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INSIDER INFO -- JULY 2009
A Bridge to . . .Somewhere
Gladiators chosen
Is there a curse?
Four Corners of Pennsylvania and more
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A Bridge to . . .Somewhere
After weeks of angst and with no real progress in sight, Rendell resorts to budget trickery to pay workers
With his approval rating plummeting and state workers protesting outside the state Capitol with signs such as “Pay Up, Fat Boy!” and “Budget Hostage” with a depiction of a tent city as “Rendellville,” the governor has finally said:
“Uncle.”
Well not quite uncle, but maybe, “Unc.”
Rendell this week said he would enact what he called a “bridge” budget as the larger 2009-2010 fiscal spending plan impasse continues. Just a week earlier, he had dismissed such an option as just a band-aid or an aspirin.
Rendell’s plan would allow most state workers to be paid and most state vendors’ bills to be processed while negotiations continue.
“I don’t want anyone to think that this is a potential final budget,” Rendell said in announcing his plan on Wednesday.
The Democratic governor said he will take that budget – which he had previously derided as Draconian and out of balance – and sign it after the passage in the Democrat-controlled House. Then he will veto a huge chunk of it, but he will keep in general operating funds which provides payroll for most state workers’ payroll. If that happens, paychecks can start flowing again to state workers by the second week in August.
Of an estimated 700 separate line-items in the general fund budget, Rendell projected he would blue-line all but 75 appropriations – just enough to keep state government operating on a skeleton basis.
Left on the cutting room floor to continue pressure on the Legislature to reach a compromise would be the multitude of other budget items -- public school subsidies, human service funding to counties and even the General Assembly’s appropriation for its own operation.
The conference committee which is supposed to resolve the state budget impasse held its first meeting Wednesday at the state Capitol with a new twist – the proceedings are public and are being televised by the Pennsylvania Cable Network and in steaming video over the Internet.
The six-member panel consists of three Republicans and three Democrats. Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, appointed:
On Friday, the conference heard testimony from its own legislative budget and polity advisors on education issues. The two sides are far apart on the state funding for public education.
In his Wednesday announcement, despite preaching that the two sides must put aside their political posturing and inflexibility, he couldn’t help fueling the partisan fires by mocking the Republican Senate which has refused to consider new revenues, including his unpopular proposal to raise the state income tax.
“This is not the time to score points. Doesn’t anyone understand that,” Rendell said.
“This shouldn’t be theater. I shouldn’t be a circus.”
Rendell made a lame attempt to install humor in his criticism, saying the Republicans were on “Fantasy Island” and that at any minute he expected them to send in the late actor Riccardo Montalban who starred on the 1970s TV series in which travelers to the tropic island saw their fantasies come true.
Back at the conference committee, the two sides continued to argue about nearly everything, including how the state can legally spend about $3 billion coming into the state because of the federal stimulus bill passed in February.
Republicans want to use those funds to fill in “gaps” in the budget caused by reduced revenues from the recession. Democrats argued that any use of federal stimulus money is supposed to be earmarked for “new” spending, not old spending. They said that means that anything paid for with stimulus funds now would require that state taxpayers to pick up that cost after stimulus funds expire in two to three years.
State House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans, D-Philadelphia, used a little budget humor to try to break the ice between the two hardened sides.
“If history holds true, the next governor is probably going to be a Republican,” Evans told the Republican conferees. “We’re just trying to help ya’all!”
A clearer picture has emerged of who will be the likely combatants for a state Senate seat that will soon be vacated by Rob Wonderling, a Republican from Montgomery County.
Democrats have coalesced around Glenn Reibman, 62, a former two-term county executive from Northampton County, while Republicans have mostly rallied around state Rep. Bob Mensch, 63, a state representative from Marlborough Township, Montgomery County.
The district covers all or parts of Montgomery, Bucks, Lehigh and Northampton counties. The special election will be held on Sept. 29, acting Lt. Gov. Joe Scarnati announced.
