Keystone Politics

Grotevant is the best of candidates. He’s not well known but has the pedigree of having worked for both Bob Casey, Sr and Jr. The state Dems will have to spend for his campaign, but a few joint appearances with Sen Casey will go a long way toward helping Grotevant get elected. Regardless of whether the Dem parties in Beaver, Lawrence and Allegheny counties agree on a candidate, expect the state senate Dems to have the last word on approval.  read more »

Opponents of Allegheny County’s 10 percent drink tax on Tuesday delivered what might be twice the 23,006 signatures they need to get a referendum on the November ballot.

The referendum asks voters to slash the tax to 0.5 percent and would compete with another ballot question approved last week by County Council which seeks to replace the drink tax with higher property taxes.  read more »

State Rep. David Levdansky on Tuesday suggested that House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese withdraw from his House race by Monday’s deadline, saying DeWeese has become a “liability” to the Democratic Caucus.

Six other House Democrats have urged DeWeese to step down as majority leader, but Levdansky is the first to publicly ask DeWeese to drop out of his Greene County race against Republican Greg Hopkins as a result of the criminal charges filed last month against 12 people connected to the Democratic Caucus.  read more »

The forgery case that abruptly ended former state Rep. Linda Bebko-Jones’ political career will not prevent her from collecting her state pension of nearly $31,000 a year.

The 62-year-old Democrat pleaded guilty Tuesday in Harrisburg to forging signatures on her nominating petitions in the 2006 primary, and she was sentenced to a year of probation and 200 hours of community service.

The charges to which Bebko-Jones pleaded guilty are violations of the state Election Code. Election-law violations are not on the list of more than 20 crimes that, in the case of a conviction, require Pennsylvania state employees to forfeit their pensions.  read more »

A federal grand jury has indicted the chief of staff of a Philadelphia city councilman on corruption charges.

Christopher Wright, chief of staff to councilman Jack Kelly, has been charged with bribery and honest services fraud. Two real estate developers and their attorney have also been charged.  read more »

They’ve got a 32% approval rating. I’m not complaining – Congress hovers around 9-10%.
The state legislature is suffering from dismal public-approval ratings, and three out of four Pennsylvania voters believe it will not take steps to clean up corruption in the wake of the Bonusgate scandal.

Those are among the results of the latest Quinnipiac University poll, which also found that few voters – only one in 10 – believe that House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D., Greene) should keep his leadership post.  read more »

When ‘‘Hardball’‘ host Chris Matthews hinted in April at his interest in a 2010 Senate bid, it put a scare into the staff of his prospective opponent, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

For good reason. The talk show host trails the five-term Republican by only 5 percentage points in a hypothetical match-up, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday. Specter’s seat is up for election in two years.

Specter, 78, leads Matthews by 41 percent to 36 percent, with 19 percent undecided, the poll of 1,580 Pennsylvania voters found. Conducted from July 30 to Sunday, it has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

A former state lawmaker and her aide avoided jail time by pleading guilty Tuesday to forging signatures on nominating petitions for the 2006 primary.

Linda Bebko-Jones, 62, and a former legislative aide, Mary Fiolek, 60, were each sentenced in Dauphin County to 12 months’ probation and fined $500. They pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of forging and submitting false signatures and criminal conspiracy. Ten other charges were dismissed.

The two admitted creating numerous bogus signatures on at least three different nomination petitions that were attested to as authentic and filed with elections officials. Prosecutors said names were drawn from the Erie phone book and Bebko-Jones’ personal address book.  read more »

A majority of Pennsylvania voters say House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese shares some of the blame for the corruption and other problems in the Legislature and should give up his leadership post.

By 53 percent to 11 percent, Pennsylvanians believe DeWeese should step down, according to the Quinnipiac University poll of nearly 1,600 voters.Our friend Brett Leiberman has offered up a complete rundown of the poll

A slim majority of Pennsylvanians like the job Ed Rendell is doing as governor, but most disapprove of his handling of the budget, and of his plan to give a Spanish company control of the turnpike and put tolls on Interstate 80, a poll shows.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll of voters across the state, released this morning, said 54 percent approve of the job Gov. Rendell is doing. Only 40 percent, though, say he is doing a good job handling the budget. Just 29 percent favor his plans for the turnpike and to make I-80 a toll road.

The legislature, amid the Bonusgate investigation, got approval from only a third of the voters, the poll shows.  read more »

A “TIPPING POINT” is that moment in any venture, trend or course of action when change becomes irreversible.

State House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese, already embattled by a spreading legislative scandal, might have arrived at his. Yesterday, a fellow Democrat, the deputy speaker and a leading voice for legislative reforms, Montgomery County Rep. Josh Shapiro, called for DeWeese’s head.

