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Sports

Judge Dismisses Pennsylvania Governor’s Lawsuit In Penn State Rape Case

By Travis Waldron on Jun 6, 2013 at 5:04 pm

A federal judge this morning dismissed Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett’s (R) antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA, saying she could not “find any factual allegations supporting (Corbett’s) allegation of ‘concerted action’ that might nudge its conspiracy claim into ‘plausible’ territory.” The early dismissal is somewhat surprising, even for a case that never had much chance of victory, but it will thankfully bring everyone one step closer to the end of the petty bickering and face-saving efforts that have filled the aftermath of the scandal.

Corbett’s suit alleged that the NCAA violated antitrust law when it leveled major sanctions against Penn State University’s athletics program in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child rape scandal last year, a claim that would have required him to prove that the rest of the NCAA’s institutions essentially conspired to destroy Penn State’s football program. The NCAA fined Penn State’s football program $60 million, banned it from postseason play for four years, and reduced the number of scholarships it could offer to recruits. None of that constituted an antitrust violation, Judge Yvette Kane decided.

The lawsuit was the latest messy episode in the scandal that won’t die, as every party involved seems more committed to saving its own face than to rehabilitating and reforming an institution and a system that failed the eight young men who became Sandusky’s victims. Corbett’s suit was believed by many to be an effort to win political support from Penn State bigwigs ahead of his uphill re-election battle in 2014, and it could have easily obscured a potential investigation into his own role in the scandal in his former capacity as Pennsylvania’s attorney general.

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Justice

Governor Finally Remembers He Has One Latino On His Staff

By Igor Volsky on May 24, 2013 at 10:12 am

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) remembered the one Latino in his administration on Thursday, one day after ThinkProgress highlighted an exchange in which he said “we do not have any staff members” who are Latino.

The remarks, filmed last week during a roundtable discussion hosted by ALDÍA NewsMedia, also captured Corbett joking that Latino people don’t live in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, Corbett’s staff identified Maria Montero, the Director of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs. The Philly Post has more:

I would have published this sooner, but I was waiting from a response from Corbett’s people confirming that there’s really no one else. In fairness, the administration also used to employ preternaturally grumpy Eli Aliva as Secretary of Health and nominated Ken Trujillo for Commissioner of the PLCB.

Corbett also lashed out at ThinkProgress during an event on Thursday and highlighted his administration’s effort to nominate a Latino nominee. “There are candidates out there on the Democratic side [and] there are liberal organizations coming out of Washington that want to have an impact on the governor’s race here in Pennsylvania,” he sad. “I nominated Ken Trujillo, a well-known Latino Hispanic from Philadelphia, a Democrat for the LCB. The Democrats rejected him. Why aren’t you writing about that?”

ThinkProgress has previously reported that the governor has established a commission of Latino affairs, which his website describes as “the Commonwealth’s advocate agency for its Latino community.”

Politics

Governor Can’t Find A Single Latino In Pennsylvania To Work For Him

By Igor Volsky on May 22, 2013 at 1:00 pm

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) brushed away a question about Latinos working in his administration during a roundtable discussion at The Union League in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Friday, telling the moderator, “If you can find us one let me know”:

MODERATOR: Do you have staff members that are Latino?

CORBETT: No, we do not have any staff members in there. If you can find us one, please let me know.

MODERATOR: I am sure that there are Latinos that…

CORBETT: Do any of you want to come to Harrisburg? See?!

Watch it (via ALDÍA NewsMedia):

“I represent every one of you, I’ve been elected by the people of Pennsylvania to make it better than I found it,” Corbett said at the event. “We need to be able to develop a stronger relationship with all communities…we’re in the process now of getting much more connected with everybody, that we did not have before.”

In 2012, Corbett proclaimed Sept. 15 – Oct. 15 “Hispanic Heritage month,” noting “I commend the many social and economic contributions of Latino-Hispanics in our state and celebrate the rich and diverse culture of Pennsylvania’s fasting growing minority group,” Corbett said and noted that Pennsylvania’s 800,000 Latino residents represent approximately 6.8 percent of the overall population. A 2008 survey found that the Harrisburg-Carlisle metropolitan region “is home to more than 18,000 people of Hispanic or Latino origin,” one third of whom live in the city of Harrisburg. The city is also home to the Latino Hispanic American Community Center.

