A trio of bills are working their way through the Legislature to enhance the security of election ballots and remove deceased residents from the voter rolls.
The House State Government Committee met on Monday to vote on House Bill 34, House Bill 143, and House Bill 2484, advancing all three of them past first consideration. The bills will need to get through three considerations before a final vote can be held.
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With the recent expiration of the federally mandated 2-year window for preservation of 2020 presidential election records, counties across the country have been inundated with public records requests from Americans concerned about election integrity.
During his “Moment of Truth Summit” last month spotlighting 2020 presidential election irregularities, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell exhorted “every single person in the country” to ask for cast vote records from the election from their local county clerk’s office. His website links to the Ordros Analytics, Inc., website, which provides templates of public records requests for cast vote records.
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State Representative Barbara Gleim (R-PA-Carlisle) on Friday proposed legislation to forbid Pennsylvania school libraries from possessing “highly sexual” or otherwise obscene content.
The lawmaker took care to point out that she does not intend to rid schools all content that pertains to sex in any way.
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The auditor general noted “growing financial issues” with the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and the news is not good for drivers who pay tolls.
“Today, the Pennsylvania Turnpike has more debt than the entire state government of Pennsylvania, and the only way to pay it is to raise tolls,” Auditor General Timothy DeFoor said in a press release. “This is an unsustainable situation which highlights the need for innovative ideas and different solutions to rectify an issue that is decades in the making.”
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Pennsylvania is set to spend $1 billion from the National Opioid Settlement – and the focus is on the county level.
Pennsylvania’s share of the $26 billion settlement will be divvied up so that 70% goes to counties, 15% is appropriated by the General Assembly, and 15% goes to counties involved in the opioid litigation, subdivisions, district attorneys, and special districts.
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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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State Representative Tim Twardzik (R-PA-Frackville) this week proposed legislation to lighten the burden of unemployment compensation (UC) on businesses that have seen major rate increases since COVID-19 hit in 2020.
Twardzik indicated his bill will be similar to legislation that state Senator David Argall (R-PA-Mahanoy City) has introduced in his chamber.
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Pennsylvania Democrat Senate nominee John Fetterman has agreed to one debate with GOP rival Dr. Mehmet Oz, amid efforts to recover from a mid-May stroke, in a key general election race that will help determine whose political party will next control the Senate.
“We’re absolutely going to debate Dr. Oz, and that was really always our intent to do that,” Fetterman told the news outlet Politico on Wednesday. “It was just simply only ever been about addressing some of the lingering issues of the stroke, the auditory processing, and we’re going to be able to work that out.”
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Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, maintains that he agrees with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a socialist, on “virtually every issue.” Sanders, in turn, has endorsed Fetterman and appeared at events with him. But if Fetterman is taking his economic advice from the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, where is he getting counsel on dealing with violent crime? Sadly for Pennsylvania voters, Fetterman seems to be taking his lead from the City of Brotherly Love’s Larry Krasner, district attorney of Philadelphia.
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Housing shortages and rising rents are a national problem, and the process for building more housing, especially affordable housing, is only one of many barriers.
In Pennsylvania, rents have increased mainly in the southeast and central parts of the state. As The Center Square previously reported, a report from pro-housing group Up for Growth estimated Pennsylvania has underproduced 98,000 units of housing. Statewide, rents increased by 14% from 2020 to 2021.
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The critical midterm election is in less than 70 days, but it can’t come soon enough for Keystone State families being crushed under the weight of failed Democrat policies. Reckless spending by Democrats in Washington has driven us into a recession and burdensome policies by Tom Wolf, John Fetterman, and Josh Shapiro have left Pennsylvania with high unemployment and shuttered small businesses. As State Treasurer, I know the importance of fiscal responsibility. I oversee an office of more than 300 employees and am tasked with protecting more than $150 billion in state assets. As a Pennsylvanian living in Joe Biden’s economy, I know firsthand the consequences of reckless spending and see the painful impact on every town in the commonwealth.
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State Senator Michele Brooks (R-PA-Greenville) is encouraging colleagues to back two upcoming bills she proposes to allay shortages of first responders in Pennsylvania.
The first piece of legislation concerns insufficiencies among volunteer-firefighter companies. In a memorandum to fellow senators asking them to cosponsor her bills, the senator noted that certain professionals including corrections officers undergo rudimentary training in fire suppression. Nonetheless, that instruction does not yet count toward the over 200 training hours that aspiring volunteer firefighters must acquire in order to qualify. Brooks’s bill would make workers’ basic-firefighting lessons applicable to those seeking to join local fire departments.
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A major newspaper in Pennsylvania questioned Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s ability to serve in the Senate in a Tuesday editorial after he declined another debate with Dr. Mehmet Oz.
“Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. and U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman has not fully recovered from the serious stroke he suffered in May,” the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said. “His campaign has acknowledged his obvious struggles with ‘auditory processing’ and speech, but the persistence of those struggles has contrasted with the campaign’s rosier predictions of a return to the rigors of campaigning, including debating his opponent, Mehmet Oz.”
