projected Shapiro Deficits Too Large

Bradley Vasoli

Unlike his fellow Democrat and predecessor Tom Wolf, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro hasn’t asked for tax increases as part of his first budget request. But the ranking Republican on the state House Appropriations Committee said on Wednesday that tax hikes likely await Pennsylvanians in a few years if lawmakers don’t pare back Shapiro’s spending proposal. 

“We are facing massive structural deficits,” Representative Seth Grove (R-York) told reporters at the GOP Appropriations Committee Office in Harrisburg. “It’s something that is on our minds here in the General Assembly.”

Read More

Shapiro Says Pennsylvania Republican Lawmakers ‘Are Praising’ His Budget Proposal While Omitting Criticisms

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) is already claiming high-ranking Republicans “are praising” his first budget. Those Republicans’ actual remarks tell a different story.

A press release from the governor selectively quotes eight GOP state lawmakers’ reactions to the budget he unveiled last week. While the snippets accurately capture areas of agreement, they leave out decidedly negative sentiments the Republicans voiced about the $45.9 billion plan which would hike state spending by about four percent over the current level. 

Read More

Mastriano Bill for Train-Wreck Emergency Grants Passes Pennsylvania Senate Committee

Bradley Vasoli

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. 

Read More

Shapiro’s Planned Spending Increase Alarms Pennsylvania Budget Hawks

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro asked the state General Assembly members on Tuesday to support his requested $45.9 billion budget, which would increase spending by approximately 4 percent over current outlays. 

The governor insisted he based his plan for Fiscal Year 2023-24 on “conservative” revenue estimates. And he did include some provisions appealing to anti-taxers and free-marketers including nixing the state cell-phone tax, a move he estimates would save Pennsylvanians $124 million annually. 

Read More

Gov. Shapiro Emboldens Pennsylvania Death Penalty Abolitionists

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro’s recent declaration that he will sign no death warrants is emboldening lawmakers who want to abolish executions in the Keystone State. 

To that end, state Representative Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia) is circulating a memorandum asking colleagues to cosponsor a measure he plans to offer ending the state’s death penalty. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Lawmaker Proposes Bill Letting Small Businesses Operate During Emergencies

Bradley Vasoli

State Representative Brad Roae (R-PA-Meadville) this week proposed legislation to permit small businesses to continue operating during potential future states of emergency in Pennsylvania. 

His bill, a version of a measure he sponsored in 2020, would permit small businesses to serve one customer at a time during such periods. The earlier legislation passed the House with nearly all Republicans and some Democrats in support but the Senate did not vote on it. 

Read More

Drop-Box Elimination Proposed in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania state senator this week announced he will soon reintroduce legislation he proposed last session to end use of election drop boxes and satellite offices. 

In a memorandum asking colleagues to cosponsor his bill, Senator Cris Dush (R-Bellefonte) characterized drop boxes where voters can deposit absentee ballots as fraught with security problems. Lawmakers never enacted a law authorizing counties to set up the receptacles, but the commonwealth’s Democrat-controlled executive branch issued guidance to counties in 2020 permitting drop boxes’ usage. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Representative Proposes Expanding E-Verify

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania lawmaker is asking colleagues to support an expansion of the state’s mandate that contractors use the E-Verify system to ensure they only hire legal U.S. residents. 

State Representative Ryan Mackenzie (R-Macungie) this week began circulating a memorandum seeking co-sponsors for his upcoming legislation that would require all public contractors and subcontractors to use the federal government’s E-Verify website. Established in the late nineties and now run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the site lets employers avail themselves of it free of charge. The system cross-references information from workers’ Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9 with preexisting government data to determine whether a hire is living in America legally. 

Read More

Legalization of Esports Betting Proposed in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

A state lawmaker is urging colleagues to support a bill he is drafting to legalize esports betting in Pennsylvania. Representative Ed Neilson (D-Philadelphia) began circulating a memorandum last week making the case for legitimating video-game betting in the Keystone State, observing that the esports business took in $1.1 billion worldwide in 2022 and is predicted to soon realize a $1.8-billion global value.

