Tag: Bryan Cutler

National Park Service Backtracks on Removing Beloved Pennsylvania Statue After Widespread Ridicule

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William Penn

The National Park Service reversed its decision to remove a famous statue from Welcome Park in Philadelphia, according to a Monday statement from the agency.

A statue of William Penn, who founded the then-colony of Pennsylvania in 1681 and played a significant role in American politics, will not be removed from Welcome Park after deliberation from the National Park Service, accordingto The Associated Press. The agency first planned to remove the statue as part of “rehabilitation” efforts for the park, but backpedaled on that commitment after public backlash.

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Pennsylvania House Passes State Earned Income Tax Credit

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state representatives this week passed legislation creating a state version of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). 

The federal EITC, which went into effect in 1975, is designed to incentivize work. It ranges from $560 to $6,935 and goes to households earning up to $59,187. The proposed state-level counterpart would allow low-wage earners to claim 25 percent of the federal credit on their Pennsylvania taxes. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia offer a similar credit.

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Pennsylvania House Republicans, Union Want Zabel to Resign over Harassment Allegations

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania House Republicans and a union representing many social-service workers are calling on state Representative Mike Zabel (D-Drexel Hill) to resign over allegations he sexually harassed one of that union’s lobbyists. 

Andi Perez, the political director of the Pennsylvania and Delaware Division of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), is accusing Zabel of inappropriately touching her and not immediately relenting after she backed away from him. 

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Joanna McClinton Replaces Mark Rozzi as Pennsylvania House Speaker After He Steps Down

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania State Representative Joanna McClinton (D-Philadelphia) on Tuesday was sworn in as State House Speaker, replacing State Representative Mark Rozzi (D-Temple) in that role shortly after he stepped down from it. 
Rozzi’s two months at the helm of the House of Representatives have been fraught with contention. Immediate past speaker and House Minority Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Quarryville), who corralled support within his caucus for Rozzi when his party enjoyed a momentary slim majority, recalled that the Berks County Democrat promised to drop his Democratic affiliation. Rozzi never did so and clashed with the House GOP on procedural and organizational issues. 

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Pennsylvania Republican House Leaders Discuss Speaker’s Stalling Reconvening of Session, Failure to Investigate Harassment

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania state House Republicans on Monday excoriated their Democratic counterparts for failing to reconvene and failing to start investigating sexual-harassment allegations against a Democratic House member. 

Republicans have blasted Speaker Mark Rozzi (D-Temple) for dragging out the process of finalizing operating rules and bringing the House of Representatives back into session. The speaker, whose party holds a majority of seats, initially said he would only agree to allow legislation to be considered once the House voted on a measure allowing adults victims of sexual abuse to sue their alleged predators despite the statute of limitations. The House passed such legislation last week. 

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Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Says Speaker Committed ‘Significant Breach’ of Security

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Quarryville) is seeking answers regarding what he terms a major security infraction on the part of House Speaker Mark Rozzi (D-Temple). 

Rozzi was elected speaker with the support of all Democrats and 16 Republicans in the state House of Representatives as part of a deal Cutler said would entail the Berks County representative re-registering as an independent and caucusing with neither party. The speaker has since declined to lose his party affiliation and chose to adjourn session until later this month. Rozzi’s decision disempowers Republicans who, had they been in session, would have enjoyed a few weeks with a narrow House majority, but three special elections scheduled for this Tuesday almost guarantee the Democrats will gain control of the chamber. 

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Pennsylvania GOP House Leader Cutler Asserts Right to Schedule Special Elections for May

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler (R-Quarryville) on Thursday insisted he has the right to schedule special elections for three legislative vacancies. He wants two elections to take place during next May’s primaries. 

Cutler’s party has tussled with Democrats over control of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the wake of November’s elections. Democrats won a majority of House seats that month, but Republican members nonetheless outnumber Democrats by two insofar as three seats to which the latter party won elections are vacant. 

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Pennsylvania House Republicans Sue Over Majority-Leader Status

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania former House Speaker Bryan Cutler (R-Quarryville) this weekend announced he filed a lawsuit in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania over Representative Joanna McClinton’s (D-Philadelphia) assertion of House majority-leader status. 

McClinton has used her title as majority leader to schedule special elections to replace one deceased member and two retired members of the state House of Representatives. State law calls on the House speaker to determine special-election dates for that chamber and vests the House majority leader with that power if the speaker cannot perform that duty. 

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Pennsylvania Representative Bonner to Head District Attorney Krasner’s Impeachment Trial

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Representative Tim Bonner (R-Grove City) will serve as lead manager of the Senate impeachment trial of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) over the next few weeks. 

State House Speaker Bryan Cutler (R-Quarryville) appointed Bonner to head the three-person team of House managers on Friday. Representatives Craig Williams (R-Chadds Ford) and Jared Solomon (D-Philadelphia) will round out the group. (State law requires at least one impeachment manager to come from the House minority party.)

