Capital Watch August 2013

CA P I TA LWAT C H PA . c o m

CAPITALWATCH 5TH YEAR

ANNIVERSA

VOL. 6 NO. 8

RY

INSIDE Former Florida lieutenant governor to lead PA university system PAGE 3 Speaker Smith to split bills to shrink chambers PAGE 7 Attorney General Kane announces staff moves PAGE 8 Report shows Pennsylvanians among those who will benefit the most from Obamacare PAGE 9 Op Ed: The time for school tax reform is now PAGE 10 Op Ed: The time to act is now on a transportation funding plan for PA PAGE 13 Debate: Should PA repeal its “stand your ground” law?

PAGE 14

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AUGUST 2013

Gov. Corbett, Attorney General Kane

spar over same-sex marriage HE SAID:

SHE SAID:

Gov. Corbett, maintains that Kane should enforce the law.

A spokesman for Kane responded that she made a

“Individual elected officials cannot pick and choose which

“legal decision” consistent with her oath to defend the U.S.

laws to enforce,” a spokeswoman for the governor said.

and state constitutions.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health filed suit in Commonwealth Court July 30 to stop D. Bruce Hanes, who oversees the granting of marriage licenses in Montgomery County, from doing so.

Hanes has gone on record as saying he wanted to come down “on the right side of history and the law.”

Since July 24, Hanes, the register of wills in Montgomery County, has issued nearly 60 marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Hanes, a Democrat, said he started issuing the licenses after consulting with county officials about how to respond to a request from a couple.

Hanes said the recent Windsor decision, the state constitution and Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s position were considered.

“We came to the conclusion that this can be done and should be done,” he said.

The Windsor case concerned two New York residents, Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, who were married in Canada in 2007.

After Spyer died in 2009, Windsor tried to claim a federal estate-tax exemption for surviving spouses, but she was barred from doing so by the federal Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that banned the U.S. government from recognizing same-sex marriages. Windsor sued, and the case wound its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down a key part of the law in June.

Gov. Tom Corbett says samesex marriage remains illegal in Pennsylvania.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane says the state’s law banning samesex marriage is unconstitutional.

Writing for the court’s fivejustice majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said Congress had no right to undermine a state’s decision to give same-sex couples “the recognition, dignity and protection” of marriage. The opinion said little about state laws banning same-sex marriage.

Still, the ruling contained some sweeping language, including that DOMA’s “principal purpose is to impose inequality.”

In a dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia predicted that such language would soon show up in lawsuits challenging state laws.

Last week, the Corbett administration’s Department of Health filed a lawsuit in state court in

Harrisburg asking the court to require Hanes to cease and desist.

The suit cites a 1996 amendment to the state’s marriage law that bars same-sex marriages and says that such marriages entered into legally in another state or country are void in Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit argues that samesex couples who now falsely believe they are married in the state will apply for benefits that are reserved for people legally married. There is “no limit” to the “administrative and legal chaos” likely to flow from issuing the licenses, the lawsuit argues.

A May poll by Franklin & Marshall found that 53 percent of Pennsylvania voters favored

amending the state constitution to allow gay couples to marry.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Kane has fired back at Gov. Tom Corbett over the defense of Pennsylvania’s law that effectively bans same-sex marriage and said it isn’t the governor’s job to tell the attorney general what the office’s duties and obligations are.

According to an AP report, the dispatch was the latest biting exchange between Kane, a newly elected Democrat, and Corbett, the Republican former attorney general whom she heavily criticized during her campaign.

AP reports that in a letter sent July 30, Kane’s chief of staff, Adrian King, called Pennsylvania’s marriage law “one of the last discriminatory statutes” in Pennsylvania and predicted it will be struck down by the courts.

“Just as discriminatory laws based on race, religion, gender, disability and ethnic origin have been struck down by the courts one by one, so too will the marriage law,” King wrote to Corbett’s lawyer James Schultz. “In short, this is a watershed moment.”

Two days after Pennsylvania’s marriage law was challenged in federal court, Kane, who supports same-sex marriage, said she believed it to be unconstitutional and could not ethically defend it. The statement drew applause from Democrats and proponents of same-sex marriage, but Corcontinued on page 4

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NEWS 3

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

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EDITORIAL Editor-in-chief Jacqueline G. Goodwin, Ed.D. goodwinpin@comcast.net (717) 418-3366 Contributing Writers Chris Comisac Peter L. DeCoursey Kevin Zwick News Service Capitolwire Graphic Design Lisette Magaro Production Shawn Skvarna Cartoonist Billy Twist Capital Watch is published every month.

Reproduction of this publication in whole or part is prohibited except with the written permission of the publisher. Capital Watch is non ideological and nonpartisan.

Tomalis works from home says Education Department spokesman According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Corbett administration has finally specified the location where Ron Tomalis, former state education secretary, works as the governor’s special advisor on higher education issues: at his home.

Education Department spokesman Tim Eller confirmed in an e-mail on July 31 to the Post-Gazette that Tomalis “works remotely and comes to the Capitol as needed.” The former secretary himself was unavailable for comment but reportedly is a finalist in the search for a new chancellor for the State System of Higher Education, which oversees Pennsylvania’s 14 stateowned universities.

On May 31, Tomalis relinquished the secretary’s job for the newly created advisory post, which pays Tomalis the same $139,931 salary he made as education secretary.

Barry Kauffman of Common Cause Pennsylvania said if Tomalis wants to work

from home and his supervisor -- in this case, the governor -- is okay with it, that’s fine. But his home then becomes his place of work, and taxpayers have a right to know without delay where state business is being conducted.

Kauffman told the Post-Gazette: “If he was an undercover investigator who the Mafia was looking for, that’s a little different, but this is a public office dealing with and creating public policy. It’s sort of a no-brainer.”

In May, the Corbett administration said Tomalis was charged with implementing and reviewing recommendations made by the Governor’s Postsecondary Advisory Commission. During a meeting with reporters on July 31, the paper reported that Gov. Corbett declined to comment on the chancellor search and said in discussing Tomalis’ responsibilities that “I bring him in and talk to him about education, occasionally.” CW

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Brogan has been the head administrator overseeing Florida’s public universities since 2009. Before that, he was president of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He also served as lieutenant governor under former Gov. Jeb Bush and as Florida’s commissioner of education.

The systems board of governors voted unanimously to hire Brogan during a special meeting Aug. 7, according to a Pennsylvania system spokesman.

In his new role overseeing Pennsylvania’s 14 public universities, Brogan will earn an annual salary of $327,500. He currently makes $357,000 a year.

The position is the highest-paid job in state government. The previous chancellor, John Cavanaugh, was earning $327,500 when he stepped down in February.

Peter Garland, a former executive vice chancellor of the Pennsylvania system, has served as acting chancellor since Cavanaugh resigned after five years to head the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that Brogan’s selection came after a secretive search process.

An AP report stated, “The system’s board of governors, most of whom are appointed by the governor, voted unanimously in January to keep the search process secret for the first time in the system’s 31 years. Such secrecy is increasingly sought by higher-education executives out fear of reprisal if their current employers discover they were job hunting.”

4

NEWS

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

House Democratic Policy Committee hears from health care professionals on Medicaid expansion The House Democratic Policy Committee heard from health care experts and advocates at a public hearing in Philadelphia Aug. 1 to learn about the predicted outcomes on Pennsylvanians’ health if Gov. Tom Corbett decides to opt into expanding Medicaid in the Commonwealth.

State Rep. Maria Donatucci, D-Phila./ Delaware, requested the hearing and served as chairwoman. The committee heard and collected testimony regarding the ways Medicaid expansion, which was a key component of 2010’s federal Affordable Care Act, would impact health care for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians as well as affect the state budget. Under the proposed

expansion, the federal government would pay 100 percent of funding needed in the first three years of implementation, and no less than 90 percent after 2017.

