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Local Radar and Maps. Pittsburgh Weather: Warm Temperatures Sticking Around On Wednesday Wednesday will be another pleasant day before rain and possible snow move in this weekend. A Democrat, Bigler ran afoul of abolitionist sentiment after supporting the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed slavery in new western territories. After a constitutional convention in , Pennsylvania governors' terms went to four years, but they could not succeed themselves. Still another constitution in allowed two four-year terms.
Corbett is the first to lose under those rules. Wolf's running mate was State Sen. Mike Stack of Philadelphia, who will replace Lt.
Jim Cawley, a former Bucks County commissioner. Stack has said he might keep his state Senate seat. At his victory party in the Sheet Metal Workers hall in South Philadelphia, he said he might do so for a short period and without accepting two salaries. School funding was an issue Democrats pounded. Wolf voters across the region mentioned it Tuesday.
I can feel it," Kurtz said. But we'll have to keep pressure on him. The block grants would fund "school safety; early learning; science, technology, engineering and mathematics course programming; and 'individual learning. Two leading Republicans, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati and Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi , supported increasing consumer choice but remained unconvinced that the government stores needed to be auctioned off.
State Representative John Taylor R proposed an alternative plan which would introduce more competition into the liquor market but allow a reduced number of the state stores to continue to operate. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local , which represents workers at the government liquor stores, also opposed privatization, while supporters of increased education funding remained divided by the plan.
Polls showed most Pennsylvanians favored privatization. Following its House passage, HB was sent to the Senate. Pileggi reasserted his emphasis on "looking for ways to increase convenience, and selection at a competitive price" rather than privatization. He indicated that the bill would be changed before passage in the Senate. Corbett refused to publicly comment on how he would approach negotiations with the Senate but reaffirmed his support for privatization.
Corbett delivered his budget to the Pennsylvania Legislature in early February Nathan Benefield of the pro-market Commonwealth Foundation commended Corbett for his "fiscal restraint" and asserted that Corbett's leadership had helped revive Pennsylvania's economy, which created jobs at a rate 17 times higher than that of the other 49 states. Benefield also supported Corbett's proposal to eliminate the state's corporate tax.
Tom Corbett endorsed Mitt Romney in the presidential election. When Corbett left the attorney general's office in , he appointed Linda Kelly R to serve as his replacement for the remainder of his term, ending in January When Kelly was sworn in on May 24, , she assumed leadership of the state's high profile investigation into former Penn State football coach and eventual convicted sex-offender Jerry Sandusky, who was charged with 45 counts of sexual abuse committed between and Originating during Corbett's tenure as attorney general in late , the case's revelations about Sandusky reverberated far beyond the boundaries of Penn State's campus, inciting an onslaught of emotional pleas to the state to deliver swift justice in order to begin the healing process.
Despite the mounting pressure from the public and press to advance the investigation to trial as quickly as possible, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, which oversaw the case, proceeded with caution instead of urgency. The case spent two years in controversial gestation under Corbett - and then Kelly - before charges were brought against Sandusky in November On June 22, , a jury convicted Sandusky of 45 out of the 48 counts of sex abuse for which he was indicted, including 25 felonies and 20 misdemeanors.
After the verdict was delivered, Kelly said she was confident Sandusky received a fair trial, notwithstanding the hurried pace of the proceedings, and the defense's request for a mistrial following the prosecution's exposure of an erroneously incriminating interview Sandusky did with Bob Costas - "The commonwealth expects to prevail on any appeal, and as far as the timing, the judge made it clear from the beginning to all the parties that he intended to move this case along quickly," Kelly said on CNN.
Echoing Kelly's defense of the trial's sprint to conclusion, and the dismissed mistrial, Corbett said that he expected these issues to manifest in future appeals, but ultimately, the jury's decision was informed by the "compelling testimony of these now young men who were young boys who suffered at the hands of this pedophile.
Whether or not the handing of the case should be reviewed further was a dominant issue in the attorney general race. Both major party candidates, David Freed R and Kathleen Kane D , said they would review the office's, and Corbett's, performance leading the Sandusky investigation if elected. On the day Corbett took the oath of office as governor, a protest was held in opposition to the threat of forced natural gas pooling laws, which protesters claimed would be on the agenda in the upcoming legislative session.
Gene Stilp, a local political activist who organized the protest, said the legalization of forced pooling would be a violation of constitutionally guaranteed property rights.
Matt Pitzarella, spokesperson for Range Resources, said the pooling can benefit property owners by allowing for more efficient extraction of gas. House Republicans spokesperson Steve Miskin said the forced pooling bill was only one of many issues relating to natural gas drilling which lawmakers would address in the coming months. The bill closed a loophole that allowed a state employee to retire from his job and begin collecting benefits, only to be hired back as a part-time employee while also collecting unemployment compensation after leaving a previous job.
