Republicans lost their majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives last year, but on Tuesday GOP members voiced their hope that the state might still curb state spending and lighten the tax burden with which the commonwealth saddles residents and businesses.
With that goal in mind, House Appropriations Committee Minority Chairman Seth Grove (R-York) led a roundtable discussion with several state fiscal-policy experts.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s hyperlocal emergency medical services system teeters on the brink of collapse and, officials say, it’s up to legislators to intervene before it’s too late.
“If they do nothing, this will collapse — there’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it —this system will collapse if nothing changes,” said Eric Henry, a Crawford County Commissioner and owner of the Meadville Area Ambulance Service.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s public college system wants to make it easier for students to know what skills they need for the careers they want.
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education announced its plans to build a credential registry, which lists the types of certificates, certifications, and degrees they can earn at PASSHE schools.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania state Representative Dawn Keefer (R-Dillsburg) is asking the state General Assembly to support legislation she is drafting to require periodical audits of the commonwealth’s election registry.
The representative observed that an investigation by Democratic Auditor General Eugene DePasquale that concluded in December 2019 discovered numerous problems with the accuracy of Pennsylvania’s voter records. DePasquale’s report determined, for example, that 24,408 registrations with the same driver’s license number appeared on other registrations. It also found that 2,991 active voter records contained information matching that displayed on Department of Health death notices.
Read the full story
Temple University (TU) cut health care benefits and tuition remission for graduate students currently on strike, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Graduate students began their strike for higher wages, improved health care, extended leave and better working conditions on Jan. 31. TU informed students via emails, which were shared on Twitter by affected students, that the university would no longer pay part of or all tuition costs and strikers would lose health care benefits because of their participation in the strike.
“We believe that this is retaliation for going on strike and we are pursuing a challenge to it,” Bethany Kosmicki, past Temple University Graduate Student Association (TUGSA) president,
Read the full story
Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw expressed frustration Thursday about rising violence after a fellow city officer was shot the day before.
“How many times do I have to say enough is enough? It is NOT our job to become martyrs,” she tweeted. “Attacks against our brave officers – and the people we serve – will not be tolerated. Those who seek to do harm can expect that PPD will fervently pursue all appropriate avenues of justice.”
Read the full story
Pennsylvania Democrats in the House of Representatives are seizing their new majority in the state House of Representatives — secured this week with three special-election victories — to advance abortion and lose voting security.
Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Sharif Street, who represents part of Philadelphia in the state Senate, issued a statement congratulating Joe McAndrew, Abigail Salisbury and Matt Gergely, all of whom won Allegheny County-based House seats. The chair said he looks forward to the work he believes House leadership wants to do to keep abortion widely available and ensure Pennsylvanians need not submit identification to vote at the polls.
Read the full story
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 the full story
The country’s first nuclear-powered data center and bitcoin mining operation – located in northeastern Pennsylvania – will soon welcome its first tenant.
Cumulus Data said the first of several 48 megawatt “powered shell data center” at its 1,200-acre campus in Columbia County that will provide digital infrastructure and decarbonized energy to clients via the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station in Berwick is now ready for lease.
Read the full story
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.
Read the full story
Legislators in Pennsylvania traditionally spend off-session weeks in their districts, but this time the “work” of constituent relations itself seems contested in the narrowly divided House.
In one corner, Republicans protest loud and often that House Speaker Mark Rozzi, D-Temple, and the rest of his party won’t show up for work. After all, they argue, it was his decision to adjourn session until the last day of February, marking nearly two months without any legislative action – or even operating rules – at all.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania remains one of six states that still levy an inheritance tax, but an old plan to gradually phase it out resurfaced last month.
Senate Bill 75, sponsored by Sen. Michele Brooks, R-Greenville, would reduce the sibling inheritance tax over seven years until it’s fully eliminated.
Read the full story
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 the full story
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 the full story
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Tuesday the state will refund residents every time it delays processing applications for occupational licenses, certifications and permits.
“Under my administration, Pennsylvanians will have certainty,” he said. “They will know how long it will take for agencies to respond, and if an agency doesn’t live up to that promise, they deserve their money back.”
