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Corbett, T Gov

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beat by green dem?  (tho pro frack?)

not in koch midwest gov club? ran state into ground like ___?

AN 2 26

In the days since President Donald Trump called for the federal government to “nationalize” elections, two former high ranking officials from Pennsylvania, former Gov. Tom Corbett and former U.S. District Court Judge John Jones III, have spoken out.

Both have a history in Republican politics. Corbett was the last Republican governor of the commonwealth, leaving office in 2015, and Jones ran as a Republican for Congress before being appointed to the U.S. District Court bench by GOP President George W. Bush.

But that hasn’t stopped them from speaking out against the party’s current standard bearer, President Trump, especially when it comes to matters pertaining to elections.

The two have been involved with a nonprofit called Keep Our Republic, which was founded in 2020 to push back on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud through civic education and work with elections officials in swing states.

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Corbett and Jones spoke to the Capital-Star about what the U.S. Constitution says about what powers the federal government has to administer elections (unambiguously, very little), and their concerns and hopes for the 2026 election as the Trump administration continues to sow distrust in its potential outcome.

“The constitution’s pretty clear that the manner of the elections is left up to the states, and not to the federal government,” Corbett said. “The president would like to have it differently, but I don’t think he can have it differently.”

Elaborating on his comment that he’d like to “nationalize” elections, Trump named Philadelphia as a county he would like to see the federal government have a presence. Philadelphia was also a target of Trump’s unprecedented efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, cited in numerous failed lawsuits and false claims about widespread fraud.

But Corbett, who also served as Pennsylvania Attorney General, says Article I, Section Four of the Constitution spells out unambiguously that election administration is a power given to states and their legislatures, not the Executive Branch or Congress.

“We can wish to win the lottery, but it’s not gonna happen,” Corbett said of Trump’s goals. “Unless he’s found some scholar who thinks it can be done, and he can say, ‘Well, that scholar says it can,’ I don’t think there’s anything there.”

Trump and his allies notably did cite fringe legal theories in some of their attempts to overturn the 2020 election. However, they did not pass muster in courts.

That’s why Corbett’s not particularly concerned about the federal government taking over elections in part of the state, despite what Trump has said and may even attempt.

“I think the courts would become very involved, very quickly,” Corbett said. “They’re not gonna agree with just allegations. They’re gonna be looking for facts.”

And Corbett is confident that federal courts would uphold state and local governments’ abilities to administer elections on their own terms. As precedent, he cited the dozens of lawsuits brought by Trump in 2020 attempting to have the results of that year’s election dismissed or overturned. Virtually all were thrown out, and a number resulted in disciplinary actions against lawyers working for the president.

But Corbett isn’t convinced Trump’s end goal is to have the federal government administer elections.

“I don’t know the president personally, and I’ve never read his book, “The Art of the Deal,” but I think this is a negotiation tactic on his part,” he said. “I’m not sure what the endgame is at the moment … But I think it’s a political ploy.”

The goal, Corbett said, could be to get access to state voter rolls, or an attempt to push states to require voter ID, something Corbett is in favor of for Pennsylvania.

I think the courts would become very involved, very quickly. They’re not gonna agree with just allegations. They’re gonna be looking for facts.

– Former Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett

Still, the former governor acknowledges that Trump’s rhetoric, along with his administration’s push to investigate the 2020 election, despite numerous judges finding no evidence of fraud, have put the country in “uncharted waters.”

“We’ve never been here,” he said. “If you’re asking me for a prediction, to a certain extent, I can’t predict. What I can say is, ‘This is what’s happened in the past.’ And I’m confident that [judges and elections officials] will do what they’re supposed to do — what they’re legally obligated to do — until somebody demonstrates that’s a wrong confidence.”

As a former federal judge, Jones, who is now the president of Dickson College in Carlisle, brings a different perspective to the discussion than Corbett, a former prosecutor. He heard about Trump’s call to “nationalize” elections shortly before appearing on CNN to discuss the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Weaponization taskforce” — a team assembled by the Trump administration to look into prior federal investigations of the president and his allies.

However, just before air, the anchor asked Jones if he could pivot to discuss Trump’s latest comments about the election. Despite some concern from his communications team, Jones agreed to discuss the new topic.

“When I went on CNN central, I said to the anchor who was interviewing me, ‘I mean this respectfully but very directly, the president of the United States needs to read the Constitution,’” Jones said. “It’s pretty clear from the overwhelming pushback since then that everyone recognizes you can not, without a constitutional amendment, ‘nationalize’ elections to the extent the federal government takes over. That’s just a nonstarter.”

Ballots and voting machines are seen at the Allegheny County Elections warehouse in Pittsburgh Nov. 20, 2024 (Capital-Star photo)

Like Corbett, Jones is confident in the ability of U.S. courts to stop the administration from taking illegal steps to exert powers over elections. He points to cases both in the aftermath of the 2020 election and during the current second Trump administration, where lower court judges displayed a willingness to stand up to the president and his policies under difficult circumstances.

“The lower courts have done extremely well with an onslaught of executive orders that have been issued since last year,” he said. “You’ve seen what’s happening in Minnesota. The lower courts are inundated with these cases, and they’re handling them in the face of frankly ICE disregarding court orders … That’s not easy when you’re on the bench.”

However, Jones sounds less optimistic than Corbett about the upcoming election.

“I think that given how imperiled the administration feels it will be with a Democratic majority in Congress, you’re going to see them use every tool in the toolbox to disrupt the election,” Jones said. “I’m sorry to say that, but that’s probably the reality we’re facing.”

Jones cited recent actions by Trump such as seizing material related to the 2020 election from Fulton County, Georgia, another county the president has repeatedly targeted like Philadelphia. He also cited a recent interview in which Trump said he “regrets” not having the national guard seize voting machines following the 2020 election.

Jones also pointed to Jan. 6, 2021, as proof that Trump may be unwilling to accept election results that he doesn’t view favorably. Though following the attack on the U.S. Capitol, Congress passed a law clarifying that the vice president can not, as Trump insisted, overturn the results of an election.

And, he notes, there are steps the federal government can take to influence voting, short of administering an election itself.

Gov. Josh Shapiro speaks with former Gov. Tom Corbett at the 2025 Eradicate Hate Global Summit in Pittsburgh on September 16, 2025. (Photo courtesy of PAcast)

“There are ways to sort of chip around the outside of this that I think may predict that there’s some trouble ahead,” Jones said. He pointed specifically to efforts to seize voter role information in states like Minnesota, which Jones noted he struggles to see legal justification for, or how it could make an election safer.

“What are we doing here?” Jones said. “Is this to delegitimize the election consistent with Trump’s narrative? Good luck with that because it’s been investigated and reinvestigated. Or maybe it’s to intimidate people.”

Jones repeatedly pointed to the dozens of failed cases brought by Trump in 2020 , none of which were able to turn up evidence of large-scale voter fraud that Trump continues to allege took place.

And, like Corbett, that history, both in court and in local election bureaus, is what gives Jones hope.

“By and large, my experience is Pennsylvania county commissioners, heads of election bureaus, councilors, solicitors, they really want to get it right,” Jones said. “So despite all the noise, so to speak, I’m going to put my faith in the 67 counties and their ability to conduct an election.”

from newbook ggl doc:

Tom Corbett, AG of Pennsylvania under Tom Ridge (he later became governor, the third in a row in the pockets of fossil fuel): Packer Township passed an ordinance to prevent toxic sewage sludge from being used on farmland after two teenage boys died from staph infections. Sludge is what's left over when a sewage treatment has done the job it's designed to do, which is to break down organic matter to the point that it's no longer smelly and dangerous. The problem is that non-organic toxic materials get dumped into drains from factories, hospitals and even households, and those get concentrated in the sludge. So there are two problems, it's toxic and there's quite a lot of it. “  contains PCBs, pesticides, dioxins, heavy metals, bacteria, asbestos, petroleum products and industrial solvents, to name a few of the more than 60,000 contaminants. “ ( cite celdf). Until the Eighties the common practice was to dump barges twelve miles offshore, and then 106 but only four years later the practice was so dangerous that it was banned by Congress (“the solution to pollution is dilution”) The “economic” solution (estimated at 11 billion dollars a year) is to give it away to farmers use as fertilizer, but when it gets sprayed the pathogens get airborne (presumably if too much is used over too long it contaminates streams and aquifers as well).