Each party will hold a special committee conference to pick one candidate to go on the ballot. These committee selections are expected to occur shortly. At one time, as many as seven potential candidates expressed interest in the race.
Right now, the Republicans hold a majority in the 50-member Senate by 10 seats – a 30-20 margin. They would retain that if Mensch wins, but if Reibman wins the margin would be reduced slightly to 29-21.
Mensch’s path to the GOP nomination was cleared when his chief potential rival, Bruce Castor, the Montgomery County commissioner and former district attorney, withdrew from the race as did former state Rep. Jay Moyer of Montgomery County.
Castor, who left his high-profile post as DA in 2007 to run for county commissioner, has found himself ostracized from the decision-making process in the county when his fellow Republican, Jim Mathews, teamed with Democrat Joe Hoeffel in a power-sharing arrangement.
In a prepared statement announcing his withdrawal from the Senate race, Castor blasted the present hybrid leadership in the county as leading it down a path of fiscal calamity. He said he is staying put so he can help address what he projected would be a $50 million shortfall in next year’s county budget.
The two responded by saying that Castor’s criticism was a diversion from the reality that he failed to get any party support outside Montgomery County where he remains popular with both one party faction and the public.
“Now that he realizes he’s not going anywhere, he wants to work as a team, I think that’s great,” Hoeffel told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “If he wants to remain negative and obstructionist, that’s his choice.”
Matthews was more blunt is his reaction as reported in the Inquirer: “I will not be road kill for his ambitions. He can say whatever he wants but he doesn’t understand county government and I can certainly understand why our neighboring counties chose not to go with him for state Senate.”
Indeed, Castor if he pressed on with the contest likely would have gotten most of the delegates from Montgomery but he had little or no chance from the other three counties where prominent Republican fund-raiser, Bob Asher, had orchestrated opposition to his candidacy.
Castor and Asher have long been involved in a political feud since Asher supported fellow Republican Tom Corbett for state attorney general in 2004 over his home county prosecutor. Asher is the state’s Republican National Committeeman and he wields considerable clout in GOP circles.
Castor made Asher’s many political friends his enemies during the 2004 campaign when he blasted Corbett’s ties to Asher in a television commercial citing a two-decade old felony conviction from Asher’s days as state party chairman in the 1980s.
That conviction in the so-called CTA scandal involved alleged promises of party campaign contributions in exchange for a state contract. But the conviction of Asher has long been disputed in political circles because the donations were never made. Asher spent one year in federal prison and became active again in state politics with Tom Ridge’s 1994 campaign for governor.
It was widely expected that Asher would work against Castor’s candidacy through his relationships with the party chairmen in the other three counties. The third potential candidate, Moyer, acknowledged as much when he told reporters in announcing his withdrawal: “I can count votes too.”
On the Democratic side, Reibman’s candidacy has been percolating for weeks behind the scenes with party leaders. Reibman has been the policy and planning director the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Authority since leaving county government in 2005.
He hails from Northampton County but has the unified support of all four Democratic Party chairman, including Marcel Groan of Montgomery County which makes up a 31 percent chunk of the Senate District. That is the largest percentage of the four counties.
Reibman’s candidacy emerged after state Rep. Bob Freeman, D-Easton, the original front-runner began wavering on whether he would run. Freeman, a long-time state representative, presently serves as chairman of the state House Local Government Committee and was reluctant to give up that post to become a minority member of the Senate.
A third potential Democratic candidate, Ken Mohr, a former Lehigh County commissioner and administrator, also announced he is withdrawing from the race.
Democrats believe they have a more than fighting chance to win given the swing electorate in the district. Both suburban Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley have been trending more Democratic in the last decade.
But the decision to hold the election on Sept. 29 rather than four weeks later on Nov. 3, the date of the general election, came under fire Wednesday on the floor of the Senate.