Whether self-promoting opportunism, a show of splendid political cojones or maybe a little of both, it was, undeniably, an attention-getter.

Question is, does it work?

“I believe it is imperative that Bill DeWeese resign as House majority leader,” Shapiro said in a statement he read to reporters in the lobby of the Capitol newsroom.

The statement was blistering.  read more »

Barack Obama’s campaign has spent millions on advertising in Pennsylvania and set up offices throughout the state. But largely absent so far has been the Democratic presidential candidate himself.

Since wrapping up the nomination in early June, Obama has campaigned in the state just twice — in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh in June.

That compares with a half-dozen stops by GOP rival John McCain in the past two months. The Arizona senator made his latest appearance Monday at a label manufacturer in Montgomery County and is scheduled to return next week.

Where has the Illinois senator been?  read more »

Wow – Shapiro’s a big name to be calling for DeWeese to step down. I thought August would be quiet but it looks like things are still heating up.
Pronouncing him a political liability who could cost the Democrats control of the state House this fall, state Rep. Josh Shapiro, D-Montgomery, has called on embattled state House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese to give up his leadership post.

Shapiro, 38, of suburban Abington, considered one of the party’s rising stars, has become the fifth House Democrat to call on DeWeese to step aside as a result of the burgeoning scandal known as “Bonusgate.”  read more »

The entire article from the Sunday Patriot-News is worth a read.
But to many observers, the onus now is on Corbett and his staff to prove that he has looked just as hard at Republicans in the Legislature — even those 2004-era decision-makers who supported and steered dollars into his campaign for attorney general.

“It’s not partisan in the sense that the cases look pretty sound,” said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College. But “if this was going on on the Democratic side, you have to wonder if similar practices were going on somewhere else.”

Moments after Army Lt. Col. William Russell ended his 28-year military career, the Iraq war veteran revved up his Harley-Davidson and set out on an improbable journey.

In his first political outing, Russell is trying to topple a political giant.

The 45-year-old Republican this weekend kicked off his campaign against U.S. Rep. John Murtha, 76, of Johnstown, a powerful Democrat and decorated Vietnam War veteran seeking a 19th term.

Some interesting thoughts here, but I think in the end the Democratic registration advantage means Obama takes Pennsylvania fairly easily.
When Democrat Barack Obama was somewhere between Baghdad and Berlin last week, Republican John McCain was in a far less exotic locale: Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Sticking to his favorite format-the town hall meeting-McCain made it clear that despite a vastly expanded Democratic registration advantage in the Keystone state, the GOP is buoyed by Obama’s less than decisive lead in state polls.  read more »

I think I can hear Castille screaming from miles away …

Anti-casino activists yesterday filed a complaint against state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille, accusing him of breaching judicial ethics by blasting the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit accusing his predecessor of colluding with the legislature to secure judicial pay raises.  read more »

As a state grand jury investigation continues, House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese is urging voters to remember he hasn’t been accused of any crimes related to alleged widespread corruption in the Democratic Caucus he heads.

In his July campaign newsletter, DeWeese, D-Greene County, tells voters the “grand jury findings did not contain any information that Bill knew about the behavior.”

“It’s a consummate piece of damage control,” said Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown. He added: “There’s nothing I’ve seen tying him to the criminal activity, but the criminal activity took place under his nose.”  read more »

The drowning of a teenager living in Warminster has revived debate over a decision earlier this year to eliminate lifeguards at virtually all state park beaches.

Eric Williams, 17, was swimming in Fuller Lake at a Cumberland County state park with a group of youths when he suddenly disappeared as they were getting out of the water around 4 p.m. Tuesday.

The teens were from the Valley Youth House, an Allentown-based center for treating at-risk youths. Williams was living at one of the center’s emergency shelters.

“The counselor went to look again and didn’t see the boy,” David Gilgoff, Valley Youth House president, said. Gilgoff said Williams was a good swimmer. Gilgoff said he could not disclose details about the youth’s family.  read more »

As the lobbying battle in Washington heats up over a proposal to place tolls on I-80, a leading opponent met yesterday with the head of the federal agency that is considering Pennsylvania’s application.

U.S. Rep. John Peterson (R., Pa.) urged acting Federal Highway Administrator Jim Ray to deny the application. Peterson’s constituents in northwestern Pennsylvania, along the I-80 corridor, fear that tolls would mean economic ruin for the region.

Meanwhile, most of the Philadelphia area’s representatives in Congress are supporting the tolls, in preference to leasing the Pennsylvania Turnpike for $12.8 billion to a Spanish-U.S. consortium, as proposed by Gov. Rendell.  read more »