Given the dangers, and the reluctance of Federal (“biosolids are exempt from Clean Water Act) and the state to protect them (sixteen states have laws that prevent cities from enacting stricter rules, probably all based on ALEC model “Right to Farm” model bills, backed by agribiz such as Cargill, ADM and Du Pont, as well as Koch brothers, CAFO).

(they may have been asking for trouble in declaring corporations do not have the same Constitutional rights of people in the township). EPA says they can't be sure it's safe, and for a long time relied on dubious studies from the Eighties; even now they only look at nine contaminates.. In 2007, prompted by corporate farmers, Corbett sued another township with a similar ordinance, but then they decided to only regulate it a bit, restricting the hours it can be spread and requiring notification, so Corbett sued them again for passing rules more stringent than the state's; they settled, so now the township can prevent application on certain days, for example major holidays. He sued half a dozen or so other townships on related issues. Corbett became governor. with a wholesale sellout to fracking.

A poster boy for this "escalator effect" is Tim Griffin (or maybe better, the incubator, as he was not AG but US Attorney (aka federal prosecutor), head law enforcement officer for a given district part of the Department of Justice. Appointed by the president and confirmed by Senate, for a century, this was amended by Strom Thurmond under Reagan, and again amended by the USA PATRIOT Act in 2007.

Griffin, Tulane FedSoc, got in by working his way up as a political operative in 1999 joining RNC to do opposition research under Barbara Comstock [one of three, one married to Ted Olsen and died on Flight 93], Nailed Cisneros (an upcoming and charismatic Latino Democrat)

[aside, sordid little tale, interesting to compare and contrast to Whitewater and Bimbogate: multiple MA's from JFK School at harvard and MIT, PhD GWU 1976, infantry officer in the Army. Cisneros was an effective mayor of San Antonio, tapped by Clinton for HUD during vetting he told the FBI he'd had an affair with a married woman, and had agreed to help support her and her daughter (not his?). When he curtailed payments, she sold the story to Fox news for $15,000. Clinton initially refused to accept his resignation in 1997, but he resigned later that year. Caving under pressure, in 1995 Janet Reno appointed a special prosecutor, assisted by Griffin). The investigation meandered on for four years , costing nearly ten million taxpayer dollars (23 million?) until Congress refused to continue; however, in 1999 with two children in college and another with considerable medical expenses, Cisneros could no longer afford to fight and settled for a single misdemeanor count of lying to the FBI (about the amount of money) and a 10,000 dollar fine. The mistress committed bank fraud with some of the money she got rom Cisneros, and he went into real estate and Univision.

Hired by RNC 1999 with a specialty in opposition research, for Barbara Comstock (had worked for Burton on clinton attacks, Gore dossier)

Helped out in Florida recount by challenging the votes of blacks

but then worked for Bush, Rove and Cheney in the White House OPA, notably shepherding confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts;

2004 caging votes (eg Jacksonville base). Smears On Kerry

In 2006 he was rewarded by Rove with a US Attorney job in Alabama even though he had little actual prosecutorial experience (he had only been assisted on three cases, none of which went to trial) [seems like a demotion, but Rove had been working for a while to flip state, often reworking the state legal system; if you control the courts, you can change districts and voting procedures]. he managed to leverage that into being elected to the House, even though he had tearfully resigned (day after BBC story on caging appeared) after it became clear he got the job only after his predecessors had been fired for no reason (as opposed to Iglesias who refused to prosecute non-existent voter fraud, or Carolyn sp Lam who was fired for being too aggressive in going after GOP corruption, e.g. Duke Cunningham who had a bribery menu on his website). Odd to get Ways and Means committee so soon? Considerable Koch money, cheerleading for XL Pipeline, which hansen says will be “game over” for the planet.

Tim Griffin:

FedSoc leader Tulane

Cisneros

1999 RNC opps res 30 staff Comstock?

Bush-Cheney 2000 Recount

Bush rewarded Griffin in March 2001 with the job of special assistant to Michael Chertoff

US Atty office Little Rock 2001

RNC 2002

2005 OPA Roberts nom

2006 US Atty Eastern Distr AK

House ways and means: oil, finance. Koch, CFG, TP?

COOCH

But even more relevant to climate in Ken “Cooch” Cucinnelli. His father was an energy executive, and he attended GMU (Koch funded). energy lobbyist?

end ggl

world’s biggest and most profitable fossil fuel companies are receiving huge and rising subsidies from U.S. taxpayers, a practice slammed as absurd by a presidential candidate given the threat of climate change.

A Guardian investigation of three specific projects, run by Shell, ExxonMobil and Marathon Petroleum, has revealed that the subsidizes were all granted by politicians who received significant campaign contributions from the fossil fuel industry.

The Guardian has found that:

A proposed Shell petrochemical refinery in Pennsylvania is in line for $1.6bn (£1bn) in state subsidy, according to a deal struck in 2012 when the company made an annual profit of $26.8bn.

ExxonMobil’s upgrades to its Baton Rouge refinery in Louisiana are benefitting from $119m of state subsidy, with the support starting in 2011, when the company made a $41bn profit.

A jobs subsidy scheme worth $78m to Marathon Petroleum in Ohio began in 2011, when the company made $2.4bn in profit.

“At a time when scientists tell us we need to reduce carbon pollution to prevent catastrophic climate change, it is absurd to provide massive taxpayer subsidies that pad fossil-fuel companies’ already enormous profits,” said senator Bernie Sanders, who announced on 30 April he is running for president.

Sanders, with representative Keith Ellison, recently proposed an End Polluter Welfare Act, which they say would cut $135bn of US subsidies for fossil fuel companies over the next decade. “Between 2010 and 2014, the oil, coal, gas, utility, and natural resource extraction industries spent $1.8bn on lobbying, much of it in defense of these giveaways,” according to Sanders and Ellison.

In April, the president of the World Bank called for the subsidies to be scrapped immediately as poorer nations were feeling “the boot of climate change on their neck”. Globally in 2013, the most recent figures available,the coal, oil and gas industries benefited from subsidies of $550bn, four times those given to renewable energy.

“Subsidies to fossil fuel companies are completely inappropriate in this day and age,” said Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, an NGO that analyses the costs of fossil fuels. OCI found in 2014 that US taxpayers were subsidizing fossil fuel exploration and production alone by $21bn a year. In 2009, President Barack Obama called on the G20 to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies but since then UN federal subsidies have risen by 45%.

“Climate science is clear that the vast majority of existing reserves will have to stay in the ground,” Kretzmann said. “Yet our government spends many tens of billions of our tax dollars – every year – making it more profitable for the fossil fuel industry to produce more.”

Tax credits, defined as a subsidy by the World Trade Organization, are a key route of support for the fossil fuel industry. Using the subsidy tracker tool created by the Good Jobs First group, the Guardian examined some of the biggest subsidies for specific projects.

Shell’s proposed $4bn plant in Pennsylvania is set to benefit from tax credits of $66m a year for 25 years. Shell has bought the site and has 10 supply contracts in place lasting up to 20 years, including from fracking companies extracting shale gas in the Marcellus shale field. The deal was struck by the then Republican governor, Tom Corbett, who received over $1m in campaign donations from the oil and gas industry. According to Guardian analysis of data compiled by Common Cause Pennsylvania, Shell have spent $1.2m on lobbying in Pennsylvania since 2011.