Read the full story
The Tennessee Valley Authority announced Tuesday it made $3 billion in operating revenue in the final three months of 2022.
The revenue came as TVA faced what it called the first temporary blackouts in the energy company’s 90-year history in late December, something the company apologized for and has vowed that it is fully investigating.
Read the full story
The gaping hole in the General Assembly’s session calendar notwithstanding, lawmakers continue delving into policy meetings this week as an outlet for their restlessness.
After a House Republican Policy Committee’s hearing on Monday about school funding concerns, lawmakers invoked their frustration with stalled legislative action and their colleagues across the aisle.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s new Governor Josh Shapiro issued an executive order last week that removes four-year degrees from 92 percent of government jobs.
Shapiro stated that this initiative will open approximately 65,000 jobs in the state to those without college education, he announced on Twitter.
The Shapiro Administration is “not wasting a second.”
Read the full story
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. Neilson ascribes much of the recently increased enthusiasm around esports to the lifestyle constraints imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Read the full story
by Lauren Jessop As Pennsylvania’s volunteer firefighters dwindle, lawmakers hope to reverse the trend. States nationwide struggle to recruit and retain volunteers, while simultaneously investing time and money into training required to keep up with stringent regulations. According to the U.S. Fire Administration, volunteers account for 96.8% of firefighters in Pennsylvania – the third highest percentage in the country. The national average is 70.2%. Since the 1970s, the ranks of volunteer firefighters in Pennsylvania have dropped from 360,000 to fewer than 37,000. A bill passed unanimously by the Senate last week would create a pilot program for community colleges and universities within the state’s higher education system to provide firefighting training to high school students. It’s now under consideration in the House of Representatives. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Michele Brooks, R-Crawford, would grant $150,000 to one school in three regions across the state – eastern, central, and western – to establish fire training programs. Brooks’ Chief of Staff Adam Gringrich told The Center Square the senator was pleased to have the bill moved so early in the session and hopes that the House takes it up when they convene. “The regional component of the grants addresses the equal need…
Read the full story
A dozen school districts in Pennsylvania exploited a legal loophole to raise millions of dollars in new taxes on the public without putting it to a referendum.
In the process, they’ve hidden hundreds of millions of dollars in reserve funds that could cover school costs without raising taxes.
Read the full story
Numerous university think tanks have had national political leaders as figureheads. The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement isn’t unique in that regard. What does set the center apart from similar institutions — besides its recent immersion in national scandal — is its limited research output.
The Penn Biden Center is undergoing intense and somewhat bipartisan criticism for having housed nearly a dozen classified government records after Joe Biden used the space as his main D.C. office from 2017 to 2019 while also nominally working as a professor. The documents were discovered last November and other restricted federal materials turned up this month in the president’s Delaware home. Some of the records were generated when Biden served as a U.S. senator and others materialized when he was vice president.
Read the full story
President Joe Biden’s D.C.-based think tank operated by the University of Pennsylvania reportedly held a two-day “bootcamp” last year during which congressional staffers were urged to support greater cooperation between the United States and China.
The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement has become the subject of heightened public attention in light of revelations earlier this month that Biden, who used the establishment as his main D.C. office, kept classified federal documents there.
Read the full story
The Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy & Global Engagement, the University of Pennsylvania think tank of which President Joe Biden was once the de facto leader, has had no publicized activity for nearly a year and its future is uncertain.
Biden reportedly used the Washington, D.C.-based center as his main D.C. office for much of the time between the end of his vice presidency in 2017 and his presidential run in 2020. From 2017 to 2019, Biden received approximately $900,000 in salary for a Penn professorship that did not require him to teach regular classes.
Read the full story
Republicans lawmakers will again tackle regulatory reform and the separation of powers in the new legislative session.
Previous efforts made some progress, but failed to become law.
The latest attempt is proposed Senate Bill 188 that would require legislative approval of “economically significant regulations.”