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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. 

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U.S. Supreme Court Rules Against Counting Undated Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballots

Bradley Vasoli

The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a lower federal court’s decision Tuesday allowing Pennsylvania counties to count undated mail-in ballots. 

The case originated in 2021 after Republican David Ritter and Democrat Zachary Cohen vied for a judgeship on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas and their race came to a near tie. Cohen eventually netted a five-vote lead when the Philadelphia-based Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals resolved a dispute between the candidates about whether to count 257 absentee ballots. Those sheets were returned in envelopes on which the voter failed to write a date. 

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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.

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Pennsylvania House Republicans: Krasner Is Suing to Skirt Accountability

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Republican legislators seeking solutions to the crime and violence in Philadelphia that have spilt into other communities across the Keystone State denounced city District Attorney Larry Krasner this weekend for suing to escape their oversight. 

GOP General Assembly members, who allege Krasner has demonstrated a “willful refusal to enforce Pennsylvania’s criminal laws,” have made clear they want to impeach the far-left prosecutor and introduced a resolution to that effect months ago. They however almost certainly lack the two-thirds of Senate votes to do so. 

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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). 

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Senator Proposes Changes to Pennsylvania’s Redistricting Commission

Bradley Vasoli
Senator David G. Argall

State Sen. David Argall (R-Mahanoy City) last week proposed two constitutional amendments that would affect state-legislative redistricting in Pennsylvania. 

The first reform the senator wants to make would change the process for choosing the chair of the Legislative Reapportionment Commission (LRC), which oversees remapping of the General Assembly’s districts every 10 years. Current law directs the state Supreme Court to pick a chairperson, effectively deciding which party controls the five-member commission on which the Republican and Democratic leaders of the state House and state Senate sit.

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Pennsylvania Supreme Court Picks Democrat-Favored Congressional Map

Bradley Vasoli

Democrats celebrated and Republicans demurred Wednesday after the Democrat-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court selected the state’s new congressional map.

In so doing, the court overturned a decision earlier this month by Commonwealth Court Judge Patricia A. McCullough (R) to allow implementation of a redistricting plan passed by the GOP-led General Assembly but vetoed by Governor Tom Wolf (D). The initial version of the legislature-approved map was drawn by a private citizen, Amanda Holt of Lehigh County, though legislators modified her plan somewhat.

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Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Corman Calls for Philly District Attorney’s Impeachment

Bradley Vasoli

Outrage at Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s (D) leniency toward criminals has driven Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman (R-Bellefonte) to call for the prosecutor’s impeachment.

Corman sent a letter to leaders of the GOP-run state House of Representatives asking them to seek Krasner’s removal. In his missive, the lawmaker deplored the city’s sharp present rise in violent crime and said the district attorney has played a major role in that spike by allowing many offenders to escape punishment.

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Pennsylvania Commission’s Redistricting Proposals Draw Ire for Gerrymandering

Bradley Vasoli
PA State Rep. Bryan Cutler

After years of Pennsylvania Democrats excoriating Republicans for gerrymandering, the 2021 Legislative Reapportionment Commission’s state-level redistricting proposals are drawing ire from members of both parties.

Republicans have broadly opposed the preliminary redistricting plan for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and at least one Senate Democrat, Lisa Boscola (Bethlehem), is incensed about changes to her chamber’s map.

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Voter-Integrity Amendments Pass the Pennsylvania House

Bradley Vasoli

A set of amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution, including a voter-identification requirement, passed the state House of Representatives this week on nearly party-line votes.

To become part of the state Constitution, the proposed amendments must pass in two consecutive sessions of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and must gain approval by a majority of voters in an election. State House members voted on these measures as amendments to a Senate bill that would let gubernatorial candidates select their own running mates, whereas current law lets Pennsylvanians vote to elect nominees for lieutenant governor.

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Bill to Require Post-Election Audits in Pennsylvania Advances with Support of Philadelphia Democrat

Bradley Vasoli

State Rep. Regina Young (D-PA-Philadelphia) voted with all Republican House State Government Committee members this week in favor of a bill to require post-election audits. 

The legislation to verify the accuracy of election outcomes will thus go before the full Pennsylvania House with at least a modicum of bipartisanship, making it more difficult for Democrats to call the bill merely “a reactionary thing being done because of the last election,” as Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-Philadelphia) did at the committee meeting.

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Pennsylvania House Speaker Seeks ‘Full Audit’ of Election Returns Before Certification

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Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler is calling for a “full audit” of the presidential election returns in the state before the results are certified.

In his letter to Gov. Tom Wolf requesting the audit on Friday, Cutler, a Republican, cited the Oct. 21 guidance from Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar about allowing individuals with rejected mail-in ballots to vote with a provisional ballot as a way to “cure” their ballot.

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