A Shell spokesman said: “Shell supports and endorses incentive programs provided by state and local authorities that improve the business climate for capital investment, economic expansion and job growth. Shell would not have access to these incentive programs without the support and approval from the representative state and local jurisdictions.”

ExxonMobil’s Baton Rouge refinery is the second-largest in the US. Since 2011, it has been benefitting from exemptions from industrial taxes, worth $118.9m over 10 years, according to the Good Jobs First database. The Republican governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal has expressed his pride in attracting investment from ExxonMobil. In state election campaigns between 2003 and 2013, he received 231 contributions from oil and gas companies and executives totaling $1,019,777, according to a list compiled by environmental groups.

A spokesman for ExxonMobil said: “ExxonMobil will not respond to Guardian inquiries because of its lack of objectivity on climate change reporting demonstrated by its campaign against companies that provide energy necessary for modern life, including newspapers.”

The Guardian is running a campaign asking the world’s biggest health charities, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, to sell their fossil fuel investments on the basis that it is misguided to invest in companies dedicated to finding more oil, gas and coal when current reserves are already several times greater than can be safely burned. Many philanthropic organizations have already divested from fossil fuels, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund whose wealth derives from Standard Oil, which went on to become ExxonMobil.

In Ohio, Marathon Petroleum is benefitting from a 15-year tax credit for retaining 1,650 jobs and a 10-year tax credit for creating 100 new jobs. The subsidy is worth $78.5m, according to the Good Jobs First database. “I think Marathon always wanted to be here,” Republican governor John Kasich said in 2011. “All we’re doing is helping them.” In 2011,

Kasich was named as the top recipient of oil and gas donations in Ohio, having received $213, 519. The same year Kasich appointed Marathon Petroleum’s CEO to the board of Jobs Ohio, a semi-private group “in charge of the economic growth in the state of Ohio”.

A spokesman for Marathon Petroleum said: “The tax credit recognizes the enormous contribution we make to the Ohio economy through the taxes we pay and the well-paying jobs we maintain. We have more than doubled the 100 new jobs we committed to create.” The spokesman said the company paid billions of dollars in income and other taxes every year across the US.

“Big oil, gas, and coal have huge influence on politicians and governments and they get that influence the old fashioned way – they buy it,” said Kretzmann. “Through campaign finance, lobbying, advertising and superpac spending, the industry has many ways to influence candidates and government officials seeking re-election.”

He said fossil fuel subsidies were endemic in the US: “Every single well, pipeline, refinery, coal and gas plant in the country is heavily subsidized. Big Fossil’s lobbyists have done their jobs well for the last century.”

Ben Schreiber, at Friends of the Earth US, said. “There is a vibrant discussion about the best way to keep fossil fuels in the ground – from carbon taxation to divestment – but ending state and federal corporate welfare for polluters is one of the easiest places to start.”

Schreiber also defended subsidies for renewable energy: “Fossil fuels are a mature technology while renewable energy is nascent and still developing. It makes sense to subsidize technologies that are going to help solve climate change, but not to do the same for those that are causing the problem.”

Damian Carrington is the head of environment at the Guardian.

Harry Davies is Special Projects Researcher at the Guardian.

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fought with packer township on sewer sludge when state AG?

http://www.celdf.org/section.php?id=199

Officials in Florida have reportedly banned the terms "climate change" and "global warming," despite the disproportionate impacts of climate change in the coastal state. According to the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, under the tenure of Republican Gov. Rick Scott, officials at the Department of Environmental Protection have been ordered not to refer to climate change or global warming in official reports or communications. ThinkProgress notes at least two other states, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, have been accused of similar bans.

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fluff

According to the former governor, his current plan is to just take his time and relax with his family, and after that he’s going to decide what he’s going to do next. He currently has grandchildren that he has to take care of, and that’s apparently his primary focus at the moment. He wants to get to Pittsburgh as quickly as possible and set up his new life there, as he hasn’t visited in over 10 years, and has a lot of work to get done before he can resume living in the area.

Tom Corbett actually has a pretty long history with Pennsylvania, as he was previously the Attorney General of the state for six years, from 2005 to 2011, after which he became governor. He’s stated that he currently needs some time to recoup, as a lot has been going on in his life. According to his account, his days have been really hectic over the last ten years, especially during his time as governor, and he has been running on practically very little sleep in order to make sure that all of his tasks get done.

He has already been propositioned for future jobs, apparently, and some of the offers have come from former colleagues as well as various law schools that are interested in having him on board. Several organizations in Washington DC have also expressed an interest in working with Corbett, though he hasn’t stated where his interests lie at the moment. He stated that he does see a possible opportunity in Washington, and is confident that he would make it there thanks to all the connections he has managed to establish over the years, although he’s not confident that this is where he wants to work exactly.

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In Pa.'s Governor Race, It's Drill, Baby, Drill...and Tax, Maybe, Tax

Fracking has become a prominent issue in this year's Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, energizing ads, debates and campaign appearances.

Read more.

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Fracking has become a prominent issue in this year's Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, energizing ads, debates and campaign appearances.

The argument isn't about whether to frack the state's abundant natural gas reserves or even how to do it safely—but how to make money doing it.

At the heart of the debate is whether to tax energy companies for extracting natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation rich in fossil fuels that runs underneath the western half of the state. Incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett argues that a drilling tax would drive energy companies to abandon Pennsylvania's natural gas fields. Businessman Tom Wolf, Corbett's Democratic challenger, says a 5 percent  "severance tax" on the value of natural gas produced within its borders would provide desperately needed revenue—up to $1 billion annually—for the state's budget, and more specifically, its education fund.

Political opinion polls show the Democratic candidate winning the Nov. 4 election by approximately 20 points. If Wolf wins, it will mark the first time that an incumbent Pennsylvania governor has lost a re-election bid since the state began allowing second gubernatorial terms in the 1960s.

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Profiles of Pennsylvania Power Players Behind The Push For Privatization..........................................8

 Power Player 1: American Legislative Exchange Council...............................................................................8

 Selected Pennsylvania Bills Based On Alec Models.................................................................................. 10

 Power Player 2: Commonwealth Foundation For Public Policy Alternatives............................................11

 Power Player 3: Charter School Magnate Vahan Gureghian........................................................................12

 Power Player 4: Failing Cyber Schools Cashing In On Kids.........................................................................14

K12 Inc. Joins The Corbett Administration.............................................................................................. 14

 Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School CEO Allegedly Stole Millions......................................................... 15

Power Player 5: American Federation of Children and Students First PAC ...................................................16

Power Player 6: Susquehanna International Group Principals ...