Read More

Pennsylvania Senate Passes Voter ID Amendment

Bradley Vasoli

The Pennsylvania Senate this week passed an amendment to the state Constitution that would require individuals to provide identification to vote in person in an election.

Also contained in the bill the chamber approved are an amendment that would open the statute of limitations for survivors of child sexual abuse and another amendment that would strengthen legislators’ power against a governor’s regulatory authority. 

Read More

State Senator to Reintroduce Pennsylvania Constitutional-Carry Bill

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Senator Cris Dush (R-Bellefonte) is asking colleagues to cosponsor legislation to let law-abiding state residents carry concealed firearms without a permit, something he tried but failed to get enacted last session. 

The senator’s original bill passed the General Assembly in autumn of 2021 but Governor Tom Wolf (D) vetoed it. Its chances of becoming law have diminished even further insofar as Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro recently was elected in November to succeed Wolf and Democrats won a majority of seats in the state House of Representatives. 

Read More

Policy Constraints Force Electric Bills Up in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvanians’ electric bills rose by an average of nearly three-quarters over the last two years and policymakers have only made the problem worse, according to the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation (CF). 

State residents served by Pennsylvania Power and Light (PPL) have seen their rates go up by just over half since December 2020. Customers of the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) have meanwhile experienced a doubling of their power costs during that time. All other providers have also risen their rates considerably. 

Read More

Keefer to Chair Pennsylvania House Freedom Caucus

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s new House Freedom Caucus announced its initial leaders this week, with state Representative Dawn Keefer (R-Dillsburg) to chair the new organization and Representative David Rowe (R-Mifflinburg) to serve as vice chair. 

Keefer and Rowe were among the 20 GOP members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to vote against this fiscal year’s budget, a compromise between the majority-Republican General Assembly and Democratic Governor Tom Wolf which increases state spending by 16.6 percent to $43.7 billion. In remarks to the press, the new caucus’s leaders complained of the extent to which government is growing in the commonwealth and promised to pursue zero-based budgeting as well as regulatory reform. 

Read More

Governor Wolf Bestows $2.5 Million in Taxpayer Funds on LGBT Center in Philadelphia

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf (D) on Wednesday joined a number of state, federal and city officials to celebrate the awarding of $2.5 million in taxpayer funds to a gay and transexual activity center in Philadelphia’s “Gayborhood.” 

Wolf said the money from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP) will go toward several major renovations envisioned for the William Way LGBT Community Center just south of City Hall. The grant comes in addition to $1 million the center received from the state in 2019 to improve the property’s heating, ventilation and cooling systems as well as to remodel the building’s front area. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Committee Votes to Impeach Philadelphia District Attorney Krasner

Bradley Vasoli

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. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Senate GOP Leaders Ask Secretary of State to Comply on Undated Ballots, Other Election Rules

Bradley Vasoli

Days before the 2022 midterm elections, Pennsylvania Republican Senate leaders wrote to their commonwealth’s chief voting overseer seeking assurance that laws governing undated absentee ballots will be followed. 

The letter from Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward (R-Greensburg) and Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) goes on to urge acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman (D) to follow official procedure on other electoral matters as well. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Decides Against Counting Undated Ballots

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court this week ordered counties to decline to count any absentee or mail-in ballot delivered in an undated envelope.

State law, which has permitted no-excuse absentee voting since 2020, requires those not voting in person to place their ballot into a secrecy envelope before placing it into a return envelope. Voter must sign and date that outer envelope for their ballot to be valid under state statute. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Business Leader Survey: Inflation Likely to Continue

Bradley Vasoli

Business leaders in Pennsylvania don’t see inflation subsiding in the near future, according to a survey released this week by the Harrisburg-based Lincoln Institute for Public Opinion & Research. 

