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INSIDER INFO -- JANUARY 2009
Political VIP interview: Robin Wiessmann
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Political VIP interview: Robin Wiessmann
State treasurer appointee hints that her departure from public service just might be very short-lived
You may have seen Robin Wiessmann in public service commercials – the blonde-haired woman who promotes the Pennsylvania 529 College Savings Program, nowU.
Other than that, Wiessman has kept a relatively low profile during her 19 months at the Pennsylvania Treasury. She was appointed to fill a vacancy that was created by the election of Bob Casey Jr. to the U.S. Senate and his subsequent resignation from Treasury to go to Washington. Citing her extensive financial and investment banking background, Wiessmann was nominated for the position by Gov. Ed Rendell and was appointed by a unanimous vote of the Pennsylvania Senate.
She has put into practice a number of initiatives to maximize the Commonwealth’s investment opportunities and minimize market threats to those funds. One example is her reallocation of $3.4 billion of its investment portfolio into more liquid assets to enhance the return to the Commonwealth’s funds as the market became less reliable. Wiessmann appeared before Congress in March of last year to testify about the turmoil in the municipal bond market and its ramifications for state and local governments.
Described as “a pioneer for women in the financial field,” Wiessmann was from 1990 through 1999 a founder and the president of Artemis Capital Group, the leading women-owned investment banking firm in the nation. Previously, she served as a deputy finance director to the City of Philadelphia from 1980 to 1984 and then spent six years as a vice president at Goldman Sachs in New York City.
On a personal level, Wiessmann is married to Ken Jarin, who is well known in Democratic political circles as one of the party’s major fund-raisers. Jarin is also a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Ballard Spahr where he specializes in labor relations and contract negotiations as well as government relations and private-public partnerships. The couple lives in suburban Bucks County and has two children: a son, Alexander, 16, and a daughter, Karley, 14.
On Tuesday, Jan. 20, Wiessmann will turn over her office to Democrat Rob McCord, who handily won the state row office last November. But she probably will not be there when it happens. It’s more likely she and her politically-active husband will be in Washington, D.C., for the inauguration of Barack Obama.
Insider: For readers who might not know, can you explain briefly who you are, where you came from and why Gov. Rendell choose you for this job.
Wiessmann: I have a long history of focusing on the public sector but from the private sector side. I am a long-term investment banker. I worked at Goldman Sachs; I was vice president there for six years. After that, I started a woman-owned investment banker firm in New York, a registered broker/dealer. We underwrote securities and so on.
Ever since I was a congressional intern while in college, I’ve always had a strong sense of the public sector and public policy issues are what really motivates me. After law school, I decided to go into business and commercial banking. I had a broad range of experience at Philadelphia National Bank and all different types of financing. Then I moved over to the City of Philadelphia where I was deputy director of finance. That’s where I developed my core public sector finance skills under Mayor Bill Green, who opted to serve only one term. At that point, I had to decide between law and finance and I pretty much was down the path of finance.
Insider: Can you tell us if you found any surprises in your job assignment as state treasurer?
Wiessmann: I was an advisor to a number of state treasurers and as a municipal investment banker; I have a very keen appreciation about state budgets. I have a pretty strong sense of how government works. What I’m now experiencing is the actual concrete experience of government finance. No, there hasn’t been any one major surprise.
The staff has been very experienced and very professional about what they perceive as their role in their jobs and that’s been very pleasant. One thing is the speed at which things get done. It’s much slower in government than the private sector. Absolutely.
But I made it very clear to my staff that my goal was to leave (Treasury) better managed and well positioned to meet the challenges of the future.
Insider: How or what did you put in place to cushion the blow of the financial market meltdown in late 2008?
Wiessmann: I did anticipate that there could be major stress put on the financial market, and therefore the Pennsylvania Treasury. One of the things we did was initiates a comprehensive cash flow study of the Treasury. Broken into its simplest terms, the Treasury’s job is to the inflow of funds accounted for properly, the investment of that money while it is here and then the expenditure of funds according to the law. I sometimes make the analogy to what people do with their household budget and personal investments.
We liquidated (removed from the investment market) $4.1 billion during my term, including $3.4 billion last June. We’ve gone to a more conservative portfolio to make sure we are as prudent as possible. As the market first stated to turn in 2007, we navigated away from some of the riskier investments and I think we did a pretty good job.
Insider: How was the transition to (elected) Treasurer Rob McCord going?