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Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz said on Tuesday that he would have certified President Joe Biden’s electoral victory in 2020 had he been in office at the time.
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Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania released its Fall 2022 COVID-19 vaccination protocol, stating that returning students must be fully vaccinated prior to arriving on campus.
“Students are required to be fully vaccinated prior to arriving to campus, unless approved with an exemption,” the Susquehanna University Plan for Fall 2022 reads.
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As Pennsylvania higher education institutions face a shortage of students, their former students will disproportionately benefit from student loan forgiveness.
A research brief from the Independent Fiscal Office estimates that almost 2 million Pennsylvania borrowers hold $69 billion student loan debt, and $21 billion would be forgiven. Another $1.8 billion would be forgiven through the expansion of the income-driven repayment program.
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Advocates say a bipartisan effort to seal criminal records for low-level felonies would give more people second chances and boost the Pennsylvania economy.
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday to discuss House Bill 1826, which would expand the Clean Slate Act by automatically sealing some low-level felonies.
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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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A new report questions the narrative of a “teacher shortage” in Pennsylvania, pointing out significant declines in student enrollments even as public school employment has risen.
“Since 2000, Pennsylvania public school enrollment has dropped 6.6% (120,000 fewer students); but public schools have added 20,000 more employees (8.7% growth), including nearly 40% growth among administrators,” the Commonwealth Foundation noted in its Back to School Education Trends report.
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The Republican National Committee announced Friday that it is leading a lawsuit against Pennsylvania over ballot curing in the 2022 elections.
The other plaintiffs are the National Republican Senatorial Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, Pennsylvania GOP and several state voters.
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Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz’s campaign on Thursday excoriated his opponent, Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, for bringing on two convicted murderers as campaign staffers.
The celebrity surgeon and the National Republican Senate Committee cited Federal Election Commission filings indicating the lieutenant governor’s campaign employs Lee and Dennis Horton, who were both convicted of second-degree murder in 1993, having been found to have aided Robert Leaf in a theft-related killing of a man before fleeing the scene.
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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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Pennsylvania Democrat Senate nominee John Fetterman says he won’t debate GOP nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz citing his stroke recovery and calling the planned event a “farce.”
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Pennsylvania authorities contentiously combined voter registration and mail-in ballot applications into one document this month, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the latest in a series of disputed election-related policies.
The state’s Department of State issued an updated form Aug. 19 allowing citizens to register to vote and request a mail-in ballot, which had previously required multiple forms, The Federalist reported. Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary for Elections and Commissions Jonathan Marks said this was intended “to simplify the process,” but many county elections officials argued the change occurred without warning and demonstrated a continuing lack of respect for them, according to the Inquirer.
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Two state legislators with districts just northeast of violence-plagued Philadelphia announced this week they plan to introduce legislation mandating prison time for anyone convicted of keeping a firearm illegally in the Keystone State.
Representatives Frank Farry (R-Langhorne) and Kathleen “K.C.” Tomlinson (R-Bensalem) propose sentences of under two years for a first breach of gun-possession restrictions. Recidivists, however, would incur longer terms.
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According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, 37.3 percent of students in grades 3 through 11 met the grade-level “proficient” standard for mathematics in statewide testing for the 2022 school year. Only 55 percent measured up in literature/language arts and 63.7 in science.
To put these results in perspective, just two years earlier, 45.4 percent performed at grade level in math, while 62.4 met the standard in literature and 66.4 did so in science.
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Pennsylvania has some of the highest rates of drug overdoses in the nation, and a program to distribute anti-overdose medication has hit a new milestone.
The Wolf administration announced that its mail-based naloxone program has filled 10,000 requests for naloxone, which helps reverse overdoses.
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Gov. Tom Wolf recently announced $80,058 in funding for Advance Central PA through the Pennsylvania Manufacturing PA Training-to-Career Program (MTTC).
The funds will be used to create five professional videos for students interested in enter a manufacturing career, a press release from the governor’s office said. The films are to create awareness for students about Career and Technology Education (CTE) programs. They will help students prepare, as well as educate guidance counselors and educators about how to show the ways CTE prepares students.
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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.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is sending $740,000 to Pennsylvania for “critical infrastructure to combat climate change” – but most of the money will go toward repaving parking lots.
The USDA Rural Development program provides taxpayer money for all sorts of programs, from infrastructure to health care to environmental and economic concerns in the rural parts of America. In fiscal year 2022, it provided almost $1.5 billion for local projects.
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The effect of inflation on Pennsylvania’s agricultural sector has been to exacerbate already-existing problems, driving up costs and squeezing business owners.
Since March, the monthly consumer price index in Pennsylvania has averaged 8.4%. Large amounts of federal spending, along with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have meant rising prices from raw materials to food and consumer goods.