A total of 212 businesses from across the Keystone State responded to the institute’s poll, with just over half of the respondents being business owners; 20 percent serving as either chief executive officer, head of finance or head of operations; and about a fifth serving as either state or local manager. 

Read More

Fiscal Policy Report Card Gives Pennsylvania Low Grade

The Center Square

In a recent ranking of America’s governors, Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf ranked at the bottom of the pack – 44th for his fiscal policies.

An annual fiscal policy report card from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, graded the nation’s governors “from a limited-government perspective.” In their grading that emphasized lowering taxes and cutting spending, Wolf earned an “F.”

Read More

State Senator Proposes Repealing Pennsylvania Ballot Date Requirement

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Democrats remain opposed to discarding undated absentee ballots, despite a Supreme Court decision suggesting that the ballots should not count.

Shortly after Governor Tom Wolf (D) and acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman (D) indicated they will continue to instruct counties to count mail-in ballots that come in envelopes on which voters did not write a date, state Senator Jim Brewster (D) proposed legislation to end the date requirement entirely.

Read More

Pennsylvania Governor Vetoes Bill to Limit Parole for Violent Offenders

The Center Square

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf last week vetoed a bill approved by the General Assembly that would prohibit premature release of a prisoner that has committed a violent offense while imprisoned.

The bill, known as “Markie’s law” and sponsored by Rep. Aaron Bernstine, R-Ellwood City, passed 41-9 in the Senate and 133-69 in the House. Wolf is term-limited, and headed out at the beginning of January; both chambers are majority Republicans.

Read More

Mastriano Condemns FBI Raid of Pennsylvania Pro-Life Activist

Bradley Vasoli

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. 

Read More

Democratic Judge Questions Differing Ballot-Curing Rules Across Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

As political-party attorneys and the state of Pennsylvania argued over “curing” election ballots on Thursday, the Democratic judge hearing the case suggested that differing county rules could undermine confidence in election integrity.

Judge Ellen Ceisler, one of two Democrats on the seven-member Commonwealth Court, conducted the hearing in which Republican Party lawyers pressed their case against Pennsylvania Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman (D). Per litigation filed three weeks ago, the plaintiffs contended that the court should not permit the secretary to let counties notify absentee or mail-in voters that their ballots contain mistakes that can supposedly be corrected or “cured.” 

Read More

Pro-Lifers Pleased with Enthusiasm at Second Annual Pennsylvania March for Life

Bradley Vasoli

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.

Read More

Pennsylvania House Committee to Investigate ‘Ghost Flights’

Bradley Vasoli

A Pennsylvania House committee announced this week it will investigate cases of “ghost flights” of illegal immigrants, possibly including children, that reportedly landed in the Keystone State.

The state House Government Oversight Committee accepted a referral from House Speaker Bryan Cutler (R-Quarryville) and Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-Bellefonte) which voiced concern about media accounts of nighttime air delivery of persons who unlawfully entered the United States. Cutler and Benninghoff observed that whistleblowers have suggested these flights into the commonwealth’s northeastern region, allegedly chartered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), contain minors as well as adults. The individuals were reported to have been driven out of state after arriving.

Read More

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Won’t Fast-Track Hearing for Proposed Abortion Amendment

Bradley Vasoli

Pro-lifers and scored a momentary win this week as the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decided against bypassing the Commonwealth Court and hearing a case against a proposed constitutional amendment. 

The Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Pro-Life Union of Greater Philadelphia were among organizations that filed amicus briefs with the majority-Democrat Supreme Court urging it to make Governor Tom Wolf (D) first take his case to the Republican-controlled lower court. In that forum, judges will rule on the validity of a proposed amendment stating that the commonwealth does not confer a constitutional right to abortion.

Read More

Bill Proposed to Compensate the Wrongfully Convicted in Pennsylvania

Bradley Vasoli

Two Pennsylvania state legislators on Friday proposed a law to facilitate compensation for those who the commonwealth imprisons based on wrongful convictions. 