Wiessmann: Very well. I think I will be handing over a department that is greatly enhanced in terms of its management template. He has met the staff members and we are directing him to the areas that really need to be his focus. I think he’s very responsive and will do the right thing.
We have released a Treasury Report, which is recommendations for the Treasurer’s office regardless who is here. It has the overarching theme of safeguarding the Commonwealth’s funds, reinventing our technology strategies – all of those will be very relevant and valuable going forward for a long period of time.
I’ve been doing a fair amount of speaking during the financial crisis. I’m very glad I had the foresight to put some of these parameters into place at Treasury. As a consequence, I’ve testified in Washington. I’ve been very pro-active in offering my suggestions on concrete steps to mitigate the crisis.
Insider: Will you go back to your business after you leave here.
Wiessmann: Well, the firm I found it, Armistice Capital that was sold in 1998. Since then, after a mini-sabbatical, I’ve been working in the financial industries service but as a consultant. I’ve been very gratified by this position. We made some concrete progress.
I could step out and do something in the private sector again or I could run for office at some point but I’m really just at the evaluating stage of all that.
Insider: There’s been some speculation that you might run for governor, that you might run for lieutenant governor on a geographically and gender-balanced ticket with Dan Onorato (the Allegheny County executive)?
Wiessmann: I’m not precluding any opportunity. I have not made any decisive plans for any political candidacy announced or not announced at this point. But I expect that will be happening pretty soon. As President-elect Obama tells the news media – That’s all you’re going to get out of me right now.
The tease is over.
After months of speculation and even some active exploration on his part by talking to Democratic officials and fund-raisers, MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews has announced he is staying put.
Matthews, the biggest celebrity to consider a challenge to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Phila., is in negotiations to renew his contract with NBC and MSNBC where he reportedly earns $5 million annually.
A senator earns about $170,000. For 99.9 percent of people, the choice would be easy.
“There’s a wonderful power in being able to get up in the morning and do and say what you believe,” Matthews told the Philadelphia Inquirer for its Jan. 9 editions. “As long as I’m decent and don’t use bad words, I can pretty much do anything I want.”
Still, Matthews’ dalliance with the Senate bid got so far as his identifying a house in Center City that he planned to purchase to re-establish Pennsylvania residency if he choose to run. The 63-year-old former speechwriter for President Jimmy Carter now lives in Chevy Chase, MD., a Washington suburb.
But his family roots are in row-house Philadelphia where he grew up in the Northeast and
of which he still speaks fondly on the air. He wore a Phillies cap on “Hardball” in October when the Phillies were in the World Series and won it. His younger brother, Jim, a Republican, is a Montgomery County commissioner and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant government in 2006 on the gubernatorial ticket with Steelers great Lynn Swann.
Matthews’ father was a Democratic Party committeeman and Matthews ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1974 shortly after finishing college at Holy Cross and serving a stint in the Peace Corps. He spent some time as an aide on Capitol Hill and then wrote speeches for President Carter.
After his stint in the White House, Matthews found a home with former House Speaker Tip O’Neill as a top advisor and then became a Washington-based columnist and bureau chief for the San Francisco Chronicle.
In that role, he began making frequent appearances as a political analyst on television and he struck gold in the cable news boom of the late 1990s, becoming the host of “Hardball” on MSNBC 11 years ago.
His rapid-fire interrogation of his political guests gained him a following, earned him fatter paychecks and made him a favorite target of the comics at Saturday Night Live who spoofed his brash, intimidating take-no-prisoner style with glee at the sister network.
Matthews’ current contract is due to expire this June and NBC reportedly wants Matthews to take a drastic pay cut. In the months leading up his new contract talks with MSNBC, Matthews began his dance with Pennsylvania Democrats about running for the Senate but he insists it was not a negotiating tactic.
Matthews told the Inquirer he expected a new deal with MSNBC to be finalized by next week. “I’m going to be here a long time,” he said.
Replacement Parts With Chris Matthews out of U.S. Senate race, other Democrats weigh getting in 2010 contest for seat now held by Republican Arlen Specter
So where does Chris Matthews’ non-starter decision leave the Pennsylvania Democratic Party? Still with plenty of options, according to a top party official.
The state party’s executive director, Mary Isenhour, told the Patriot-News that essentially the contest has been “rebooted” with other Democrats considering a run or being wooed to think about it now that Matthews has bowed out.
But for those considering the contest here is the dilemma: few Democrats want to take on the moderate Specter who has one of the best general election records of any statewide candidate and who has vowed a tough primary and general election fight against those who week to prevent him from winning a sixth term.