“Reports from several independent studies have indicated the tremendous benefits Pennsylvania would realize by opting into Medicaid expansion -- not only in the improved health of our residents but also to our state’s bottom line,” Donatucci said. “So far the governor has a poor track record on health care, but he can still make the right choice on deciding to join our neighboring states and expand Medicaid.”

“While there is no set expiration date for the Commonwealth to opt in to Medicaid

expansion, the governor’s reluctance to do so continues to hurt the health of our residents, threaten our rural hospitals and weaken our state’s social safety net,” said Policy Committee Chairman Mike Sturla, D-Lancaster. “Representative Donatucci and others on the Policy Committee have done a tremendous job of educating their constituents and community groups on what an expansion would do for them, and we continue to see a groundswell of support for Medicaid expansion. As a result, we’ll continue to call on the governor to make the choice that is right for Pennsylvania.”

Those testifying at the hearing included: Brian Eury, regional director,

Delaware Valley Healthcare Council of HAP; Jim Willshier, director of policy and partnership, Pennsylvania Association of Community Health Centers; Natalie Levkovich, chief executive officer, The Health Federation of Philadelphia; Antoinette Kraus, director, Pennsylvania Health Access Network; Pretrina Sharpe, home care worker, United Home Care Workers of PA; Morgan Lindsey, organizing director and vice president, SEIU Healthcare PA; Linda Anthony, policy director, Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania; and Latonya Simmons, parent member of Early Head Start Policy Council, Maternity Care Coalition. CW

Gov. Corbett, Attorney General Kane spar over same-sex marriage bett, the Republican Party and other opponents of same-sex marriage criticized her as shirking her duty to defend state laws.

Pennsylvania is the only northeastern state that doesn’t allow same-sex marriage or civil unions. A 1996 state law defines marriage as a civil contract in which a man and a woman take each other as husband and wife.

Gov. Corbett, maintains that Kane should enforce the law. “Individual elected officials cannot pick and choose which laws to enforce,” a spokeswoman for the governor said. A spokesman for Kane responded that she made a “legal decision” consistent with her oath to defend the U.S. and state constitutions.

Corbett’s office said it would defend the law and in a letter to King, Schultz wrote

that the law leaves Kane no choice but to defend the ban.

According to AP, Schultz wrote: “Nothing excuses the attorney general from undertaking her legal duty to defend the statute challenged by the lawsuit. Her personal opinion that the law is unconstitutional is not valid basis for her refusal to do her job.”

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The AP says that “King responded that Schultz ‘conveniently’ ignored Kane’s reasons for refusing to defend the suit — her obligation to uphold the constitution and follow rules of professional conduct — and then tells Schultz to mind his own business.

“It is not your job to tell the Office of Attorney General ... what its duties and obligations are,” King wrote. CW

Education advocates allege discrimination in disciplinary The Education Law Center has filed a complaint with the Justice Department, alleging widespread discrimination in alternative disciplinary programs in Pennsylvania. The center wants the state education department ordered to do a better job of monitoring the programs.

The Education Law Center found that although 16-percent of Pennsylvania students are identified as having disabilities, more than 44-percent of the students in alternative schools have disabilities. And while 15-percent of the state’s students are African-American, they make up more than a third of alternative placements.

Attorney David Lapp says though individual districts refer students, insuring that they do so fairly is the state’s duty.

“The department of education approves theses alternative disciplinary placements and when it does that, it takes on a responsibility to insure students are not being discriminated against.”

The state says it will comment after it has a chance to review the complaint. CW

Manufacturing Here Is On Its Way Back.

Long ago, our local rivers and natural resources helped industry take root here. Soon manufacturing became part of our very being. It made our nation strong and our workers proud.

Now a new wave of manufacturing is rejuvenating the region. That’s because the natural gas we drill for in Southwestern Pennsylvania is an important raw material used in the making of steel, paints, fertilizers, plastics, medicine, and more.

Drilling is just the beginning.

6 NEWS

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Gov. Bill Scranton kept his wing of the GOP still vibrant for nearly 50 years

BY PETER L. DECOURSEY, CAPITOLWIRE

Former Gov. Bill Scranton, the last surviving star moderate Pennsylvania Republican, and archbishop of the old business establishment of the state, died July 28.

And the journey of his beloved GOP is perhaps told best by the two Pennsylvania Republicans who came closest to being their party’s nominees in the last century: Bill Scranton and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Allegheny.

Scranton ran for president in 1964 to try to keep the liberal, eastern, internationalist party of President Dwight Eisenhower alive. And to stand against then Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., who was fighting against the Civil Rights Act and health and anti-poverty programs Scranton vigorously supported. Scranton finished second, the best showing by a Pennsylvania Republican for president in that century.

But in running, he demonstrated how loose the grip of the eastern patrician establishment, the “White Shoe GOP,” had become. The GOP movement that began with nominating Goldwater was the same movement that eventually elected Ronald Reagan to the presidency and bent former moderates like George H.W. Bush into much more conservative policies.

Forty-eight years later, Santorum ran for president for the same reasons, really: to prevent what he thought was a party losing touch with its roots, principles and purposes.

Both were essentially unable to clear the field of those who shared their base: Nelson Rockefeller of New York, damaged by a divorce, could not stop acting like a candidate and draining support from Scranton until it was too late. And with the white-shoe establishment never backing one candidate as they did in 1952, with Dwight Eisenhower versus Sen. Robert Taft, R-Michigan, Goldwater won.

Because he was the clear favorite of the growing right wing of the party.

Last year, Santorum never got a clear run against Mitt Romney, whom he and others painted as a relative moderate. Santorum never got him one-on-one because he kept sharing his base of very conservative Republican primary voters with Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul, among others. That left Romney with a plurality of the vote, but rarely a majority of it, in state after state.

Both Scranton and Santorum, as Pennsylvanians, never acquired the stature of a Romney or Goldwater or Rockefeller.

And both hailed their battle as a fight over the soul and direction of their party.

As one of his oldest and closest allies, former Republican National Committeewoman Elsie Hillman recalled: “In 1964, Bill Scranton ran for the Republican nomination for President to show that the Republican Party was open to everyone and that we should not judge people by the color of their skin.

Gov. Bill Scranton

“My brother from Texas, sister from Rhode Island, and I all ran and served as delegates for Bill Scranton because we shared his vision and believed in his leadership. He worked hard to follow his convictions and lead our country in a more tolerant and compassionate manner.

Unfortunately, the ugliness and meanness of that convention led Bill Scranton out of elected politics, but not out of public service.”

Nor, Hillman recalled, was that the first time Scranton’s inclusive vision of the GOP made itself clear.

“I remember his insistence when campaigning for Governor in 1962 to go

erty for young people. He also opened up Pennsylvania markets worldwide leading to a period of great prosperity for our state.

Many who serve as governor today are still measured against Bill Scranton’s leadership -- some fifty years later.”

He was an ardent defender of the establishment, and so winning and smooth in his manners that he was sent to the United Nations as ambassador as the oil to smooth over the waters roiled by the combative later-Sen. Pat Moynihan.

Like Santorum, he had the confidence to speak in absolutes, a confidence natural to someone who rose to high office by his 40s. Unlike Santorum, who has the direct

“I remember his insistence when campaigning for Governor in 1962 to go door-to-door as a Republican in African American neighborhoods like the Hill District in Pittsburgh.” door-to-door as a Republican in African American neighborhoods like the Hill District in Pittsburgh.”

And Scranton, who from 1963 to 1966 oversaw as good an economy as any Pennsylvania governor, was a big spender comparable to Gov. Ed Rendell, not a budget-cutter and anti-tax crusader like Govs. Tom Ridge, Dick Thornburgh and Tom Corbett, his GOP successors.