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sercwtch

Thomas J. Ridge (Tom Ridge) was the first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). He headed DHS from January 2003 to February 2005. After leaving the post, he formed a Washington, DC consulting firm, Ridge Global. [1]

He "is President and Chief Executive Officer of Ridge Global, LLC, Washington, D.C., a global strategic consulting company. He has held that position since July 2006. From April 2005 to July 2006, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Thomas Ridge LLC. From October 2001 to February 2005, Mr. Ridge was Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Prior to his service as Secretary of Homeland Security, he was Governor of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2001. He is a director of Exelon Corporation and Vonage. A Hershey director since 2007, he is a member of the Governance Committee."[2]

Contents

  [hide] 

Belated lobbyist registration

In June 2008, Ridge filed a lobbying disclosure form on his work for the government of Albania -- nearly two years late. Ridge signed a $480,000, one-year contract with Albania in September 2006, to help the country "develop an overall homeland defense strategy based on land, air and sea security." The contract identified Ridge as the "lead on strategic advice" for the Albanian government. Ridge's firm, Ridge Global, no longer works for Albania. [6]

A spokesperson for the firm said Ridge didn't think he needed to disclose his Albania work. But the Justice Department, which maintains a database of lobbyists working with foreign entities, thought he did. The Department contacted Ridge's firm, "after a story about Ridge's work appeared in the press." According to a September 2006 Associated Press article, Ridge's "main priority" was "to help Albania meet its goal of joining NATO in 2008." Albania beganaccession talks with NATO in April 2008. [6]

Background

"Prior to his current appointment, Secretary Ridge served as Assistant to the President for the Office of Homeland Security. Previously, he was a twice-elected Governor of Pennsylvania, serving from 1995 to 2001. In addition, he was elected to Congress in 1982 and was re-elected six times.[7]

"After he received his law degree, Secretary Ridge was in private practice before becoming assistant district attorney in Erie County. He also served as an infantry staff sergeant in Vietnam, earning the Bronze Star for Valor. He is a graduate of Harvard University and received his J.D. from Dickinson School of Law."[7]

Timeline

Other affiliations

Natural gas

Tom Ridge was Pennsylvania’s governor from 1995-2001, until appointed by President George W. Bush as director of Homeland Security in 2001. After Ridge’s retirement from that position, he founded Ridge Global LLC, a consulting firm, and Ridge Policy Group, a lobbying group.[9] Both these firms had a $900,000 lobbying contract with the Marcellus Shale Coalition from 2010-2011.[10] During Ridge's appointment with the gas Coalition, the AP reported Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell admitted that information about municipal zoning hearings on Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling and a screening of the documentary "Gasland" were the subject of anti-terrorism bulletins being distributed by Pennsylvania's homeland security office.[11] Ridge is also on the board of Exelon, a utility company that bought Constellation Energy, a Maryland-based natural gas producer and utility.[12]

SourceWatch resources

External links

References

  1. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "The Honorable Thomas J. Ridge," Ridge Global website, accessed June 2008.
  2. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Directors, Hershey, accessed May 27, 2009.
  3. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Directors, Hershey, accessed May 27, 2009.
  4. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ About, American Action Forum, accessed December 23, 2011.
  5. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Trustees, Institute for Defense Analysis, accessed September 2, 2009.
  6. ↑ ^Jump ^up to:6.0 6.1 "Ridge Finally Files Albania Work," O'Dwyer's PR Daily (sub req'd), June 23, 2008.
  7. ↑ ^Jump ^up to:7.0 7.1 "Tom Ridge -- Department of Homeland Security: Secretary of Homeland Security", White House, undated, accessed June 2008.
  8. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge Appointed by President Bush to American Red Cross Board of Governors", Media Release, April 17, 2003.
  9. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Rachel Morgan, "Report shows link between governor's office and gas industry," Shale Reporter, March 5, 2013.
  10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "Ex-Gov. Tom Ridge's job with Marcellus Shale Coalition ends," AP, Aug. 5, 2011.
  11. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Marc Levy, "`Appalled' Pa. gov. shuts down reports on protests" AP, Sep. 15, 2010.
  12. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Rachel Morgan, "Report shows link between governor's office and gas industry," Shale Reporter, March 5, 2013.

Articles

Biographical notes
General Articles

Categories: 

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Public School Asks Parents to Pay $613 Per Student As Right-Wing Governor Destroys Public Education With Insane Defunding

August 22, 2013 |

salon

Want to see a public school system in its death throes? Look no further than Philadelphia. There, the school district is facing end times, with teachers, parents and students staring into the abyss created by a state intent on destroying public education.

On Thursday the city of Philadelphia announced that it would be borrowing $50 million to give the district, just so it can open schools as planned on Sept. 9, after Superintendent William Hite threatened to keep the doors closed without a cash infusion. The schools may open without counselors, administrative staff, noon aids, nurses, librarians or even pens and paper, but hey, kids will have a place to go and sit.

The $50 million fix is just the latest band-aid for a district that is beginning to resemble a rotting bike tube, covered in old patches applied to keep it functioning just a little while longer. At some point, the entire system fails.

Things have gotten so bad that at least one school has asked parents to chip in $613 per student just so they can open with adequate services, which, if it becomes the norm, effectively defeats the purpose of equitable public education, and is entirely unreasonable to expect from the city’s poorer neighborhoods.

The needs of children are secondary, however, to a right-wing governor in Tom Corbett who remains fixated on breaking the district in order to crush the teachers union and divert money to unproven experiments like vouchers and privately run charters. If the city’s children are left uneducated and impoverished among the smoldering wreckage of a broken school system, so be it.

To be clear, the schools are in crisis because the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania refuses to fund them adequately. The state Constitution mandates that the Legislature “provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education,” but that language appears to be considered some kind of sick joke at the state capital in Harrisburg.

It’s worth noting that the state itself runs the Philadelphia School District after a 2001 takeover. The state is also responsible for catastrophic budget cuts two years ago that crippled the district’s finances. And in a diabolical example of circular logic, the state argues that the red ink it imposed, and shoddy management it oversees, are proof that the district can’t manage its finances or its mission and therefore shouldn’t get more money.

Make no mistake, on the aggregate the district does not perform well. Only slightly more than 60 percent of students graduate from high school, with less than 60 percent proficient in reading and math. But put that in the context where 80 percent of students come from disadvantaged backgrounds while administrators struggle to cobble together enough cash to even open doors, let alone provide a safe, rich and comprehensive educational experience.

Particularly noxious lawmakers are fond of spouting the ridiculous notion that money can’t help struggling schools, as if more and better-trained staff, better equipment and diverse programming wouldn’t make a difference in kids’ educations and their lives.

The timing of this meltdown is unfortunate, as if there were ever a good time for the euthanasia of public schooling. According to the 2010 census, Philadelphia grew in population for the first time in 60 years, changing direction from decades of decline. Most of that growth came from immigrants who will rely on public schools — or not, as the case may be. Another area of growth was in young families, who will face a choice, once they have school-age children, to stay in the city or flee to superior suburban schools as previous generations have done.

Nearly the entire burden to keep the district afloat has fallen to the city, which raised property taxes each of the two previous years specifically to funnel extra money that the schools weren’t getting from the state. This is in one of the poorest and most highly taxed cities in the nation.

The floundering district is both a symptom and cause of the city’s predicament, creating a vicious cycle of people who can afford to bail moving to the suburbs, leaving a crippled tax base, with the result being less money to fix the schools and ever-higher taxes imposed on those who stay.

Unlike the city, the state could come up with the necessary cash without excessively burdening its finances. Pennsylvania has the lowest severance tax of any state drilling for Marcellus shale gas, with plenty of room for an increase. The state had a modest surplus at the end of the last budget year. The governor has no trouble coming up with money to build new prisons, which will serve as future homes for all too many children of Philadelphia who are being failed and tossed aside by adult leadership, if you can call it that.

The pattern has become clear: defund the schools, precipitate a crisis and use that as an excuse to further attack the schools, pushing them closer and closer to a point of no return. The $50 million to open the schools this year is just the latest and most immediate example of three years of brinkmanship.

The district was hit with a double whammy in 2011, when stimulus funds that it had idiotically been using for operating expenses dried up, and incoming Gov. Tom Corbett took office eager to prove his reactionary bona fides by enacting massive budget cuts to public education to the tune of $1 billion statewide, disproportionately hitting Philadelphia. The result was an absurd $629 million shortfall, which was filled by a mix of cuts and city tax hikes.

Last year, the district took out a $300 million bond to patch another big deficit, the very definition of a band-aid fix as it only added to what is now $280 million in annual debt payments.