State Sen. Vincent Hughes aimed his criticism at Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, a Republican, who serves as the state’s lieutenant governor since the death last year of Catherine Baker Knoll, a Democrat.
Hughes said that while the state would reimburse the counties for the cost of the special elections, it was senseless to do so since the general election is just four weeks later.
Gov. Rendell weighed in that same day with a letter to Scarnati asking him to reconsider the expenditure in light of the Republican calls for severe cuts in state spending. He said there would likely be only seven to nine session days in the four weeks between Sept. 29 and Nov. 3 and the expenditure of an estimated $375,000 for the special election in order to have the district’s voters represented for that short a period is not justified.
Republicans, when they have control of the process, have long employed a strategy of picking obscure dates for special elections because traditional patterns have shown Republicans are more likely to show up for the low-turnout elections which are always held on Tuesdays.
Is there a curse? Despite having a higher profile than other statewide row officers, no Pa. attorney general has ever been elected governor
Pennsylvania has had just four people elected state attorney general since the state constitution was changed in 1980, filling the office of the state’s chief law enforcement officer by a statewide popular election rather than the previous method of appointment by the governor as a member of his cabinet.
All of those elected have been men and they have all been Republicans. The GOP has had an easier time with voters in this race because most perceive the attorney general as a super district attorney and Republicans as tougher on crime and punishment than Democrats.
The first attorney general, Leroy S. Zimmerman, did not run for governor during his second term or after he left office. The second, Ernie Preate, tried and failed to win the GOP primary midway through his second term. The third attorney general, Mike Fisher, had no opposition in the primary but faltered in the general election.
Both Preate and Fisher lost their bids despite having two statewide wins in general elections prior to running for governor.
He is emboldened by a good showing in his bid for re-election last year where he won by six percentage points statewide even as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama carried the state by 10 percentage points.
In addition to its highest office, governor, Pennsylvanians also elect three other executive offices in statewide elections – attorney general, auditor general and state treasurer. Of the three so-called row offices, the attorney general typically has the highest profile.
That may be especially true for Corbett who has the added benefit of a widely-publicized political corruption probe, Bonusgate, which is being prosecuted by his office. So far 12 Democrats have been indicted in that state-pay-for-campaign-work scandal. The trial of the highest indicted official, former state Minority Leader Mike Veon, is scheduled to start in January – just as the gubernatorial campaigns move into high gear.
Because of its prominence and capacity for publicity, attorneys generals in many other states routinely are elected governor. But it has never happened in Pennsylvania.
So is there a curse attached to the attorney general’s office when it comes to seeking the governorship?
One of the state’s leading political experts thinks it’s too early to see such a pattern in attorneys general running for governor.
“There have only been two that have tried. I wouldn’t put a whole lot of stock in any curse on the attorney general’s office from that,” said Chris Borick, a statewide political expert from Muhlenberg College.
The gubernatorial election in 2010 could be an “intuitive test of that theory if Corbett emerges as the GOP nominee,” said Terry Madonna, a political analyst and pollster at Franklin and Marshall College.
Other factors will come in to play as well, Madonna said. Among them is the current record high voter registration edge for Democrats who have 1.2 million more registered voters than do Republicans in Pennsylvania.
Another factor is the national economy and mood. In the even-numbered election year when a president’s term is not on the ballot, the party that controls the While House tends to lose seats in Congress. That pattern can trickle down to the state and local level as well.
Another factor could be how voters perceive the current holder of the governor’s office and whether they punish or reward that party’s nominee to succeed him. Madonna calls it the “fatigue factor.”
Democrat Ed Rendell’s approval rating is currently at a record low thanks to the state’s withering economy, a state budget impasse and his unpopular call to temporarily raise the state’s personal income tax 16 percent so state government can weather the current recession.
Borick agreed that Pennsylvanians may be suffering from Rendell fatigue and added there was little doubt that the “nasty economy and a brutal budget fight have taken a toll on his numbers in surveys of his approval rating.”