Hillman said: “As Governor, Bill Scranton did more to advance our state in four short years than many have accomplished in eight. He created the community colleges, known as the Pennsylvania System of Higher Education, focused on his belief that access to affordable higher education was the best pathway out of pov-

and outgoing charm of a proselytizing pastor in your fantasy football league, Scranton was a patrician to whom people naturally cottoned. He and Sen. John Heinz were as close to a JFK as Pennsylvania ever produced.

And with Scranton, that willingness to speak his mind and push for his causes never faded.

As late as 2003, when Scranton was over 85 years old, he went to the Pennsylvania Society weekend in New York, to stand up for his wing of the party one more time. Rising at an event paid for by U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, then facing a desperate primary fight from now-Sen. Pat Toomey, Scranton rose to help his fellow Yalie, Specter, against

Harvard’s Toomey. Scranton croaked, like a figure from Hawthorne or Poe, to a roomful of rich Republicans and businessmen: “If you don’t elect this man, you should be shot!”

He was the preppy, charmer, JFK side of a politician absolutely convinced his side was right. Santorum is equally convinced, but is more of a mentally stable Newt Gingrich type.

The intensity Scranton brought to that comment to the businessmen in 2003 led to the last big moderate Republican victory in this state in 2004, when Specter, backed

by Santorum and President Bush, fascinatingly, barely got past then-U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Lehigh.

That is what people tend to forget when they sum up Scranton as losing in 1964 to Goldwater. That he and his peers and colleagues in the moderate GOP – Sens. Hugh Scott, John Heinz and Dick Schweiker – created a template for having the GOP tolerate more liberal Republicans, and for longer, than the rest of the national GOP did.

People forget that 14 years after Scranton lost the presidential GOP nomination to Goldwater, Dick Thornburgh, a fiscal conservative, beat Pete Flaherty for the governorship partly by doing better than any Republican among black Philadelphians.

They forget that Tom Ridge, who admired Bill Scranton as a man and a politician, won in part in 1994 by appearing moderate on the issues of abortion, and, as a congressman, opposing big weapons systems and voting for an assault weapons ban.

They forget that the Scranton/Heinz/ Specter template was so ingrained by 2004 that Bush and Santorum thought it was just the way the GOP worked in Pennsylvania, so both of them defended Specter because of the way Hillman and Scranton had taught them to think about Pennsylvania Republicanism.

So yes the Santorum/Goldwater/Toomey team appears way ahead in the 50-year battle Scranton and his allies waged for their party.

But when you see Toomey seeking moderate credentials to burnish his 2016 re-election, you see him making a small blow to the folks whose image of the Pennsylvania GOP is still Scranton, Heinz and Specter.

That group hasn’t been the nominating wing of the state GOP for a long time. But they still swing fall elections in Pennsylvania and most of the presidential swing states.

So Scranton’s war in 1964 went poorly.

But he and the moderate GOP establishment he did so much to empower and nurture for so long, and the liberal goals he cherished his whole life, are still the swing state voters who determine elections.CW

NEWS 7

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Former Pennsylvania Governor dies July 28 William Scranton, Pennsylvania’s governor from 1963 to 1967, died Sunday at the age of 96.

Gov. Tom Corbett remembered Scranton as a “world-class leader in government.”

“He will be remembered as a man of humility, honesty, dignity and integrity,” Corbett said in a prepared statement.

“Descending from a distinguished family with a long history of public service, Scranton made his mark as a congressman, governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.”

Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., called Scranton “an extraordinary public servant.”

“As a congressman and as governor, he prioritized education, economic development and job creation,” Casey said in a prepared statement. “When he left office after four years as governor, Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was one of the lowest ever.”

He attended Yale Law School from 1939 to 1941, dropping out in advance of World War II, enlisting in the United States Army Air Corps and serving as an Air Transport Command pilot during the war.

Following the war, he resumed his studies at Yale Law School. He graduated in 1946, and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar

Speaker Smith to split bills to shrink chambers A renewed effort to shrink the size of the Legislature will be pushed by House Republicans this fall, according to a memo sent to House members.

House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, said he is planning to run House Bill 1234 to reduce the number of seats in the House from 203 to 153, and a separate bill to trim down Senate seats from 50 to 38. A single bill containing both reductions didn’t move in the Senate by the end of the 2010-12 session.

Drew Crompton, chief of staff for Senate President Pro Tem Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said there’s some interest among Senate Republicans in reducing the size of the Legislature.

“However, if one does a state by state analysis of the compliments of all 50 state Senates, the size of the Pennsylvania Senate is in line with many other states, especially given the geographical size and population of our Commonwealth,” Crompton.

The change would require a constitutional amendment, which means debate and passage in the House and Senate in two consecutive sessions, and subsequent approval by a referendum vote of the people of Pennsylvania. CW

in August of that year.

Scranton practiced law and then entered the business community after the war becoming successful in several firms in northeastern Pennsylvania. He became active in Republican Party politics in the 1950s and came to the attention of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1959, Eisenhower appointed Scranton as a special assistant to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and later Christian

Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1961 to 1963.

Though a freshman Republican, he quickly gained a reputation as an outspoken centrist and supported much of President John F. Kennedy’s social agenda including civil rights and the Peace Corps. The media quickly dubbed him a “Kennedy Republican.”

In 1962, the Republican party in Pennsylvania, which had lost the two

the mayor of Philadelphia. The ticket added Raymond Shafer, who would succeed him as governor, as his running mate. After one of the most acrimonious campaigns in state history, the Scranton/Shafer team won a huge victory in the election besting their opponents by nearly half a million votes out of just over 6.6 million cast.

As Governor, he signed into law sweeping reforms in the state’s education system including creation of the state community

“Descending from a distinguished family with a long history of public service, Scranton made his mark as a congressman, governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.”

Herter. Scranton served a little over a year before resigning to run for Congress.

Scranton’s name recognition and family connections helped him win a 17,000 vote victory over incumbent Stanley Prokop in a largely Democratic district in 1960.

Scranton represented Pennsylvania’s 10th

previous gubernatorial elections and seen the state’s electoral votes go to Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, became convinced that a moderate like Scranton would have enough bipartisan appeal to revitalize the party. He ran for Governor of Pennsylvania against Richardson Dilworth,

college system, the state board of education, and the state Higher Education Assistance Agency. Furthermore, he created a program designed to promote the state in national and international markets and to increase the attractiveness of the state’s products and services. CW

8 NEWS

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Attorney General Kane announces staff moves Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane announced today some key additions to her leadership team. Joseph C. Peters will serve as Senior Executive Deputy Attorney General in Charge of Communications, while Grayling G. Williams will head up the OAG’s newly-formed Office of Professional Responsibility, formerly Internal Affairs.

“I am thrilled to be able to hire people of this caliber to these important positions,” said Kane. “Both are eminently qualified and have achieved national reputations. Most importantly, they share my passion for helping to protect the people of Pennsylvania.”

Peters has an impressive record in law enforcement. He was a street cop in Scranton, after which he worked his way through law school. He then worked for the Office of Attorney General for 16 years.

At the OAG, he headed up the Bureau of Narcotics Investigation and later served as the Executive Deputy Attorney General of what was then known as the Drug and Organized Crime Division.

Peters was then designated as a Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General as an Organized Crime and Racketeering Prosecutor. In that role, Peters was on the prosecution team that convicted Philadelphia Mob Boss Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, his underboss and 15 of his

mafia associates.

Peters went on to work in the White House for four years under two presidentsBill Clinton and George W. Bush-fighting terrorism and drugs. He currently is a life member of the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association (PCPA), and a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). Peters serves on the IACP’s prestigious Committee on Terrorism.

and Outreach unit, which informs, educates and protects Pennsylvanians before they can be victimized.

Grayling G. Williams will head up Attorney General Kane’s newly established Office of Professional Responsibility. The OPR will be tasked with ensuring that all OAG personnel -- attorneys, agents and support staff -- maintain the highest levels of professional conduct and integrity.

“Both are eminently qualified and have achieved national reputations. Most importantly, they share my passion for helping to protect the people of Pennsylvania.”