While the law closed a triple-dipping loophole, the changes do not prevent double-dipping, in which a state employee retires, begins collecting pension benefits, and returns to work a part-time position. The increase in pension costs generated several responses from Pennsylvania leaders.
They are not trying to commit waste, fraud and abuse. In December of , Corbett decided against establishing a Pennsylvania-specific health care exchange under the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. He explained that the Obama administration had not satisfactorily addressed various operational questions and concerns Pennsylvania officials had posed with respect to the state-based option. Along with Republican governors such as Chris Christie NJ , Bob McDonnell VA , and Bill Haslam TN , Corbett's primary concern was about the potential cost of independent implementation, and whether the federal government would respect the autonomy states ostensibly earn as an extension of that financial independence [37].
Although he has not officially ceded all other provisional options for states unwilling to participate in the federal health care exchange, which is an online marketplace for citizens to purchase health insurance, Corbett and state lawmakers were unable to agree on an alternative by the December 14, deadline.
Thus, Pennsylvania will enter the federal program by default. Pennsylvania is one of thirty-two states to opt out of a state-based program. In the wake of the historic passage of President Barack Obama 's health care reform legislation on Christmas Eve in , Corbett was one of ten Republican Attorneys General questioning not only the constitutionality of a specific controversial provision within the Senate version of the bill, but also exploring potential legal challenges to the measure as well.
On the same morning President Barack Obama signed into law his health care reform bill, which narrowly passed the United States House of Representatives just two days before, Corbett and twelve other Attorneys General, all but one being Republican , filed suit against the federal government to stop the plan, claiming it was unconstitutional. Nearly two weeks after the United States Justice Department filed suit against the state of Arizona over its anti-illegal immigration law, Senate Bill - The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act SB , contending that it "interferes with federal immigration responsibilities," Corbett joined eight other Republican state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of the measure.
Corbett was one of 13 state attorneys general who initiated a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In August , Thomas D. Kimmet, a former deputy in the Pennsylvania Attorney General 's Office and a ten year veteran of the Department of Revenue, filed a federal civil rights complaint in United States Middle District Court alleging that the state's top law enforcer, Tom Corbett, had violated his constitutional rights.
Furthermore, Kimmet accused Corbett and his lieutenants of preventing him from "correcting inefficiencies in the Office of Attorney General's OAG Financial Enforcement Section FES ," the state's last resort in collect debts and back taxes, that may be costing taxpayers millions of dollars per year.
Corbett denied having any memory of there being significant problems related to the FES and acknowledged that in signing Mr. Kimmet's walking papers in November , he did not see if he had asked for a review of his dismissal. Kimmet charged that the FES was making "fraudulent payouts for services that were unearned or earned improperly by private collection agencies" and that "many debts collected by state agencies were improperly credited to private vendors. He said that Corbett refused to follow up on his investigation into the alteration of FES records in order "to avoid public disclosure of possible criminal misconduct and fraud.
As to the former deputy attorney general's dismissal, the OAG alleged that Mr. Kimmet was a poor manager who routinely acted aggressively toward staff, rejected proposed compromises, and, most importantly, "failed to discharge his responsibilities on a costly and critical technology project. Corbett ran for re-election as governor in In Nov. There were 36 states holding regularly scheduled gubernatorial elections in Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett was considered one of the most likely to face a partisan switch.
He was moved into the top slot on the Washington Post' s endangered list in March , after having been in third place during the prior rating cycle. A July survey taken by Harper Polling showed that just under a quarter of state residents thought Corbett should be elected again in Allyson Schwartz in a hypothetical general election match-up.
These were larger numbers than had been revealed in a similar survey conducted previously by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican-aligned firm. Three other potential Democratic candidates were mentioned in connection with the race: state Rep. Two Republicans were also mentioned as potential primary opponents for Governor Corbett: former radio announcer Tom Lineaweaver and conservative activist Bob Guzzardi. The majority on the court found that Guzzardi had failed to "meet a deadline for filing a statement of financial interests" with the State Ethics Commission and that his campaign filing was therefore unable to be approved.
Businessman Tom Wolf won the Democratic primary, spending on early campaign ads and taking an early lead in polls. Allyson Schwartz finished second. Green Party candidate Paul Glover and Libertarian Party candidate Ken Krawchuk failed to get onto the November general election ballot after failing to collect the 17, required signatures.
Candidates responded to questions regarding education funding, marijuana legalization, voter ID, and the minimum wage.
Corbett countered that half of the job cuts were initiated by predecessor Ed Rendell and some funding was cut due to a decrease in federal funding.
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