Still, he does not think the Republican candidate can be successful just by arguing that the election of the Democratic nominee will simply be “a third term for Rendell.” To avoid that, Borick said the Democratic candidate will have to come up with an identity and campaign theme of his own to differentiate himself from Rendell.
He expects Rendell will have a low-key profile in the election for his successor and that his main role will be fund-raising for the state party and all Democratic candidates, including the gubernatorial nominee.
In some gubernatorial candidates, most notably in 1978 when Republican Dick Thornburgh ran on a theme of anti-crime and political corruption, the strong points of a prosecutor have prevailed with voters.
But Madonna predicted that the 2010 election will be one in which “the economy will easily trump all other issues.”
“Attorneys general do not have extensive economic backgrounds and that will be one of Tom Corbett’s challenges if he becomes the Republican candidate for governor,” Madonna said.
At the moment, Corbett does not have a clear path to the nomination. U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach of Chester County has announced he won’t seek re-election but will instead run for governor and former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan of Delaware County has formed a gubernatorial exploratory committee.
Four Corners of Pennsylvania and more Political news you can use
Southeastern Pennsylvania
Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan will challenge U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent next year in a Lehigh Valley district that can swing to either party. Dent is one of a vanishing breed of moderate Republicans in Congress. Callahan, who is seeking election to a third term as mayor this year, has been courted to run for the seat since Dent was first elected in 2004 but this time he acquiesced, formally announcing on July 25. The race is being billed as the biggest in the district in 17 years and a Callahan vs. Dent match-up in such a key swing district is expected to attract national attention. Callahan’s mayoral tenure has seen big change in the valley’s second largest city, including the conversion of the former Bethlehem Steel plant into a retail, restaurant and entertainment complex anchored by a Sands casino which opened to favorable reviews this summer. Dent was an opponent of slot machine gambling in the state.
Southwestern Pennsylvania
Former State House Minority Leader Mike Veon lost his bid to have the multiple corruption charges against him thrown out of court based on selective prosecution.
The ruling by Dauphin County Common Pleas Judge Richard Lewis negates 46 subpoenas that the defense had issued to potential witnesses in its efforts to prove its legal defense for Veon that many others in the General Assembly indulged in the same practices for which Veon faces a potential sentence of decades in prison. Veon’s defense attorneys said they will appeal the ruling to state Superior Court. Veon and seven other defendants are scheduled for trial in January. They are charged with using the state House payroll to encourage and reward employees for political activity engaged in during state time with payments that were disguised as “bonuses.”
Northwestern Pennsylvania
Former state gubernatorial candidate Peg Luksik who will seek the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate in 2010 visited Erie this week. She said it is part of a 30-city tour in which she is hosting “get acquainted” gatherings organized by supporters and making herself available to local media outlets. Luksik, a mother of six and a prominent anti-abortion advocate, runs Mom’s House, a refuge for unwed mothers, in Johnstown. She will challenge GOP front-runner Pat Toomey, a former Lehigh Valley congressman, who nearly beat Arlen Specter in the primary six years ago. Specter, a moderate from Philadelphia who will seek a fifth term next year, switched to the Democratic Party earlier this year after GOP outrage over his vote for President Obama’s economic stimulus package.
Northeastern Pennsylvania
The former wife of Senate Minority Leader Robert Mellow has asked the court in Lackawanna County to force her ex-husband to pay more than the $2,600 a month they agreed to in 2006 because he has had a bump in his income since then. Diane Mellow, 64, who was married to Mellow for 40 years, cited recent newspaper revelations that he sold his half interest in a building where his district office is located for $350,000 last year. She had owned that interest until the divorce when it transferred to Mellow. She also cited the fact that he now gets income from sitting on the boards of a local bank holding company and Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The later pays an annual stipend of between $25,000 and $36,000. Mellow’s co-ownership of the building that houses his district office has put him under a cloud because it appears to violate a 1990 state Ethics Commission ruling that specifically prohibits the practice.
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