This round of budget hysteria kicked off in May when the superintendent announced that the district was another $304 million in the hole for the upcoming school year and requested extra funding from the city and state as well as givebacks from the teachers union to fill the gap.

To prepare, he laid off nearly 4,000 teachers and staff members, and closed 24 schools, after the district had shut eight the year before. Empty buildings and mass layoffs — the perfect image of 21st century education.

The city and state came up with a Rube Goldberg device of funding worth about $140 million, composed of repurposed federal funds, better city tax collections, borrowing against future city taxes and a whopping $2 million thrown in by the state beyond what it had already committed.

Most of even that inadequate amount hasn’t arrived yet as the state sits on $45 million in federal money it refuses to disperse until the teachers agree to enormous salary cuts and rollback of other benefits and city officials bicker among themselves on how to deliver the money they promised.

It’s still unclear what, if anything, will be kicked in by the teachers, who already make disproportionately less money than their suburban counterparts while teaching in much more challenging environments. Their contracts expire at the end of the month.

Leering over the whole mess is the controversial charter school movement, which siphons $675 million from district schools. The charter experiment has been a mixed bag, with some performing well, others proving mere vehicles for graft and corruption. Critics see them as a way to divert public money into politically connected private hands, and even more important, a way to break the teachers union because they aren’t bound by district collective bargaining rules.

It’s not hard to see the same forces at work here as those taking apart public sector unions in Wisconsin and trying to confiscate Detroit city employees’ pensions in Michigan. Indeed, the district leadership met Thursday to unilaterally suspend the school code to get around teacher seniority and automatic raise rules as they use the $50 million to rehire some of the employees laid off earlier this year.

Teachers are understandably displeased at being blamed for a problem the state has caused. “It is Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s obligation to fully fund public education. Yet the budget office seems to be employing any and every means to avoid living up to this responsibility,” Philadelphia Teachers Federation president Jerry Jordan said in a statement. “Chronic lack of resources has brought this crisis to our schools, not work rule provisions in collective bargaining agreements.”

“The trunk of my car is now filled with a carton of paper, pens, lined paper, and copybooks I have bought for my students this September,” district teacher Christine MacArthur wrote in an editorial to the Philadelphia Inquirer [3]. “Now we are also to pay for the mistakes of our employers?”

Parents and students are trying to push back, but may ultimately have little traction. Thousands of students led by the Philadelphia Student Union walked out last spring to protest the doomsday budget, to no avail. Now, with the stark projections of May becoming reality in August, members are canvassing the streets to rally support. “I’m just doing it for my school because it’s the right thing to do,” one student told a local television station. “We are going to need counselors. Without counselors, it’s going to be hard to get into college.” The group is considering boycotting school entirely if the district doesn’t get the money it needs.

“It’s indescribably insane,” says Helen Gym of the advocacy group Parents United for Public Schools, who has three children in the public school system. “It’s unbelievable that it’s come to this.” The group put out a statement Thursday [4] reemphasizing that $50 million was far from enough to have effective schools.

“I don’t send my child to go to a shell of a building, I send my child to get an education,” Gym says. “They can’t do that with $50 million.”

The district got its $50 million, though, and will get more in dribbles and drips. That will barely, not really, suffice for inadequate schooling this year. Next year, stay tuned for a repeat. Barring an unforeseen economic renaissance in the city or thorough overhaul of the state executive and legislative branches, the district is poised for year after year of one crisis after another.

Parents and teachers are all too aware of what’s happening. “Tom Corbett, the weakest governor in the United States, is trying to stake his claim on completely dismantling and starving one of the nation’s largest school districts into dysfunction and collapse,” says Gym.

The nails aren’t all in the coffin yet, but they are being pounded deeper every year by a state that has turned its back on, if is not openly hostile to, the idea of free and equitable education for all.

“It’s an absolute atrocious mockery of anything related to public leadership,” Gym says. “To not have a stable public school system is more devastating to Philadelphia than anything that has happened before.”

See more stories tagged with:

funding. school [5]

Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/education/public-school-asks-parents-pay-613-student-right-wing-governor-destroys-public-education

Links:

[1] http://www.salon.com

[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/aaron-kase-0

[3] http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/inquirer/219699981.html?authenticate=y

[4] http://parentsunitedphila.com/2013/08/15/statement-on-50-million-in-maybe-city-funds-its-not-enough/

[5] http://www.alternet.org/tags/funding-school

[6] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B

==

sky is pink http://vimeo.com/44367635 stats on lobby $  ridge 99K$, corbet  $1.6mil

An internal memo from Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration reveals that even Republicans think extremists like Walker and Kasich are failures. As you know, this sort of thing is simply not done in Republican circles, where they stick together no matter who has pictures of what airport bathroom.

Jan Murphy of the Patriot News reported on PennLive:

More surprisingly, the memo cites the shortcomings of fellow Republican governors Tom Ridge and Dick Thornburgh. It notes they raised taxes and legislative salaries. The memo, authored by Corbett’s deputy chief of staff Luke Bernstein, called Corbett’s first year in office “one of the most productive in the country.”

It also contrasted Corbett’s performance with Republican governors in six states, including Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich, who gained national attention for their tough stands with unions…

The memo notes Wisconsin’s Walker, after pushing through a bill to strip unions of collective bargaining rights, “faced tens of thousands of protesters camping out at the state Capitol for weeks.” It notes Walker “faces a possible recall in 2012.”

For Ohio’s Kasich, the memo notes he pushed through a controversial collective bargaining law to Wisconsin’s, which voters “resoundingly defeated.”

Ouch. Recalls and defeats, oh my!

Corbett’s approval rating was exceptionally low among his own party in Pennsylvania. After a rocky start trying to enact the Koch brother Walker-Kasich-Scott-Snyder (also known as the four corners of gubernatorial doom) agenda, Corbett’s approval ratings sank and he disappeared from view. He then adopted his predecessor’s do nothing to rock the boat style.

But, hey, maybe doing nothing is the new black for the Republican Party this year.

...

no sw: wiki

Thomas W. "Tom" Corbett (born June 17, 1949) is an American politician who has been the 46th Governor of Pennsylvania since 2011. Corbett was appointed Attorney General of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 1997. He was later elected Pennsylvania Attorney General in his own right in 2004 and reelected in 2008.[2]

Contents

Early life, education, and early career

Corbett was born in Philadelphia. He received his Bachelor's degree at Lebanon Valley College and was employed as a 9th grade teacher for one year.[3] Corbett then earned his J.D. from St. Mary's University Law School. He served in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard 28th Infantry Division from 1971 to 1984, rising to the rank of Captain.

Corbett's career has been split between private practice and civil service. He began his legal career as an assistant district attorney in Pittsburgh's Allegheny County. After three and a half years, he was hired in 1980 as an assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

In 1983, Corbett went into private practice for several years. During this period, Corbett won his first election as a township commissioner in the Pittsburgh suburb of Shaler Township.

In 1988, a judge appointed him to monitor the Allegheny County jail while it was under the court's supervision. In 1989, Senators John Heinz and Arlen Specter recommended to President Bush that he nominate Corbett as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.[4][5] Corbett served in the post until May 1993, when he was dismissed by President Bill Clinton.[6]

Corbett then returned to private practice, also serving as an adviser to the gubernatorial campaign of Tom Ridge. Following Ridge's victory, Corbett served on a number of state commissions including the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency, which he served as chairman.

Corbett left office in 1997 and again went into the private sector, first as general counsel for Waste Management, Inc., then opening his own practice.

Attorney General

1995 appointment

In 1995, Corbett was appointed to the position of State Attorney General by Governor Ridge to fill the remainder of the term left by the conviction of Ernie Preate.[7] As a condition of his Senate confirmation, Senate Democrats required him to pledge that he would not run for re-election in 1996. This is a common practice in Pennsylvania for appointments to elected offices. Jerry Pappert made the same pledge in 2003 when he succeeded Mike Fisher as State Attorney General.