Specter has already raised more than $6 million for his campaign war chest and reportedly wants to more than double that by the end of 2009 to ward off primary challengers. Still, he says he is ready for dual battles next year.
“I’m going to have a tough opponent in the general election and a tough opponent in the primary before that,” Specter told the Philadelphia Inquirer last week. “This is a tough state – it’s a real battle to stay on top of the wave. I’ll be ready.”
In the coming weeks, Specter will be the Republican senator likely leading the criticism of Eric Holder, the attorney general nominee of President-elect Barack Obama. Holder, a former Clinton appointee, has come under fire for his role in some controversial pardons at the end of that president’s tenure.
Specter is also known as a fighter for his multiple battles with cancer. He has come back from brain cancer and most recently a reoccurrence of Hodgkin’s’ Disease. Throughout his medical treatments, Specter has stayed on the job and focused on his work, receiving chemo treatments on Fridays when he returned home to Philadelphia.
Specter sometimes jokes that his Senate tenure may outlast Strom Thurmond, the conservative political icon from South Carolina who served eight terms in the Senate, retiring on his 100th birthday. He vows to continue his ritual of visiting every one of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties at least one time a year, often more frequently in the populous regions.
Specter will turn 80 on Feb. 12, 2010, three months before the Senate primary. He likely will be challenged from the right wing of his party as he was in 2004 when he came within 14,000 votes of losing the GOP nomination.
His opponent that time was former Lehigh Valley Congressman Pat Toomey. After that near-political death in the primary, however, Specter went on to win handily in the general election against former Democratic Congressman Joe Hoeffel.
Toomey, now the president of the anti-tax and conservative National Club for Growth, is threatening to again take on Specter in the 2010 primary, noting that many moderate Republicans left the party in 2008 to vote in the Democratic presidential primary. He believes that with the party’s remaining right-leaning voters he will fare better against Specter than before.
Even if Toomey does not run, political observers – and Specter himself -- believe that the long-time incumbent will still be challenged from the right in next year’s primary. And there is the potential he could lose the nomination.
In that case, a liberal-to-moderate Democratic nominee would be facing a conservative Republican nominee for what would essentially be an open seat. Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is the only hard-conservative elected statewide in Pennsylvania history and he was soundly defeated in 2006 by moderate Democrat Bob Casey Jr.
So the gamble is on. Does a Democrat coveting a U.S. Senate seat get in early next year (when petitions must be filed and candidacies declared) in hopes that a right-winger will topple the entrenched incumbent in May of next year?
With Democrats just one Senate seat away from a filibuster-proof majority (60 seats), the Republicans can not afford to toss Specter, just because he is a moderate Republican. With 40 or fewer Republicans in the Senate, the party would have no leverage with Democratic President Obama.
“Some Republicans do not believe a challenger can hold the seat in a General and the stakes are too high in the Senate to lose a seat…because the (GOP) has seats (in other states) in play next year,” Ceisler said. “Also, from a Pennsylvania perspective, if the party loses the seat, here is only one elected statewide Republican (Attorney General Tom Corbett).”
Still, there are Democrats pondering a run, among them, according to published reports are: U.S. Reps. Joe Sestak and Allyson Schwartz, both of suburban Philadelphia; Joe Torsella, the outgoing president of the U.S. Constitution Center, Lynn Abrahams, the Philadelphia district attorney who is not seeking re-election.
Two persons who presently hold statewide office are also included on the list: appointed state Treasurer Robin Wiessmann, who leaves office Jan. 20, and state Auditor General Jack Wagner of Pittsburgh, just elected to a second term by a wide margin.
The U.S. House members would be faced with the dilemma of giving up their congressional seats in order to run for the Senate but that would not be the case with Wagner.
A Marine who was severely wounded in combat in Vietnam, Wagner has a large following among veterans. His name has also been mentioned for governor but he has been outflanked in that race financially by front-runner Dan Onorato, the Allegheny County executive who shares the same Pittsburgh base and has $4 million cash on hand. (Wagner has about $325,000).
Two other independently wealthy former business executives, Tom Wolfe of York and Tom Knox of Philadelphia, are also considering the race for governor as is Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham.
Observers think Wagner might find his entry into the U.S. Senate race less daunting than the gubernatorial contest as things now stand and the party might welcome his moderate stand and veteran profile in challenging whoever emerges from the GOP primary – either Specter or a conservative Republican.