Representatives Frank Ryan (R-Palmyra) and Regina Young (D-Philadelphia) plan to introduce the legislation to bring Keystone State policy into line with 38 other states that indemnify exonerated people. 

Read More

School Choice Advocates Remind Philadelphia Parents of Options as District Workers Prepare to Strike

Bradley Vasoli

As unionized public-school staffers protest the School District of Philadelphia’s failure to assent to the union’s salary and training terms, threatening to strike at the beginning of the school year, school-choice advocates are reminding parents of alternatives.

Bus drivers, custodians, maintenance staff and other workers represented by the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ have authorized a strike that could compromise the resumption of schooling that is scheduled for next Monday. Pro-strike workers insist they are underpaid, noting that cleaners make roughly $16,000 per year at the low end. At the high end, construction inspectors make approximately $70,000.

Read More

Report: Pennsylvania Job Openings Continue to Fall

Bradley Vasoli

A report released Monday by Pennsylvania’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) shows that new Keystone-State employment opportunities fell in June, marking a three-month overall decline.

Examining numbers from the federal Department of Labor, the IFO found that around 393,000 new jobs opened in June. Although that number exceeds the 281,000-per-month average for job openings that preceded COVID-19 in 2020, it continues a downward slope that began after new employment offerings reached 514,000 in March.

Read More

DeSantis: Electing Mastriano an ‘Opportunity to Make Pennsylvania Free’

Bradley Vasoli

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. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Legislator Proposes Abortion Insurance Mandate and Training Program

Bradley Vasoli

Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler (D-PA-Philadelphia) proposed two bills to promote abortion in the Keystone state: an abortion training program and a bill to require insurers to cover abortion without cost sharing. 

In a memorandum seeking cosponsors for her training measure, the democratic socialist representative from south Philadelphia indicated the legislation would bestow funding on the state Department of Health to provide medical professionals with up-to-date abortion instruction.

Read More

State Representative Pushes to Constitutionally Eliminate Pennsylvania School Property Taxes

Bradley Vasoli

State Representative Frank Ryan (R-PA-Palmyra) this week proposed amending the Pennsylvania Constitution to eliminate the portion of property taxes collected by localities to fund public schools.

In February, Ryan sponsored another bill to abolish school property taxes by statute; that measure has yet to receive a vote in the House of Representatives Finance Committee. While enacting a statute requires majority assent of the House and Senate and the signature of the governor, amending the state Constitution requires House and Senate approval in two consecutive sessions. The policy would then go before Pennsylvania voters as a ballot question for approval or rejection and the governor would play no role in that process.

Read More

Pennsylvania House Republicans Want Education Secretary’s Gender Policy Reversed — or His Resignation

Bradley Vasoli

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. 

Read More

Pennsylvania Governor and Business Leaders Celebrate Corporate Tax Reduction

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania business advocates joined Governor Tom Wolf (D) at the York County Economic Alliance on Monday to welcome an upcoming change in tax policy championed by entrepreneurs across the commonwealth.

Via the new budget agreed to this summer by Wolf and the Republican-controlled General Assembly, Pennsylvania will begin a decade-long phased halving of its corporate net income tax (CNIT). Of the forty-four states with a business income tax, the size of the Keystone State’s current 9.99-percent rate is second only to New Jersey’s 11.5-percent tax. Besides these two states, only four others levy top business income tax rates that exceed nine percent.

Read More

Pennsylvania House Democrat Introduces Bill to Create Gun Purchase Permits

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state Representative Emily Kinkead (D-Pittsburgh) announced on Friday that she will sponsor a bill to require residents to obtain permits to buy guns. 

Her legislation is a companion to a Senate measure authored by Art Haywood (D-Philadelphia). The senator began touting his legislation the day after the May school shooting in Uvalde, TX in which an 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers. 

Read More

After Pennsylvania Court Ruling on Absentee Voting, Republicans Renew Call for Reform

Bradley Vasoli

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). 

Read More