2004 election

Main article: Pennsylvania Attorney General election, 2004

After early returns were reported, the Associated Press called the race in Eisenhower's favor, only to retract that call later as the numbers closed. Corbett declared victory the following morning, having defeated Eisenhower by nearly 110,000 votes, winning 50.4% to 48.3%. Green party candidate Marakay Rogers captured 1.3% of the vote.[8]

2008 election

Main article: Pennsylvania Attorney General election, 2008

Corbett was re-elected in 2008. He won with the largest vote total of any Republican in the state's history.[3] He defeated Democrat John Morganelli, bucking the trend of Democratic success in Pennsylvania that year.

Healthcare reform

Main article: Florida et al v. United States Department of Health and Human Services

On March 23, 2010, Corbett, along with 13 other state attorneys general, filed a lawsuit against the mandates in the just-signed federal Healthcare Bill, claiming it is unconstitutional. As of January 2011, a total of 27 states have joined this lawsuit.[9]

Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal

Main article: Penn State child sex abuse scandal

Corbett convened a grand jury in 2009 to investigate longstanding allegations of child sexual abuse by Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.[10] The grand jury uncovered evidence of criminal misconduct, and a 40-count indictment against Sandusky was issued in 2011, ultimately leading to Sandusky's criminal conviction in 2012. Corbett has been criticized for the three year time span between the grand jury investigation and Sandusky's indictment, and for his gubernatorial staff approving a $3 million grant to Sandusky's Second Mile charity for children, which, according to the grand jury findings, served as a repository for potential sex-abuse victims.[11] Former FBI Director Louis Freeh's report on the Penn State scandal did not fault Corbett's handling of the Sandusky case.[12]

Governor of Pennsylvania

2010 election

Main article: Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 2010

On March 17, 2009, it was reported that Corbett had formed an exploratory committee and had begun filing the paperwork necessary to begin a run for Governor of Pennsylvania. On September 15, 2009, Corbett formally declared his candidacy[13] and, on May 18, 2010, won the GOP primary with nearly 70% of the vote.[14]

In May 2010 Corbett filed a criminal subpoena against Twitter ordering them to divulge "any and all subscriber information" of the person(s) behind two accounts that were criticizing the Republican candidate.[15] Corbett's office denied that the subpoenas were related to the criticism, but rather to an ongoing grand jury investigation. Corbett's office ultimately withdrew the subpoenas. One of the account owners declined to say whether he was indeed the subject of a grand jury investigation.[16]

In July 2010, Corbett garnered attention for suggesting that some of the unemployed are exploiting the extension of unemployment benefits prior to seeking employment, and later noted the prevalence of "help wanted" ads in the newspapers as evidence of the availability of employment.[17][18]

In September 2010, at the first gubernatorial debate, Corbett again gained attention for seemingly violating his "no-tax pledge" in suggesting that he would consider raising the payroll contribution tax.[19]

On November 2, 2010, Corbett was elected governor of Pennsylvania, succeeding Democrat Ed Rendell. Corbett assumed the office of governor on January 18, 2011.

Tenure

Job Creation

Since Corbett took office, more than 100,000 private sector jobs have been created. [20] Through the efforts of Corbett's administration, Royal Dutch Shell has announced they are considering putting a "cracker" plant in Southwestern Pennsylvania. Shell said it expects construction of the plant to employ up to 10,000 people. Once operational, the operation will need several hundred full-time employees. [21] Corbett also helped ensure that that the three refineries in Southeastern Pennsylvania would stay open. [22]

Liquor Store Privatization

On January 30, 2013, Corbett unveiled his plan to privatize Pennsylvania’s state-run wine and spirits stores. [23] Corbett estimated the sale of retail and wholesale licenses would raise an estimated 800 million to $1 billion. His administration has pledged to use this money for an educational block grant used toward school safety, enhanced early education programs, individualized learning and science, technology, engineering and mathematics courses and programs. [23]

Public opinion

Recent polling reflects that most Pennsylvanians disapprove of Governor Corbett's job performance, including his decision to privatize the Pennsylvania Lottery, but support Corbett's desire to sell off state owned liquor stores and fix Pennsylvania's ailing transportation system. Polling conducted in March 2013 shows a difficult path to reelection for Corbett.[24] Governor Corbett and his wife have been criticized for accepting gifts as reported in the Philadelphia Daily News. Some politicians have claimed that the Governor violated the code of conduct of his office.[25] Franklin & Marshall College conducts polling across Pennsylvania and commented on the fact that Tom Corbett is the least popular Governor in their poll's history.[26]

Budget

Corbett became governor on January 18, 2011. One of his first actions was the proposal of a new state budget that would decrease spending by 3%. The proposed budget received significant criticism due to its cuts in state-supported higher education by 50%. Under the new budget, funding granted to the 14 universities of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education and state-related universities Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple, and Lincoln would be cut in half, totaling $625 million. Corbett has said, however, that he will not attempt to limit collective bargaining, as have Republican Governors John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin.[27]

Corbett's 2013-14 budget included a $90 million increase to basic education, as well as increases to programs that help people with mental and physical disabilities. [28]

Natural gas

As governor, Corbett maintains that Pennsylvania should not institute a natural gas extraction tax, due to its already high corporate net income tax.[29][30][31] In February 2011, Corbett repealed a four month old policy regulating natural gas drilling (including hydraulic fracturing) in park land, deeming it "unnecessary and redundant" according to a spokesperson. The Pennsylvania Democratic Party called the repeal a "payoff" to oil and gas interests which donated a million dollars to Corbett's campaign.[32] According to Corbett, "had they not given me a dime, I would still be in this position, saying we need to grow jobs in Pennsylvania".[33]

On February 14, 2012, Corbett signed The Marcellus Shale Law (House Bill 1950).[34] The law subjects natural gas drillers to an impact fee to offset any environmental or community impacts of drilling. In 2012, the law generated over 200 million dollars for Pennsylvania municipalities, twice the estimated amount of an extraction tax. The law also changes the zoning laws applicable to Marcellus Shale well drilling, which is more commonly known as hydraulic fracturing. Some of its provisions are that all municipalities must allow Marcellus Shale well drilling in all zoning districts, including residential and municipalities may not limit hours of operation. Water and wastewater pits must also be allowed in all zoning districts, including residential. Compressor stations must be allowed in industrial and agricultural zoning districts and towns may not limit hours of operation. Gas processing plants are allowed in industrial zoning districts and hours of operation cannot be limited. Gas pipelines must be allowed in all zoning districts, including residential.[34] The law helps gain access to land for new pipelines,[35] one of which will transport natural gas from Pennsylvania to export terminals in Maryland,[36][37][38][39] from which it will be shipped to Europe and Asia.[40][41] Others contend that the pipeline's purpose is to transport the gas to Maryland and D.C. markets.[36][42] There are also concerns that exporting natural gas will result in more jobs going overseas, leading to increased unemployment in Pennsylvania and other states as gas prices rise globally.[43]

The Marcellus Shale Law (House Bill 1950) also contains a provision that allows doctors in Pennsylvania access to the list of chemicals in hydraulic fracturing fluid in emergency situations only, but forbids them from discussing this information with their patients.[44] The information can only be used for emergency medical treatment, and the doctor must immediately verbally agree to keep the information confidential and later sign a document to that effect.[45] The bill also reduces the legal responsibility of vendors, service providers, and operators regarding the identity and impact of contents of the hydraulic fracturing fluid they use.[45]

2013

In 2013, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) rated Corbett as one of "The Worst Governors in America".[46]

_{

}_

Gov. Corbett turned Pennsylvania’s state government into a favor mill for campaign supporters.