Peters is a recognized expert on global terrorism and counterterrorism. He has appeared on FOX News Channel, British and Italian television, and local television stations in New York City and Pennsylvania as an expert commentator on terrorism, drug trafficking and organized crime.

As Communications Director, Peters will be responsible for all aspects of the OAG’s communications efforts. That will include the Press Office and the OAG’s Education

Williams has a long record of distinguished service in law enforcement. He spent six years as a police officer at Yale University. For the following 22 years, Williams was a Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, serving on the DEA?s executive team.

Williams worked undercover many times and conducted numerous electronic surveillance investigations. He served as an Instructor at the DEA’s Academy

in Quantico, VA, teaching Undercover Operations, Informant Management, and Surveillance Techniques. He has also conducted training in Argentina, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the Caribbean.

Williams later served for two years as a Presidential Appointee (appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2009) to the Department of Homeland Security as Counternarcotics Advisor to Secretary Janet Napolitano.

He represented the DHS Counterdrug Enterprise, working on investigative and interdiction national strategy, and on various executive level working groups at the White House, in Mexico, and at the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany.

Most recently, Williams served as the Chief of Internal Affairs for the Baltimore City Police Department.

He is a member of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE). He served on NOBLE’s National Executive Board as the Federal Advisor to the National President, and also served as the president of NOBLE’s Washington, DC chapter. Williams is also a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). CW

Doses of spin served daily outside the Voter ID courtroom

BY KEVIN ZWICK, CAPITOLWIRE

As the Voter ID trial chugged along, it’s worth noting a daily occurrence in the hall just outside the courtroom where a judge will decide the law’s fate.

Evidence is being submitted. Not for the court of law, but for the court of public opinion.

After each day of court session, reporters are greeted with “perspective,” also known as spin, from the governor’s Office of General Counsel, as well as from the lawyers challenging the state’s Voter ID law.

lone podium sat outside the Pennsylvania Judicial Center, against the backdrop of a plaque reading “Equal Justice Under Law,” the same words that grace the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington.

TV news crews, barred from the courtroom due to rules prohibiting photography, await the parade of lawyers leaving the building to get a brief statement on complex court proceedings.

And during mid-day breaks, OGC spokesman Nils Frederiksen has eagerly

in the legal goings-on, to get some reaction from the Corbett administration while the ACLU and other challengers present their side of the case. It’s how this high profile and highly politicized lawsuit works.

The lawyers challenging the law do the same.

After hours-long grilling of former Department of State policy director Rebecca Oyler, a lawyer for the challengers, Michael Rubin, walked out of the courtroom and gaggled with reporters, giv-

Distilling the day’s hours of monotonous testimony into a sexy sound bite really has no bearing on what goes on in the courtroom or how Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley decides the case.

Distilling the day’s hours of monotonous testimony into a sexy sound bite really has no bearing on what goes on in the courtroom or how Commonwealth Court Judge Bernard McGinley decides the case.

But it shows how much both sides are concerned with not only how the judge views their case, but also how the public does. And the court obliges.

At the end of the first session day, a

approached reporters conducting gavelto-gavel coverage of the trial to see if “you need anything,” and at the end of the day’s proceedings, he likes to put things “in perspective” for the press, even sometimes asking to hold discussions on-background to do so.

That’s not to say it isn’t helpful having on-hand Frederiksen, a veteran of the attorney general’s press office who’s versed

ing more direct, sound-bite friendly quotes than what played out in the courtroom.

Granted, they are attempting to translate hours of complex legal strategy into nonlegalese, and for radio and TV reporters, sound is essential.

But sometimes, the reason seems more direct. During cross examination of voters who testify to the burdens of obtaining proper ID required to vote under the

law, state lawyers have eventually asked those witnesses if any of the various voting rights groups challenging the law offered to take them to PennDOT to get an ID. They haven’t, and the challengers say they can’t take the hundreds of thousands of voters one by one to PennDOT. Then it was recently suggested to reporters outside the courtroom to focus on why the groups haven’t done so.

And on top of that, there are groups outside the court proceedings like the AFLCIO who just released more numbers to add to the already complex and sometimes confusing back and forth over how many voters might have been disenfranchised.

In the union’s case, they say the state’s confusing ads led to tens of thousands being disenfranchised, when the state had to backtrack its ad campaign after the court temporarily suspended the law last fall.

It’s doubtful news reports criticizing The League of Women Voters or other groups for driving voters to the courthouse instead of to get an ID at PennDOT, or the AFL-CIO’s numbers, will matter much to McGinley, who will eventually review thousands of documents, data sets and testimony.

But it could be damning evidence in the court of public opinion. CW

NEWS 9

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Report shows Pennsylvanians among those who will benefit the most from Obamacare As the U.S. House of Representatives continues to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act (the 40th time to date), a new report by the Center for American Progress Action Fund finds that many of the regions in the United States — including Pennsylvania — need the protections and coverage provided by Obamacare but are represented by members who are working to dismantle the legislation.

“Too many politicians are putting more energy into political stunts than helping their constituents take advantage of benefits from the Affordable Care Act. Sadly, our new report demonstrates that many of the counties that stand to benefit the most from the new healthcare law are represented by Obamacare opponents who refuse to help families and businesses in their communities benefit from these reforms,” said Tom Perriello, President of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. “Elected officials should meet their obligation to help constituents comply with and benefit from the laws and healthcare programs that exist.”

Authored by Anna Chu and Charles Posner, the report examines the rate of uninsured individuals among seven factors—including rates of uninsured women, young people, and minorities—to determine which counties are among the worst in the nation and therefore stand to benefit substantially from the health care law. Many of the counties that stand to benefit the most from the Affordable Care Act are ironically represented by congressional members who, instead of helping those in their districts learn more about the law and how to access its benefits, are actually working against what is best for their constituents.

In addition to the report, CAP Action released a series of facts detailing statistics and information about some of the worst counties in Pennsylvania, including Susquehanna County, Mifflin County, and Philadelphia County. Of the 1,302,110 people in Philadelphia County younger than 65 years old, 16.5 percent are uninsured. Among 67 counties in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County has the highest rate of uninsured residents. Other key findings include:

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• Philadelphia County’s stroke mortality rate for those younger than 75 years

old is 16.4 per 100,000 people—39 percent more than the national average.

• In Susquehanna County 29.3 percent of Hispanics are uninsured.

• In Mifflin County 26.4 percent of young people ages 18 to 39 lack

health insurance.

• Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA), who represents Mifflin County, has wasted time

playing political games and has tried to repeal health care 35 times, without a plan to replace it.

As the report argues, it is not just the conservatives in Congress who are blocking their constituents from accessing the benefits of the health care law. Governors and state legislators across the country are refusing to expand Medicaid as well. If every governor accepted the federal funds guaranteed under the health care law to expand Medicaid, nearly 17 million Americans would gain coverage. The authors believe that these governors and state legislatures are not only denying care to those who need it the most but are also costing their state tens of millions of dollars. CW To read the report online go to: http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/healthcare/report/2013/07/31/71138/the-counties-that-need-the-affordable-care-act-the-most/

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10 OPINION

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

The time for school tax reform is now “Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.” -- George Bernard Shaw When I was a kid, I loved Bobby Kennedy. He is a big part of why I got involved in politics.

He used Shaw’s quote several times to define why he cared so much. He cared for the poor, the sick, and the elderly.

And he was a champion for what he called America’s ‘greatest invention’: the middle class.

One of the first bills I started working on, after being sworn in almost eight years ago, was a constitutional convention to fundamentally change the way we fund our schools.

I have always felt it is the greatest problem facing the middle-class working families and senior citizens of my district and the entire state.

Pennsylvania’s education system is crumbling. Harrisburg rewards larger, growing districts and penalizes smaller school districts like Bristol Borough. Children are treated differently based on their ZIP code.