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In the Pennsylvania economy today, employers struggle with finding enough workers, rising prices, and enough affordable housing for their workers.
Rising prices, employee and supply shortages, wage surcharges, and “escalating energy prices” puts “a strain on our survival,” said David Crouse, owner of 3C’s family restaurant in the Pottsville area.
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Pennsylvania’s House Republican Policy Committee on Thursday heard testimony from several small-business executives Thursday suggesting that unemployment compensation (UC) taxes among other issues pose major impediments to economic growth in the Keystone State.
As The Pennsylvania Daily Star reported this week, Pennsylvania has lagged behind other states in terms of making up economic ground lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. In July 2022, about 6.17 million Pennsylvanians held jobs, a 2.8-percent rise over the same month one year prior. National employment meanwhile increased 3.7 percent during that time.
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A national trend of criticism aimed at district attorneys in major cities has sparked a feud in Philadelphia between the DA and state Republicans.
In August, a House committee investigating Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner issued a subpoena to his office. Krasner told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he will not comply and called the investigation “illegal” and “anti-democratic.”
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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.
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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.
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A grant program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will send $20 million to Pennsylvania to restore streams in central Pennsylvania and preserve farmland.
The funding is part of a $200 million initiative, the Regional Conservation Partnership Program, “to address on-farm, watershed, and regional natural resource concerns.” The RCPP was created by the 2014 Farm Bill and has sent out almost 600 awards.
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Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court on Friday ordered three counties that declined to count undated absentee ballots to count them.
Republican Commonwealth Court President Judge Renee Cohn Jubelirer issued the ruling affecting Berks, Fayette and Lancaster counties. Last month, Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman (D) sued the three jurisdictions to compel them to include votes delivered in undated envelopes in their May 17 primary results.
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Pennsylvania’s latest budget deal increased spending, and a good chunk favored private businesses, according to critics.
A new analysis from the Commonwealth Foundation says the budget carried $1.3 billion in corporate welfare spending.
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In an audit for the Central Bucks Regional Police Pension Plan, the auditor general criticized officials for inconsistent and authorized pension benefits. Pension plans are governed by Act 205 and Act 600 in state law, which sets regulations and guidelines on allowable pension benefits.
However, the latest collective bargaining agreement between police officers and the regional police commission “granted a length of service increment in excess of the plan’s governing document,” the report noted.
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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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Former President Donald Trump will hold a rally on Saturday, Sept. 3, in Pennsylvania to support the campaigns of Doug Mastriano for governor and Dr. Mehmet Oz for Senate.
The rally will take place in Wilkes-Barre and Trump will deliver his remarks at 7:00 p.m.
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The Cook Political Report this week changed its description of the Pennsylvania Senate race from “toss up” to “lean Democrat,” signaling trouble for Republican candidate Mehmet Oz, even as Democrat John Fetterman struggles with his return to the campaign trail.
Cook’s shifting outlook on the Senate contest is partly a response to figures on the FiveThirtyEight data-analysis website showing that Oz, a celebrity doctor, trails Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, by an average of 11.5 percentage points.
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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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Pennsylvania has a new law that bans “scholarship displacement,” a practice where universities reduce financial aid to students when they receive an outside scholarship.
University officials said they already do not displace outside scholarships unless required to do so by law. However, critics do not believe them.
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State Rep. Chris Quinn (R-PA-Media) this week testified before legislative colleagues in favor of his bill to open Pennsylvania primaries to voters who choose not to affiliate with a political party.
About 1.2 million voters in Pennsylvania decline to register as members of either major party and over 740,000 consider themselves nonpartisan or independent. Quinn said he finds it troubling that current law requires many taxpayers to fund GOP and Democratic primaries while excluding those independents from participation in nominating elections.
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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.
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Philadelphia City Councilman Allan Domb (D-At Large) announced this week he will leave his seat Tuesday as he considers a potential 2023 mayoral campaign.
The luxury real-estate executive submitted his letter of resignation to Council President Darrell Clarke (D-5) on Monday. Therein, he celebrated what he considered his successes while on the city’s legislative board, including wage and corporate tax reduction, fiscal waste mitigation and increased public-education funding. Yet, he lamented, the City of Brotherly Love has further strides to make particularly concerning public safety.
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State Rep. Karen Boback (R-PA-Dallas) on Friday proposed legislation to equip Pennsylvania K-12 public schools with emergency response devices.
The representative modeled her bill on “Alyssa’s Law,” named after Alyssa Alhadeff, a 14-year-old Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student who was killed in the mass shooting that occurred on February 14, 2018. Alyssa’s Law, which Florida, New York, New Jersey and Nebraska have already enacted, requires all elementary and secondary schools to install panic alarms which are connected to area law-enforcement agencies.
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Delaware’s trio in Congress want answers about service delays within the U.S. Postal Service.
The letter asks what action plan and solutions have been enacted pertaining to continual service delays and disruptions with mail in the region. It asks for answers by Tuesday.
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