Gov. Corbett and his wife accepted a trip from a major campaign donor, which he initially failed to disclose, while the state was considering allowing the donor’s company to operate a fracking waste site without a state permit. Gov. Corbett later appointed the same donor to two state economic boards.

In 2012, Gov. Corbett awarded a $75,000 contract to Drinker Biddle & Reath, a law firm whose employees made substantial contributions to the governor’s campaigns. Gov. Corbett initially denied hiring the firm to defend the governor’s office in the lawsuit regarding Pennsylvania’s voter ID law, which was later blocked due to its likely disenfranchisement of eligible voters.

2014 election

Main article: Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 2014

Corbett has yet to announce whether he'll seek reelection. Recent polling indicates a very difficult path to reelection for Corbett. Democratic Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz and former Congressman Joe Sestak would beat Corbett in a potential matchup according to recent head-to-head polling. In addition, there are a handful of Republicans vying to challenge Corbett in a primary, most notably is Montgomery County Commissioner Bruce Castor.[24] Governor Corbett and his wife have been criticized for accepting gifts as reported in the Philadelphia Daily News. Some politicians have claimed that the Governor violated the code of conduct of his office.[25] Additional polling conducted in March 2013 shows Tom Corbett as the most unpopular sitting Governor in the United States.[47] Franklin & Marshall College conducts polling across Pennsylvania and commented on the fact that Tom Corbett is the least popular Governor in their poll's history.[26]

Personal life

Corbett married Susan Manbeck Corbett in 1972. The couple met as students at Lebanon Valley College in Annville. Mrs Corbett has worked as a teacher and a legal secretary. Lately, her career has been in arts administration: as special projects manager for the President’s Office at Carnegie Museums and the Director’s Office of Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. She served as Assistant Producer and then Executive Director of Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures and Vice-President for Programs and Development for the Gettysburg Foundation.[48]

Mrs. Corbett is Pennsylvania's Honorary Chair of the Girl Scouts 100th anniversary celebration.[49]

Corbett and his wife Susan have two children, Tom and Katherine. Tom is an associate producer with EA Games, and Katherine is a prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney's office.[50]

==

WASHINGTON--President Barack Obama’s new push against climate change may resistance from Republican-led state governments.

Obama on Tuesday announced his long-term climate change plan that will includeregulations on coal-fired power plants.

Some states are likely to resist -- a continuation of long-running fight between Obama and Republican governors, state legislatures and attorneys general on a variety of issues.

"In some of these states, there's just going to be a sort of reflexive, anti-Obama response," Sean Kelly, a political science professor at California State University Channel Islands told The Huffington Post. "They'll go to court. Some attorney general will see an opportunity."

Still, Kelly said Environmental Protection Agency regulations on power plant emissions probably will be difficult for states to obstruct because of a Supreme Court ruling that gave the executive branch a mandate to enforce the Clean Air Act.

Some state attorneys general have already weighed in on the climate fight. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt signed onto a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to take up a case that challenges existing EPA greenhouse gas regulations. Other attorneys general, including Scott Pruitt from Oklahoma, have asked the federal government to grant states more authority to regulate natural gas drilling, or fracking. Texas' attorney general Greg Abbott, has petitioned the Supreme Court to take up his federal lawsuit challenging EPA's authority to regulate pollution.

In states with large coal mining industries, the proposals have proven controversial as well. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R)Obama's proposals will plunge his state into "an abyss of poverty." :{Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) :(style="background-color:#ffcc99;"):}:the plan a "war on jobs."

"People are rejecting science," said Wisconsin state Rep. Fred Clark (D-Baraboo). "Just two weeks ago, I got :{a book in the mail, along with every other (state) legislator, funded by the Heartland Institute:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: that basically tries to debunk the notion of climate change and claim that it's just part of a natural cycle." The Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank partly funded by oil and tobacco companies, denies global warming and the health effects of secondhand cigarette smoke.

Clark said he has trouble convincing his Republican colleagues to view climate change as human-caused. In other states, including Missouri and Kansas, Republican-controlled legislatures recently have adopted a mixed bag of resolutions resisting federal and international recommendations for environmental policy.

Kansas state House Energy and Environment Committee Chairman Dennis Hedke (R-Wichita), led efforts in his stateto oppose the United Nations’ sustainability program, known as Agenda 21, along with banning sustainability in the state.

Hedke, a trained geophysicist who considers himself an environmentalist, told HuffPost he believes EPA regulations on energy producers are hurting businesses and families because of skyrocketing electricity bills. He also said the science used to promote policy is deeply flawed.

Existing EPA regulations have increased electricity costs in Kansas up to 60 percent in the last five years, Hedke said. Kansas' electricity costs are still 18 percent less expensive than the national average, according to an Institute for Energy Research fact sheet.

While Obama is likely to take action with executive power rather than legislation, Hedke and his counterparts in other states will have fewer options to resist. Nevertheless, they plan to fight back against the EPA and Obama.

"The EPA is just out of control. There's no other way to put it. And I'm going to fight the EPA with every fiber of my being for as long as I live," Hedke said. "We will take steps in the state of Kansas to try to push back on their unbelievable overreach and attempt to control the lives of Kansans and the people of the United States of America."

http://mail.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Pennsylvania_and_fracking

Range, along with other big Marcellus Shale players like Cabot Oil and Gas and Chesapeake Energy, each paid $25,000-$50,000 for Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Corbett's two-day inaugural party.[7]

==

"7 billion" series logoCheck out our whole series on Walmart's greenwashing. Among the top 10 state-level recipients of Walmart's cash during this period are three prominent climate-change-denying governors: Rick Perry (R-Texas), Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.), and Bob McDonnell (R-Va.). Also on the list are Pennsylvania's Gov. Tom Corbett (R) and Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley (R), both of whom have been waging a veritable crusade on behalf of the natural-gas fracking industry.

==

AKA Thomas W. Corbett, Jr.

Born: 17-Jun-1949

Birthplace: Philadelphia, PA

Gender: Male

Religion: Roman Catholic

Race or Ethnicity: White

Sexual orientation: Straight

Occupation: Politician

Party Affiliation: Republican

Nationality: United States

Executive summary: Governor of Pennsylvania

Military service: Pennsylvania Nat'l. Guard (1971-73 and 1975-84, Capt.); Texas Air Nat'l. Guard (1973-75)

Former state Attorney General elected Governor of Pennsylvania in 2010, succeeding Ed Rendell. Conservative Republican; generally anti-abortion rights, anti-gay rights, pro-gun rights, anti-medical marijuana. Campaigned promising smaller, more efficient government, lower taxes, reduced regulations, and deep budget cuts.

Father: Thomas W. Corbett

Mother: Bernardine Diskin

Wife: Susan Manbeck (one son, one daughter)

Son: Thomas, III

Daughter: Katherine

High School: Shaler High School, Pittsburgh, PA (1964)

University: BA Political Science, Lebanon Valley College (1971)

Teacher: Civics and History, Pine Grove Area High School, Schuylkill County, PA (1972-73)

Law School: JD, St. Mary's University Texas (1975)

Governor of Pennsylvania (2011-)

Attorney General of Pennsylvania (2005-11)

Attorney in private practice (1997-2005)

Attorney General of Pennsylvania (appointed, 1995-97)

Thorp, Reed & Armstrong Partner (1993-95)

US Attorney Western District of Pennsylvania (1989-93)

City Council Shaler Township, PA (1988-89)

Rose, Schmidt, Hasley & DiSalle Associate/Partner (1983-89)

Assistant US Attorney Western District of Pennsylvania (1980-83)

Pennsylvania State Official Asst. DA, Allegheny County (1976-80)

Pennsylvania Bar Association

Santorum 2000

Santorum 2006

Official Website:

I came upon this surprising photograph��while researching a story on Pennsylvania's castle doctrine legislation yesterday. Pictured in this photo taken last year in the Governor's Reception Room in the Capitol is Gov. Corbett, flanked by the sponsors of the House and Senate versions of the bill, Sen. Rich Alloway (R., Franklin), on his right and Rep. Scott Perry (R., York).