Harrisburg used to fund 50 percent of school costs. Today it barely reaches 17 percent. And local homeowners are left

holding the bag. This has occurred under both Democrats and Republicans.

We pit school board members against teachers against homeowners against seniors. And our kids are caught in the middle, while Harrisburg walks in between the raindrops.

The problem isn’t school boards or homeowners or teachers or seniors. And it sure isn’t our children. The problem is Harrisburg.

A big part of the solution is to move away from funding our schools with a local school property tax and replacing it with an increase in the state’s sales and income taxes.

Imagine a Bristol Borough and a state where our kids are treated equally. Imagine homeowners no longer worried about school property taxes. Imagine the positive effect it would have on our property values, our economy and on our schools.

House Bill 76 has been offered as a solution and I applaud the sponsor, a Republican named Jim Cox from Berks County. We can argue for years about the specifics, but I have always seen it as a starting point.

It’s not whether you agree with every-

thing in the bill. That’s not the point.

The point is whether you agree with the concept, because if you do, we can compromise.

Just rejecting the solution out of hand without stating whether you agree on the problem and the concept for a solution is not good enough.

I have reached across the aisle and worked with Republicans to address one of the most divisive issues of our time, illegal immigration. EVERIFY for all public projects is the law of the land in Pennsylvania.

While politicians in Washington continue to argue about compromise, we have already done it. I want to do it again, this time with education.

People ask me why, I say why not?

The great silent majority of this state is sick and tired of politicians fighting and not accomplishing anything. Both parties have their extreme elements that won’t compromise. The result is total gridlock.

And they both have forgotten the middle class.

For the first time since I have been in Harrisburg there is a movement growing around school funding. The great silent majority is mobilizing around this issue.

BY STATE REP. JOHN GALLOWAY

Rep. John Galloway

Join us.

Bobby Kennedy was a great man. If he were here today he wouldn’t look at the problem and ask why. He would work to solve the problem and ask, why not? CW State Rep. John Galloway, D-Bucks, represents the 140th Legislative District.

The governor and his legislative friends

BY PETER L. DECOURSEY, CAPITOLWIRE

For the first 31 months of Gov. Tom Corbett’s tenure, the myth has been that the House Republicans are more supportive of him than the Senate Republicans are.

Now, as the House turned a potential 2-fer-3 deal, or at least a 1-fer-3 on the governor’s top priorities into an 0-fer-3, it is clear that neither caucus is all that supportive of the governor.

The myth that the House was more loyal to the governor than the Senate began in 2011 when they and Corbett were less interested in swiftly passing a significant impact fee on the Marcellus Shale than the Senate GOP – and House and Senate Democrats – were. It was also burnished by the fact that House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, spent more time linking his caucus to the governor and publicly supporting him than the Senate Republicans did.

Plus, during the 2011 budget talks, the Senate GOP and Senate Democrats allied effectively to spend $600 million more than the governor proposed.

To be honest, that was largely a public relations stance by the House Republicans.

Because most of them, at least two-thirds, preferred the Senate-driven level of state spending to what they and their leaders publicly espoused. And when it came to negotiations, they got their priorities met, which really proves their cheaper stance the

last two budgets was more about PR than anything else.

Which brings us to the last seven months, and the governor’s top three priorities.

Both the House and the Senate got pension reform bills reported out of committee.

I don’t think either had the constitutional majority votes needed to pass the bill out of their chamber, although the Senate GOP says they could have passed it. But they didn’t, unlike transportation spending,

unacceptable to a majority of their own members and well more than 26 senators.

The Senate GOP says they could have passed a liquor reform bill, if the House had been able to pass an acceptable transportation bill, something like the Senate bill.

Clearly the House wasn’t able to take the transportation step so we will never know if the Senate would have made good on its promise of a 2-fer or 3-fer. And the Senate intentionally gave the House a short time span for considering transportation, which

Since the governor had told the GOP leaders in both chambers in meetings that “oh-fer-three is unacceptable,’ the House at least failed to ensure we found out if, as they suspect, the Senate was bluffing.

And if the Senate were not bluffing, House leaders say, they would have the transportation bill in April, setting up a serious negotiation. Waiting til June surprised the House leaders, who assumed the Senate wouldn’t vote on the transportation bill, until it landed in their laps.

Since the governor had told the GOP leaders in both chambers in meetings that “oh-fer-three is unacceptable,’ the House at least failed to ensure we found out if, as they suspect, the Senate was bluffing. where they voted without a guarantee of House action, so call that one a tie or a very slight “Help the Gov” edge to the Senate.

The House passed a liquor privatization bill to the Senate, while the Senate only positioned one for a floor vote.

Then we come to transportation funding. The Senate passed that out of their chamber in early June, giving less time for action than the months the House gave the Senate on liquor privatization.

But when the House positioned their version for a vote, it did so for a package

certainly did not help, as House Majority Leader Mike Turzai and the governor repeatedly noted.

But we do know that after months of the House GOP leaders and rank-and-file linking passage of the transportation funding bill to passage of the liquor reform bill, all of a sudden they got to June, and Turzai, R-Allegheny, said they didn’t want linkage.

Why? Because they thought the Senate would pass liquor without it, and they felt they were saving themselves and the governor from a ruinous tax-hike vote.

And the House GOP and governor were ready, both said to accept the Senate liquor bill that final weekend. So, depending on whether you believe the Senate could have passed liquor privatization, the House is the major reason the governor was not 1-fer-3 or 2-fer-3.

Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, says the reason these big deals don’t pass – not counting transportation, which he opposes – is the governor.

With friends like these, who needs enemies? CW

OPINION 11

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Why do Democrats want to bring on tax debate?

BY PETER L. DECOURSEY, CAPITOLWIRE

Democratic State Committee Chairman Jim Burn wants to debate Gov. Tom Corbett on taxes. Burn correctly notes that Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform says Corbett broke his no-new-net-tax hikes/ new net-tax-revenues pledge.

And Grover wrote the pledge, and on a couple of occasions absolved Corbett when some fees or levies were alleged to violate it.

Unfortunately for the governor, on a number of other occasions, ATR has said he did break that pledge. They regard the $200 million annual natural gas extraction fee as a tax, according to Patrick Gleason, head of the group in Pennsylvania and Norquist’s guy in the commonwealth.

They also hit the big red TAX button on the state’s efforts to ensure that residents have to turn in sales tax that out-of-state internet vendors did not collect from them.

The Corbett folks replied the taxes were due, and Corbett has always said it was his plan to collect all taxes that are due.

And they repeatedly called the gubernatorial and state Senate bills on transportation funding pledge-busting tax hikes.

Neither of those actually happened yet, so as of now, Corbett broke Norquist’s pledge twice, and tried to do it a third time.

That is according to Norquist.

Kevin Harley, the spokesman for the governor, says Corbett has not broken the pledge, because the shale levy was a fee primarily used to ameliorate the effects of drilling. And the transportation bill was not a tax hike, because, Harley said, it simply lifts a cap on the price of oil that can be taxed, not increasing the rate of tax. And tax hikes, administration officials say, are by definition passed along to the consumer. In the past, when this cap was raised, the tax hike was not passed along to consumers, at least not for years, and perhaps not ever.

But since the guy who wrote and oversees the pledge says Corbett broke it, that is certainly an issue for Burn and the Democrats to talk about.

What I don’t understand is: why would they? Every Democrat running for governor and most Democrats in the state House and Senate were for a higher shale extraction tax than Corbett approved. The governor essentially refused to approve anything until the revenues legislators proposed to raise were cut by one-half to two-thirds and mostly limited to the shale-producing counties.

Same with transportation. A major reason the bill didn’t pass is that Democrats wanted to spend at least $700 million more than the governor proposed.

So if you are a voter who really opposes tax hikes, why would you be for the party that wanted to raise them a lot more than Corbett did?