Read the full story
A Texas congressman is asking the U.S. Department of Education (DoE) to investigate funding that foreign entities have bestowed on the University of Pennsylvania.
Last week, U.S. Representative Lance Gooden (R-TX-5) authored a letter to Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in which he noted that $51 million flowed to the Philadelphia Ivy League university from non-American sources in 2021 and 2022. Of those donations, $14 million came from unnamed Chinese or Hong Kong entities and $2.4 million came from Saudi Arabia.
Read the full story
The latest batch of audits for municipal pension plans show a few localities received too much in state aid — and one error led to a $20,000 underpayment.
In West Caln Township in Chester County, officials reported inaccurate data for their 14-person non-uniformed pension plan and 4-person police pension plan. As a result, the non-uniformed plan understated payroll by $11,000, leading to a $700 underpayment from the state.
The police pension plan understated payroll by $73,000, leading to a $19,000 underpayment.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s hospital administrators say rising energy costs driving worldwide “fuel poverty” threaten the stability of the entire U.S. health care system.
“Folks can’t pay to heat their homes,” Chuck DiBello, vice president of facilities and real estate for the Allegheny Health Network, told the Senate Majority Policy Committee. “They get sick and they come to the hospital – sometimes just to get warm.”
Read the full story
Environmental groups, year after year, argue that Pennsylvania must prioritize more state funding for conservation projects.
This time around, however, they finally feel heard.
Read the full story
Revelations that President Joe Biden kept classified federal documents at his University of Pennsylvania office in Washington, D.C., have brought renewed scrutiny to his relationship with the university — and the role many Penn professors had in persuading his administration to kill a Justice Department project combatting Chinese espionage.
Read the full story
In his first executive action since becoming governor, Josh Shapiro abolished college degree requirements for state job listings in hopes of expanding economic opportunity.
The executive order signed Wednesday instructs the state to prioritize skills and experience over credentials for 65,000 positions, according to a press release.
Read the full story
The Upper Moreland School District in Pennsylvania proposed a new policy that advises teachers and staff to avoid telling parents their children’s gender identity or pronoun preferences, and to focus specifically on school-related, not gender, issues when speaking with parents.
The school district discussed its proposed policy related to “Transgender and Gender Diverse Students at a board meeting on Tuesday.
Read the full story
A review by The Pennsylvania Daily Star of output from the Penn Biden Center, the foreign-policy think tank established in 2017 to coincide with the start of Joe Biden’s professorship at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests the center has produced little to no original scholarly work.
The Washington, D.C.-based center has drawn heavy media scrutiny after news came out earlier this month that nearly a dozen classified federal documents were housed there until last November. Biden reportedly used the location as his main D.C. office after his vice presidency ended and before he became president.
Read the full story
“Today, Penn’s relationship with China is strong, and continues to grow.”
That’s how the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Global website still refers to the Philadelphia-based Ivy League school’s association with the communist-run nation.
Read the full story
President Joe Biden’s former private office in Washington, D.C., where roughly a dozen classified documents were discovered earlier last November, was recently a site for high-profile University of Pennsylvania internships.
Administrators of the Philadelphia-based Ivy League school brought the former vice president aboard as a professor in the winter of 2017 to coincide with the “soft opening” of the 13,800-square-foot Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Just under a year later, the think tank officially commenced operations with a stated aim of engaging “our fellow citizens in shaping this world, while ensuring the gains of global engagement are widely shared.”
Read the full story
An impending proposal in the Pennsylvania Senate takes aim at vaccine mandates.
“The fight for medical freedom continues into the new legislative session,” said prime sponsor Sen. Doug Mastriano, R-Chambersburg, in a Jan. 4 press release.
Mastriano first introduced the measure, called the Medical Freedom Act, in December 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both versions of the legislation would shield residents from adverse employment actions or discrimination for refusing vaccination while working for state agencies or political entities.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania state Representative Torren Ecker (R-Abbottstown) is preparing legislation to restore a rule keeping each healthcare lawsuit in the county where the alleged malpractice occurred.