And who's the guy appearing behind the governor - looking oddly like he was photo-shopped into the image? That's John Hohenwarter, lobbyist for the National Rifle Association in Pennsylvania.

The picture was posted on the NRA's Institute for Legislative Action websiteunder the headline, "Pennsylvania Governor signs NRA-backed Castle Doctrine into Law."

No member of the media or the general public attended that June 28 bill signing. It was listed as a private event.

It's not uncommon at public bill signings for stakeholders to share in photo ops with a governor. It's not unheard of that a registered lobbyist appear in one of those pictures, although a former Rendell administration official said advocates, not paid lobbyists, were invited to have their pictures taken at bill signings.

Sludge disposal

Until the late 1980s, it was common for municipalities to transport their sludge by barge to the nearest ocean and dump it 12 miles offshore. That changed in 1984 as increasing evidence showed that ocean dumping was harming marine ecosystems, and the EPA issued new regulations requiring sewage sludge to be dumped at least 106 miles offshore. Just four years later, in 1988, Congress passed the Ocean Dumping Ban Act to prohibit the practice altogether.

The waste management industry, which hauls sludge away from sewage treatment plants, was forced to find another place to dump the waste. What it found was farmland. Today, the EPA estimates that half of the millions of tons of sewage sludge produced each year is applied to farmland.

According to some estimates, sludge hauling is now an $11 billion a year industry. Sludge haulers — such as Houston-based Synagro Technologies, the largest of the companies involved and the owner of Waste Management, plus numerous subsidiaries — give farmers the sludge for free to apply to agricultural land where crops are grown.

Last year, the EPA reported findings from its Targeted National Sewage Sludge Survey, the fourth such survey since 1982. The latest survey sampled sewage sludge from some of the largest treatment plants in the country. Every sample studied contained flame retardants, pharmaceuticals, steroids, heavy metals, and other chemicals, but the report stated further that "inclusion of pollutants in the TNSSS does not reflect a determination that their presence in sewage sludge adversely affects human health or the environment."

Public health advocates across the country are convinced there is a danger from exposure to sewage sludge spread on fields. Advocates have spent years lobbying Congress, the EPA, and state regulators to end the practice of land application.

In the 2008 case of McElmurray v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal district court in the Southern District of Georgia ordered the USDA to pay compensation to a rancher whose cows died after exposure to land-applied sewage sludge. The sludge was found to contain PCBs, arsenic, and heavy metals. Lawsuits continue to be filed as more people and livestock have fallen ill.

Saying "no"

The sludge itselfCommunities that try to stop sludging face a host of state and federal environmental regulatory laws — such as Pennsylvania's Solid Waste Management Act and the federal Clean Water Act — that legally authorize the land application of sewage sludge. They also find that the agencies administering these laws are actively promoting "biosolids recycling" on farmland — working with the waste haulers.

The EPA has joined with the Water Environment Federation to form the National Biosolids Partnership, which promotes the land application of sewage sludge. The partnership's website includes biosolids "success stories."

Packer Township adopted its ordinance in 2008 to prohibit sludging on farmland, knowing that the law might be challenged. Residents decided that a ban was their only choice. They had seen the impacts of sludging directly, as the ordinance describes:

"In 1994, eleven-year-old Tony Behun from Rush Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, died from a staphylococcus infection shortly after being exposed to sewage sludge. The following year, seventeen-year-old Daniel Pennock from Reading, Pennsylvania, died from a staphylococcus infection shortly after being exposed to sewage sludge. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes staphylococcus as a potential pathogenic component of sewage sludge."

The ordinance further states, "The land application of sewage sludge in Packer Township poses a significant threat to the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens and environment of Packer Township."

And: "In April 2002, the Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which oversees state sewage sludge regulations, issued a report in which it concluded, 'EPA cannot assure the public that current land application [of sewage sludge] practices are protective of human health and the environment.'"

A key piece of the Packer ordinance is found in Section 8.12, which eliminates corporate constitutional "rights" and protections within the township. By taking this step, the township is, in effect, stripping away the waste haulers' court-conferred rights, including Fifth and 14th Amendment rights to due process and equal protection, as well as powers under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

In adopting those provisions, Packer joined a dozen other communities across the U.S. that have found it necessary to take on over 100 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence that confers the Bill of Rights and other protections onto corporations.

The U.S. Supreme Court continues to expand and affirm corporate constitutional rights (this year's Citizens United decision is just one example of this trend). These communities do not expect the courts or government agencies to agree that corporate constitutional rights are illegal and illegitimate; instead, they are building a people's movement to drive such change upward to the state and federal levels. In the Packer Township lawsuit, the attorney general is arguing that the section of the township's ordinance that removes corporate constitutional rights "obviously is unconstitutional."

Pennsylvania fights back

In response to community ordinances banning sludging, as well as the dozen or so local ordinances prohibiting factory farming, the Pennsylvania state legislature adopted the Agriculture, Communities, and Rural Environment Act in 2005. The ACRE law, adopted at the urging of the agribusiness industry, authorizes the Pennsylvania attorney general to sue local townships to overturn these ordinances — and to sue at the request of agribusiness companies.

This very step was taken in 2007, when Attorney General Thomas Corbett sued East Brunswick Township in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, at the behest of a sludging corporation. The aim was to overturn the township's anti-corporate sludging ordinance. A year after the suit was filed and before a decision could be issued in the case, the East Brunswick Board of Supervisors voted to rescind the ordinance and replace it with another that simply regulated sludging.

The new ordinance restricted the hours when sludge could be spread and required farmers to notify the township before it was applied. The state attorney general sued East Brunswick a second time to overturn the new ordinance, arguing that the community was not authorized to regulate sludge more stringently than the state. Having settled the case with the state, the township is now allowed to prohibit sludge application on certain days such as major holidays.

*National Journal* looksat why Pennsylvania’s governor can’t seem to gain any traction. Much of the problem is continuing fallout from the Jerry Sandusky case at Penn State, the magazine says, but it’s also true that Corbett’s actual governance has alienated many people—including potential allies:

He began his gubernatorial tenure alienating Democrats by pressing for deep spending cuts, and now is ticking off conservatives for supporting tax hikes to raise revenues.

His latest proposal lifts a cap on the state’s fuel tax as part of a transportation-funding package that he argues could raise nearly $2 billion. The plan is similar to the deal Gov. Bob McDonnell struck, which has brought the popular Virginia governor a wave of criticism from conservatives. But Corbett doesn’t start out with the same degree of goodwill as his Southern counterpart.

Meanwhile, his latest $28.4 billion budget proposal increases current spending levels and ties Corbett’s top priorities of public-sector pension reform and liquor-store privatization to education spending, making life politically difficult for some Republican state senators.

Grover Norquist gave Corbett’s plan the kiss of death. “This proposal is a tax increase,” Norquist said.

Corbett might stand to benefit from an economy that’s not quite as disastrous as when he took office, but even there, the Associated Press says today that the governor has tried to claim too much credit for the recovery:

Regardless, economists agree that governors are bit players amid the wider economic forces that determine short-term job growth.

Pennsylvania recovered more quickly from the recession than other states because it did not experience as big a housing bubble. It also has been helped by a national resurgence of manufacturing and a drilling boom in the Marcellus Shale natural gas formation, Moody’s Analytics economist Ryan Sweet said.

Hey, but at least he has Comcast’s David Cohen on his side,right?

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Harrisburg, Tom Corbett