Family business Another Costa joins the General Assembly; Meet Dom Costa, hero cop turned politician
What’s the most prevalent name in Pennsylvania politics?
Some might suggest the Casey family of Scranton, the Pennsylvania version of the politically royal Kennedy family (but without the wealth). After all, there’s Robert P. Casey Sr., the late and popular governor and his son, Robert P. Casey, Jr., former state auditor general and now, U.S. senator.
Or the Wagner family of Pittsburgh where Uncle Jack is state auditor general and a potential 2010 candidate for governor or U.S. Senate and niece, Chelsea, is the state representative for their shared neighborhood in Pittsburgh.
But let The Insider suggest another name for consideration: The Costa kin of Allegheny County.
The seats are held by two brothers who were recently joined by one of their cousins:
Let’s introduce the newest Costa, who is still a city resident:
In 1979, Costa applied to several police departments and was accepted as a city police recruit. Ten years later, while working as a plainclothes officer, he stumbled into his niche, when he defused a North Side hostage situation by talking the hostage-taker into surrendering.
During his career, Costa engaged in 150 such situations from would-be jumpers on bridges to criminals who had taken hostages at gunpoint. He exhibited much skill in that regard and it was to such a situation that he entered in February 2002 when he went to a scene in the city’s Homewood section. Officers had gone to arrest a narcotics suspect but the man, Cecil Brookins, had taken refuge on a rooftop with an automatic pistol.
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the time, Costa, after much persuasion, had talked Brookins into coming back into a window of a third-floor apartment, where he was to be arrested, when things went horribly awry.
Brookins pulled a pistol hidden in his waist band and fired on two SWAT officers who were protected by life vests. But Costa, still on the roof, dodged one bullet whizzing past his ear only to be struck by a second that entered through his shoulder. The suspect was shot five times by police officers but survived to stand trial for attempted homicide and other charges.
(Editor’s note: For a full account of the episode see this May, 2003, article on Costa’s recovery. The Post-Gazette keeps its electronic library files open to the public for free, a rarity among newspapers these days: http://www.post-gazette.com/neigh_city/20030504costa0504p1.asp)
Costa remained on disability from the city force until 2005 when he accepted a position as public safety director of Penn Hills, an eastern suburb of the city. He remained in that position until January 2006 when he was appointed by the city’s new mayor, Bob O’Connor, as police chief after passing medical exams.
“..If he’s good enough to take a bullet for this City, he’s good enough to serve as my chief of police,” O’Connor said when appointing Costa.
But shortly after the mayor unexpected fell ill with cancer in July and died on Sept. 1, 2006, Costa offered his resignation to the new mayor, Luke Ravenstahl, citing his deteriorated health, including numbness in his left hand that, he said, made it difficult for him to perform his duties.
"I can't do it anymore -- the pain, I'm losing weight, I just can't do it anymore,” Costa told the Post-Gazette at the time. "I've got numbness in my hands. I guess if I were younger, it would have helped.''
For the brief nine months that he was in the mayor’s cabinet, Dom Costa also served with his cousin, Guy Costa, who is brother to Jay Jr. and Paul and still serves as city public works director.
Still restless after his retirement, Costa began to think of elective office and opportunity knocked when Benninghoff announced she would not seek re-election after winning in 2006 as a reform candidate against veteran state Rep. Frank Pistella, D-Pittsburgh.
The district encompasses parts of the city and some suburban area. The city neighborhoods include Morningside, Stanton Heights, part of Shadyside and part of Lawrenceville as well as the suburban towns of Millvale and Etna and part of Ross Township.
In the primary, Costa faced two opponents with previous electoral success, former city Councilman Len Bodack Jr., son of the former state senator, and Brenda Frazier, who under the Allegheny County charter had to resign as a county council member to seek the new position.
Bodack had been dethroned from his council seat a year earlier by reform candidate Patrick Dowd while Frazier enjoyed limited support in the city portion of the district, including the endorsement of the Post-Gazette.
Costa, a first-time office seeker, used direct mail citing his police experience and citations of heroism to make his case with the Democratic super-voters and it worked – just narrowly.
He won the primary --- which in this district is akin to November election – with 34.7 percent of the vote, versus 33 percent for Bodack and 32.3 percent for Frazier. Costa won by just 273 votes of more than 18,000 cast in the primary.
Now, when he arrived in Harrisburg Jan. 6 to be sworn in, Don Costa knew right where to go if he had any questions. He could simply do dial-a-cousin on his cell phone and get the quick answer.
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