I could understand the Burn argument being made by say, conservative activist Peg Luksik, if she ran against Corbett in the GOP primary, but why does Burn want to throw Corbett this batting practice fastball?

When I asked Burn that question, he said he would welcome that debate “every day of the week” because it goes to voter’s ability to trust Corbett, and would be part of a litany of the governor’s broken promises that Democrats will roll out for the next 15 months.

It also attempts to neutralize Corbett on the biggest issue he has: that he has held taxes and spending down despite constant pressure from Democrats to increase both.

But again, it basically is saying Corbett misled voters on a vital topic, even as Burn’s candidates decline to say, for the most part, what taxes they will raise to fund the billions of dollars they are pledging to add to the budget.

Will voters think it is worse to have promised no tax hikes and approved some or to have fought for much bigger tax hikes but said very little, apart from shale extrac-

tion, about what they will be?

My guess is that most voters care about the results: did my taxes go up? Did the state spend enough on education and environment and prisons?

So I think Burn is taking a considerable risk here. Because when the Democrats focus on Corbett’s breaking his anti-taxhike pledge, I think it will help Corbett make two points he needs to make: • That the Democrats opposing him are all for more tax hikes than he is; and • That he will say their promises will cost far more in tax hikes than his, and that they are not saying which taxes they will hike to pay for their billions of dollars in new programs.

So I think I understand why Jim Burn, a savvy and hard-charging is doing this: he understands that Corbett’s negative image is pervasive but soft. By focusing on broken promises, he is trying to harden that image into a permanent voter dislike of the governor.

But in making that argument about tax hikes, I think he is taking a bigger risk of playing an away game on Corbett’s home court. And focusing attention on the tax hikes his candidates will not yet disclose, but will almost certainly have to impose, is a bigger risk still. CW

Pittsburgh trial highlights need for child abuse reporting upgrade

BY SEN. WAYNE FONTANA

Testimony from the trial in Pittsburgh involving alleged child abuse by a former Pittsburgh Public Schools police officer underscores the need for better safeguards for our children and clearer reporting procedures for school officials if they suspect child abuse.

That is the goal of my legislation that would require school district authorities to report possible child abuse to authorities within 24 hours. My bill would remove the current confusing patchwork of reporting requirements involving school officials when they believe there are instances of child abuse in school. My legislation makes all school officials mandated reporters of suspected child abuse.

Witnesses at the trial testified that they were abused by the former school police officer on school premises as far back as 1998, yet no student came forward with abuse allegations at that time. That changed in 1999 when the former principal at the Arthur J. Rooney Middle School suspected that inappropriate activity occurred and reported his suspicions to the officer’s supervisors.

Weeks later, the incident was reported to Pittsburgh police. However, the victim

refused to be interviewed and the investigation went dormant, according to published reports from the trial.

Neither the principal, nor the officer’s supervisors were required to immediately report the incident to either local or state police or Childline. If my mandatory reporting requirement had been in place in 1999, a full, aggressive investigation likely would have ensued -- prompted by the report to police or Childline -- and other alleged abuses uncovered from previous years.

Quick action and mandatory reporting of suspected abuse not only stop the abuse and the abuser, but also preserve evidence and eyewitness accounts. One of the problems discussed in the Pittsburgh trial is that there is no physical evidence and witnesses are testifying more than a decade after the alleged incidents.

The testimony in the Pittsburgh case is similar to statements made at the preliminary hearing in the Penn State perjury case now underway in Harrisburg. In that case, a witness to the Sandusky sexual assault asserted that he thought telling Penn State officials about the attack was sufficient and that an immediate report to police was not necessary.

Had the mandatory reporting law been on the books, the details of the alleged incidents (in the Pittsburgh case) or the assault in the Sandusky attack would be fresh on the minds of the witnesses and physical evidence could have been gathered immediately. This material would be useful to law enforcement and court officials in administering justice.

The mandatory reporting measure in Senate Bill 31 is part of a package of recommended bills from the bipartisan, bicameral Legislative Task Force on Child Abuse. The blue-ribbon panel included a wide range of experts from across all disciplines that deal with child abuse.

The Task Force was formed after the incidents of child abuse were discovered in the highly publicized Sandusky/Penn State child abuse case. The Task Force, recognizing the value of the legislation that I offered as a means to improve and clarify reporting procedures, supported my plan. My legislation was unanimously reported from the Education Committee in early June. I expect a vote by the full Senate this fall.

My proposal is unambiguous. It clearly and unequivocally imposes duties on

Sen. Wayne Fontana (D-Allegheny)

school officials regarding the reporting of suspected child abuse. The message from my legislation: if you believe you have witnessed abuse, you are responsible to immediately report it to authorities. Period.

Our children deserve greater protection and our school officials must have the legal tools to ensure that our kids are safe. The details emerging from the trial in Pittsburgh of the former school police officer accused of child abuse and the Penn State perjury hearing from long ago illustrates the great need to act now.

12 OPINION

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Editorial

Not implementing Voter ID law the right decision

BY JACQUELINE G. GOODWIN, ED.D.

Hats off to the Commonwealth’s attorneys who have indicated they would agree to another “soft rollout” in November, in which voters are asked to produce ID but not be prevented from voting if they don’t have one.

In short, voters won’t be barred from voting if they don’t have the photo identification required by the 2012 law.

As was the case in the November 2012 general election and last May’s primary, voters will be asked to show photo identification. And if they don’t have it, they’ll be informed that it will eventually be a requirement.

The two-week hearing before Judge Bernard L. McGinley focused heavily on the validity of the state’s efforts to get proper identification into the hands of those who need it and how many voters lacked such identification.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs, citing a statistical analysis, said as many as 500,000 voters lacked proper identification, a figure that the state disputed.

In her closing argument on Aug. 1, Jennifer Clarke of Philadelphia’s Public Interest Law Center said that even the Commonwealth’s own data show there are still hundreds of thousands of people with-

out acceptable ID to vote.

Even though the numbers are not the same, Clarke said afterward, “I think that the most important thing is that their own estimates are in the same order of magnitude.”

Not so, said Alicia Hickok, an attorney representing the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

“They are playing fast and loose with the numbers,” Hickok says. “There are not hundreds of thousands of people who lack acceptable ID under Act 18.”

But even small numbers don’t make the case for a law that discourages or suppresses urban, elderly and student voters, considering that voter fraud is nearly nonexistent.

In a statement, the Pennsylvania branch of the NAACP praised the state’s decision, saying that if the case “is truly about the integrity of the vote, then the state should not rush to implement a law that could hamper free and unfettered participation in our democracy.”

Voter ID messes with a right, not a privilege, of the people. Commonwealth attorneys made the right decision to not implement the law while it continues to wind its way through the courts. CW

Key lawmakers still scorn Gov. Corbett’s ‘half-aloaf’ on transportation funding

BY PETER L. DECOURSEY, CAPITOLWIRE

It’s about a month after Gov. Tom Corbett said the House Democrats should have taken the “half-a-loaf” transportation funding plan, strongly implying that had they done so, a bill would have passed and the problem would be en route to getting addressed.

Back then I could not find any of the key folks who would agree that was so, other than the governor and the House Republicans, who had sliced that loaf considerably.

Transportation Secretary Barry Schoch said the final package would have bridged much of that House GOP v. Senate bill mass transit gap, but House Democratic

spokesman Bill Patton says his leaders never saw any such offer.

Nor do Senate Republicans or Democrats say they saw any such “tweener” offer above the House GOP-amended plan but below the Senate offer.

Senate Transportation Minority Committee Chairman John Wozniak, D-Cambria, said: “The House Republicans did not want to deal with mass transit. And the other three caucuses insisted on it. And that is where it stood and where it stayed.”

“And as far as getting enough of a loaf to pass something? I’m not so sure the House Democrats and House Republicans, want anything to get done. They just want to

point fingers.”

And if the House had passed the half a loaf, would it then have made that bill or something like it - something low enough in state funding, around $1.8 billion or less – good enough to pass the Senate?