Two decades ago, state lawmakers enacted the Medical Care Availability and Reduction of Error (MCARE) Act which forbade patients claiming they suffered from a doctor’s medical mistakes to file their lawsuits in jurisdictions where the alleged harm did not take place. Before that time, much litigation was being filed in Philadelphia and Allegheny counties whose common-pleas courts were known to look especially favorably on healthcare plaintiffs.
Read the full story
Pennsylvania’s gas tax is a major funding source for the upkeep and repair of roads and bridges across the state.
It’s also one of the highest gas taxes across the nation.
Read the full story
After a state court ruled that Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s time in office did not constitute misbehavior, the Pennsylvania Senate has voted for an indefinite delay of his impeachment trial.
State senators voted 28-20 on Monday to delay impeachment indefinitely while readopting the rules of impeachment.
Read the full story
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 the full story
Fayette, Lackawanna and Philadelphia counties weren’t factored into parts of the analysis due to missing or incomplete information, the report clarified.
After the 2008 housing crisis, annual housing permits found a new normal that was much lower than what was seen through the 1990s and early 2000s. As construction declined after the housing crash, demand outstripped supply, leading to higher housing costs across the commonwealth.
Read the full story
Four Republican state senators are encouraging their colleagues to join them in legislating to keep a new requirement from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) from going into effect in Pennsylvania.
Two decades ago, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) began requiring that heavy-duty diesel-vehicle engines receive CARB certification as part of the agency’s Heavy-Duty Diesel Emissions Control Program.
Read the full story
The University of Pennsylvania will spend $890,000 in the next six years with the goal of “increasing inclusivity in teaching and learning” in the STEM fields thanks to a $385,000 grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The funding “will support a rigorous examination of STEM education at the undergraduate level,” according to a university news release.
Penn officials committed an additional $385,000 to the initiative. Penn is just one of 104 schools who received the six-year grants from HHMI under their “Inclusive Excellence 3 initiative,” according to science research foundation’s website.
Read the full story
A lawmaker from Montgomery County is circulating a request to colleagues to back repeal of a requirement that a married woman seeking an abortion in Pennsylvania notify her spouse.
In a preliminary description of the upcoming bill, state Representative Liz Hanbidge (D-Blue Bell) bemoaned last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide. Hanbidge insisted that Pennsylvania’s founding principles of freedom and individual sovereignty should empower people to kill unborn life without constraint.
Read the full story
Lawmakers have approved a variety of tax credits in an effort to boost economic growth in the commonwealth. Evidence of that growth, however, can be hard to find.
For one program aimed at rural Pennsylvania, a state agency has recommended a pause until more data can show that the tax credits have actually created jobs.
Read the full story
Across Pennsylvania, thousands of violations have been issued in recent years over the “improper abandonment” of oil and gas wells.
While the Department of Environmental Protection has collected more than $1.3 million in fines, reporting requirements are routinely flouted and improperly abandoned wells present environmental hazards to the public – as well as new burdens on taxpayers, who could be on the hook to pay for environmental remediation.
Read the full story
A bill is re-emerging in Pennsylvania’s new State Senate session to end the requirement that pardon and commutation recommendations from the State Board of Pardons be unanimous.
The five-member board comprises the lieutenant governor and the state attorney general as well as experts on corrections, victims’ rights, and mental health. Once the panel issues a recommendation for an inmate to receive a pardon or a commuted sentence, the governor reviews those determinations and decides whether to sign off on them. Historically, governors have tended to follow the board’s advice.
Read the full story
After delays, motions to adjourn, and much uncertainty, the narrowly divided Pennsylvania House of Representatives chose Democrat Mark Rozzi of Berks County as Speaker of the House.
Rozzi won 115 votes against Republican Carl Metzger of Somerset County, who received 85 votes.
Read the full story
This past midterm, Pennsylvania state Senate Republicans managed to meet electoral expectations while the remainder of the commonwealth’s GOP suffered stunning losses – many of them unanticipated. Why?
The story begins 99 weeks before Election Day, when state Senate Republicans elected Kim Ward as the legislative chamber’s majority leader.
Read the full story
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 the full story