“Nope,” said Wozniak “I think we would have amended that bill, put Senate Bill 1 back in, the bill we did, and sent it back to them.

“We would’ve been the same place we were after we sent it to them the first time.

“I don’t think there is any way the House Ds were going to put up enough votes to pass it, but if they did, nothing would have changed.”

So while Gov. Tom Corbett keeps saying the House Democrats were the problem, and they are the most immediate hurdle, both of the Senate Transportation Committee chairmen say if the House Democrats had gone along, the Senate would not have.

So when the governor goes around the state, as he has lately, saying the House Democrats were the problem, as near as I can tell, a month ago, and since, he is wrong.

So, yes, the House Democrats were a problem. But if they had not been, the Senate Democrats and Republicans would have been. CW

OPINION 13

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Speaker Smith told colleagues Fiscal Code mess arose from untrustworthy Senate

BY PETER L. DECOURSEY, CAPITOLWIRE

Memo from House Speaker Sam Smith to GOP members says payday lending ‘dust-up’ was not about issue, but about trust, and fighting for the House against the Senate.

When it became clear that payday lending legalization legislation would not pass the Senate with this year’s budget, a group of lawmakers and lobbyists convened.

They wanted the man who stopped the bill dead in that budget session, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, to participate in discussions to produce a bill in the fall.

They thought Pileggi was allowing the payday lending industry to believe fruitful negotiations would ensue over the summer. Further, they thought that “something acceptable” could and should start with the proposal of Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, a key Pileggi ally.

Pileggi and his staff said the Senate GOP lacked the support to pass such a bill and he made no commitments to pass it.

So the payday lending legalization bill was pushed off to the fall, despite the complaints of House Speaker Sam Smith, R-Punxsutawney, who saw it fail for the second straight budget session in which he had demanded it be passed.

Smith wrote in a memo to his members that: “The issue is a priority for many members of our caucus. I myself, along with members of the House and Senate, have been working on the short-term lending issue for several years. I expect us to continue working on it because unscrupulous lenders already operate in Pennsylvania,

and I believe change is necessary to provide much-needed protection to some of our most vulnerable citizens.”

Smith says the current situation in the state, where online payday lending occurs daily at rates far worse than those allowed

by Browne or other legislative plans, is not really a ban on payday lending. It is just a ban on the more responsible part of the industry, the ones that locate here physically.

But Smith’s critics note the industry’s lobbyists comprise two of his closest allies in the lobbying community and say that may have motivated him.

Whatever mix of motives stirred him, Smith stewed about the fact that everyone was acting as if Pileggi was going to pass something in the fall, when Smith believed no such action was likely.

So when devising the Fiscal Code, Smith added language stating the House and Senate majorities agreed to pass legislation in the fall, essentially adding what Smith called “note to self” language to the budget.

Smith’s allies in the House said he told the chamber this was an issue of getting the Senate to indicate where they were on an issue the House had tried to advance.

And if Pileggi refused the language, everyone could skip months of unproductive fakery called ‘negotiations.’

Other House members said Smith stressed to them in caucus that this was simply standing up for a House deal. The House had to swallow the Senate’s junk, they argued, and it was time for the Senate to do the same.

But the language was a surprise and perhaps an insult to Pileggi, and his GOP caucus treated it like a slap in the face.

Even Browne, whose proposal was to be the model for negotiations on the bill, said the House had set the process back.

Asked if he had agreed to the language in the Fiscal Code bill, Pileggi on July 3rd said: “Absolutely not.” Asked why the Senate hauled the House back to Senate session over non-binding language in a Fiscal Code, Pileggi said: “Words are important.”

He declined then and since, even after Smith has challenged him on this issue, to say any more about it.

The Senate passed the Fiscal Code bill July 2 without that language, and made the House return on July 15 to pass it again.

House members then began to complain about what Smith had done, and many told Capitolwire he had promised this would not happen, and they were not happy at all.

So Smith sent his caucus an extraordinary memo, explaining why they had to come back on July 15 and vote again.

In that memo, Smith portrayed himself

as sticking up for the House, blamed the Senate for not passing liquor privatization before June 30, and waiting for the House to act on transportation in the fall, and generally blaming the Senate for not keeping its commitments.

Referring to the language committing both chambers to pass payday lending legislation in the fall, Smith wrote: “I think it is worth noting that the Senate sent us a tax code and a welfare code on June 30 containing issues that we as a leadership team had not agreed with. If you remember, we worked as a caucus to deal with the issues in a manner that was appropriate and respectful of our sister chamber.

“We kept language in the tax code that provided a tax credit that was a deal between the Senate Leaders and the Governor’s office. We also proceeded on the welfare code bill by dealing with the Medicaid expansion issue just as was agreed to by House and Senate Leaders.”

Smith and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, have both said Pileggi knew the House would not pass a budgetrelated bill with Medicaid expansion language and that the governor had said he would veto the bill if it had that language.

Pileggi said weeks ago his chamber had been trying to get the governor to say in writing what he would do if the bill reached his desk. CW

The time to act is now on a transportation funding plan for PA

BY SEN. JOHN RAFFERTY

It has been more than 16 years since Pennsylvania enacted a meaningful transportation funding program and two years since a special task force recommended comprehensive funding options. Yet, our transportation network remains in dire need of long-overdue maintenance, construction and safety upgrades.

Pennsylvania has more structurally deficient bridges – nearly 4,400 – than any other state in the nation, and 23 percent of its 44,000 miles of state-owned roads are in poor condition.

The situation will get worse if we do not take action. That’s why the Senate last month overwhelmingly passed legislation to increase Pennsylvania’s annual transportation investment by $2.5 billion.

Senate Bill 1 was a bipartisan effort by Senators from rural, suburban and urban communities to address a growing concern

about the decline of condition of our transportation infrastructure.

The funding package, which now awaits action in the House of Representatives, would enable the state to repair unsafe roads and aging bridges, undertake construction projects in congested areas and improve our ports, rail lines and mass transit systems.

The cost of further delay is staggering.

A recent report by a national transportation group found that the poor state of Pennsylvania’s roads and bridges costs state residents $9.4 billion annually in vehicle operating costs, congestion delays and traffic accidents. Those statistics make it clear that state residents are paying the price for our deteriorating infrastructure.

Our economy will also suffer. MSNBC ranked Pennsylvania 30th out of 50 states in 2012 when it considered which states

are the best for doing business. Of the 10 categories used in scoring each state, Pennsylvania ranked 35th out 50 for infrastructure and transportation. In addition, it is estimated Pennsylvania will see 12,000 private sector layoffs in transportationrelated sectors.

Public safety is another major concern.

If we do nothing, the number of miles of state-owned highways rated in poor condition will increase from 9,000 to 17,000 by 2017 – that is an 89 percent increase.

Between 4,000 to 5,000 additional stateowned bridges will be weight-restricted, causing 31,000 children traveling in school buses to spend more time on poorer quality roads due to closed or posted bridges.

Ambulances, fire trucks, and other emergency services personnel will travel greater distances due to posted or closed bridges, losing critical life-saving minutes.

And as transit agencies cut service, Pennsylvania’s already overburdened highway system will see an increase in traffic, and seniors and the disabled will lose their link to medical and other life-sustaining services.

Our roads and bridges continue to crumble, our mass transit systems lack the funds for expansion needed to meet continued demand, and our railways, airports and ports struggle to be economic generators for the 21st century.

Senate Bill 1 will enable us to begin investing in our transportation network now – rather than continuing to put off much-needed maintenance, construction and safety upgrades that are crucial our state’s future. The time to act is now. CW Senator John Rafferty (R-44) is Chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee.

14 OPINION

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Should PA repeal its “stand your ground” law in view of Zimmerman case?

NO

YES “Stand your ground” laws are doomed; so change them.

Longtime TV partners, Tony May and Charlie Gerow provide commentary and analysis on political matters every Sunday on WHPTV-CBS 21’s program, “Face the State,” in addition to being regularly featured on the Pennsylvania Cable Network (PCN). In their other lives, May is a partner at Triad Strategies, and Gerow is CEO of Quantum Communications.

We should be clear about two things: First, the question, as posed, is a non sequitor.

BY TONY MAY

BY CHARLIE GEROW

Pennsylvania should repeal its “Stand Your Ground” law – as it should erase any law that doesn’t truly address the issue it was supposed to resolve and which, in the process, creates other serious problems.

That said, let’s first address the slaying of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman.

That was not a “stand your ground” case because, in this instance, George Zimmerman was the admitted aggressor who was ignoring a Police Department instruction to avoid direct confrontation with the “suspicious person” he was reporting to 911. It was Zimmerman who, according to his own narrative, approached Martin. If anyone was “standing his ground” it may well have been Martin.

Even though the Zimmerman-Martin case isn’t a good case study for repeal of “stand your ground” laws, it does share one common trait with “stand your ground” incidents: there usually are only two witnesses to the event and one of them ends up unable to testify in his own behalf because he becomes a homicide victim. In other words, righteous aggression creates a problem potentially worse than the one the law was trying to solve.

To be sure, there aren’t many clear examples of how stand-your-ground laws work in real life because not every state has them and homicide, thankfully, is a rare occurrence. But there is ample evidence of where stand-your-ground laws lead by comparing human behavior in two lawless scenarios.

First, we have the nuclear arms race of the second half of the 20th Century. Both the East and West were determined to stand their ground in the face of perceived aggression so each side created a larger and larger arsenal until we achieved a state described as Mutually Assured Destruction. In other words, each side produced so many nuclear weapons and delivery systems that to invoke the right to “stand our ground” we would ensure the destruction of the human race.

Most gun rights advocates – much like American defense strategists of the 1950s – would be comfortable with the idea of every American carrying a handgun every day and everywhere, believing (or hoping) that this would create the stability of person-toperson level of Mutually Assured Destruction. But it doesn’t – and won’t – work that way. How do we know?

Because of the second “case study” involving adolescent males in tough, inner city environments like Chicago (more than 200 people died in homicides in the Windy City by July 4 this year), where the perceived absence of police authority or negative consequence encourages a shoot-first/shoot-often mentality.

Certainly, some would argue that most teen-on-teen violence is rooted in perceptions of manliness or “street cred” but isn’t that a mirror of the psychology behind stand-your-ground laws. In the latter, the law says you don’t have to take evasive action if you feel your physical health is threatened. You can defend yourself preemptively. Lucky you. You can defend yourself and you can be successful if you’re bigger, stronger, faster and more skilled and agile than your adversary – provided there is only one adversary – or you need to be better armed. Bringing us back to the arms race and Mutually Assured Destruction.(say MP-4s and 10 paces).

This brings us back to the reality of a supposed safety law making us less safe.

George Zimmerman didn’t invoke Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law in his defense.

His defense, resulting in his acquittal, was common law self defense. It’s unlikely that the case would have been decided differently in a state with ONLY a self defense provision and no “Stand Your Ground” statute.

Second, Pennsylvania’s Stand Your Ground law is not the same as Florida’s. It imposes an additional condition on law abiding citizens before they can use deadly force in their defense. Under Pennsylvania’s law the aggressor must have a visible deadly weapon.

Sadly, some in the media have used this tragedy, as they have others, to lobby for additional restrictions on the rights of law abiding citizens, especially their gun rights.

For the most part their efforts have failed.

While every state has self defense provisions, fully half the states now have additional “Stand Your Ground” or “Castle Doctrine” features as well. These provisions essentially say that protection of innocents from violent criminals is a basic human right that must be protected by the government and by the individual themselves if the government is not on hand to defend them. They reject the misplaced notion that victims should be required to run faster than their violent aggressors.

Pennsylvania’s Stand Your Ground law was passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support. There were less than half a dozen votes against it in the PA Senate and only a handful in the House.

During the debate Rep. Scott Perry (now Congressman Perry) told his colleagues that the law would “tip the scales of justice in favor of the law-abiding citizen.” On the other side of the building Sen. Rich Alloway added, “Law abiding gun owners should not have to fear prosecution for acting to prevent a violent crime.”

Rep. Jake Wheatley, an urban Democrat, spoke powerfully of innocent people in less advantaged areas where they are “under siege from violence” and “law enforcement and the judicial system haven’t been able to protect them.”

Data from Florida shows that African Americans and economically less well off people benefit the most from “stand your ground laws.” There, where blacks make up slightly more than 16% of the population, they have used more than 30 percent of the stand your ground defenses in court. And they have prevailed. Their acquittal rate in these cases was the same as for whites. Hispanics who invoked the “stand your ground” defense have a higher acquittal than either whites or blacks.

Thankfully, despite the media hype, there is little interest in re-visiting, much less repealing, Pennsylvania’s “Stand Your Ground.” A Quinnipiac poll released just last week shows continued strong majority support for our law.

Bad people have guns and other weapons. They certainly stand their ground— and encroach on other’s. Good people should be able to stand their ground, too.

Pennsylvania’s law allows them to.

The right to self defense in the face of a violent attacker is not some abstract concept ginned up by the “gun lobby.” It’s an essential human right. Pennsylvania’s Stand Your Ground law protects it. Ours is a carefully crafted bi-partisan law with healthy majority support from our fellow citizens. It should not be tampered with.

OPINION 15

AUGUST 2013 CAPITAL WATCH

Stretch IRA and Tax Deferral

BY SCOTT C. WEAVER, CFP, CFS, CAS

Since their inception, IRA’s have been a popular accumulation instrument. IRA contributions are tax deductable for most (not everyone) and tax deferred for all investors. This tax haven gives the owner the capability to keep Uncle Sam out of their pockets until retirement or constructive receipt of the money. The key ingredient is the ability to deduct reportable earnings and defer taxation. This extra time allotted to investors creates “time value or money”. Tax deferred compounded earnings over long periods of time creates more wealth than paying taxes as you go.

Unfortunately, this tax haven doesn’t last forever, and at some point Uncle Sam wants his money and will be knocking at your IRA door.

The Stretch IRA is a technique to keep Uncle Sam away for as long as you can. The Stretch IRA does not directly benefit the original owner or owner’s spouse. Instead, it benefits future generations. Stretch IRA’s allow you to extend the payments until your children or grandchildren retire. They receive substantial additional years of compounding tax deferred growth. Depending

on earnings or profits, payouts may approach multi-million dollar levels.

If you have enough income to fund your retirement without relying heavily on your IRA, a Stretch IRA may be right for you.

Stretch IRA’s may also be appropriate for owners who don’t necessarily trust their heirs to be financially prudent with the inheritance. Since a Stretch IRA leaves an income stream for the heirs instead of a lump sum, owners not only reduce the up-front tax burden, but also can control the money to some extent from the grave.

Stretch IRA’s are not for everyone. They are best suited for someone who really doesn’t need the IRA income in their lifetime but would love to continue their legacy, for the most part, tax deferred. As mentioned earlier, this could be a multi-million dollar estate strategy for future generations.

Happy investing!!

Scott C. Weaver

Scott C. Weaver, CFP, CFS, CAS

The information contained herein is obtained from sources believed to be reliable but its accuracy and completeness is not guaranteed. Any tax or legal information in this piece is merely a summary of our understanding and interpretation of current laws and regulations and is not exhaustive. Neither NEXT Financial Group, Inc., nor its representatives are qualified to give tax or legal advice.

Securities and investment advisory services offered through NEXT Financial Group, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. None of the entities named herein are affiliated with NEXT Financial Group, Inc. 1250 N MOUNTAIN RD STE 4 HARRISBURG, PA 17112 • (717) 652-4965. • Toll free (877) 837-3024.