Corbett has established a commission of Latino affairs, which his website describes as “the Commonwealth’s advocate agency for its Latino community.” “The GACLA makes recommendations to the Governor on policies, procedures and legislation that would affect the Latino community in Pennsylvania and serves as the Governor’s liaison to Latinos in order to ensure that state government is accessible and accountable to the Latino community,” it says.

Economy

Governor Explains Away Poor Jobs Numbers: Most Unemployed People Are On Drugs

By Igor Volsky on Apr 30, 2013 at 9:00 am

(Credit: News Works)

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) is facing an uphill fight for re-election as he battles negative job approval ratings and a slow economic recovery. The state’s unemployment rate has dropped to 7.9 percent, but the “number of people working in Pennsylvania tumbled by about 14,000 in March, following a drop of 6,000 in February.” Private employment has remained flat for 13 months, “growing by a mere 1,000 jobs” and landing the state “49th in the nation for job creation during March.”

During an appearance on a local radio show this week, Corbett sought to explain away Pennsylvania’s less than stellar performance, arguing that the state gained 111,000 private sector jobs since he took office and is “doing better than other states.” But then he grew defensive and complained that “a lot” of businesses are still having trouble filling their ranks because too many Pennsylvanians use illegal drugs:

CORBETT: The other area is, there are many employers that say we’re looking for people but we can’t find anybody that has passed a drug test, a lot of them. And that’s a concern for me because we’re having a serious problem with that.

Watch it:

A Quinnipiac University Polling Institute poll released on Monday found Corbett trailing potental Democratic opponents by at least nine points.

Earlier this month, a state senator introduced a bill requiring drug testing of all recipients and applicants for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in Pennsylvania. The state is currently “conducing a pilot program in 19 counties of testing only those convicted of felony drug offenses.” Since January of 2012, just two people have failed.

Health

Pennsylvania Republicans Pressure Their Governor To Accept Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Feb 28, 2013 at 12:00 pm

Now that the Republican governors in Ohio and New Jersey have both announced their support for expanding their states’ Medicaid programs under Obamacare — joining Democratic-led New York and Maryland — Pennsylvania is surrounded. Gov. Tom Corbett (R) has resisted cooperating with this Obamacare provision so far. But now, members of his own party are beginning to pressure him to change his mind and join his neighbors:

Now the heat is coming from some of Corbett’s fellow Republicans in the state legislature.

State Rep. Gene DiGirolamo (R., Bucks) said Wednesday that he supported Medicaid expansion because it would provide health insurance for an estimated 700,000 Pennsylvanians, many in low-wage jobs.

“We should do everything possible to get this done for the state of Pennsylvania,” DiGirolamo, chairman of the Human Services Committee, said Wednesday. “Most of the people we are talking about are in the workforce making $10 to $12 an hour and have no health care.”

At the same time, a top Senate Republican said he had tasked his staff with examining Medicaid expansion costs and benefits in advance of budget negotiations in the spring. Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman (R., Centre) said that the Senate GOP caucus might take a position of its own on Medicaid expansion — he did not elaborate — and that the issue could figure into the budget process.

Partisan resistance to Obamacare is finally beginning to wane, as eight Republican leaders have now conceded that resisting health reform on a state level might not be worth the political statement. The GOP leaders who have agreed to carry out this provision of the health reform law have all acknowledged that it will make financial sense for their state budgets — since the federal government will finance the full cost of expansion for the first several years — as well as help ensure that thousands of low-income Americans receive the care they need.

And the pressure may be getting to Corbett. On Thursday, the day after Christie announced he supports Medicaid expansion in New Jersey, the Pennsylvania governor agreed to meet with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to “discuss questions” about his options for expanding the Keystone State’s Medicaid program under Obamacare.

Justice

Pennsylvania Republicans To Introduce New Election-Rigging Plan

By Ian Millhiser on Feb 4, 2013 at 9:05 am

Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Domini Pileggi (R)

Last month, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus called up “states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red” to rig future presidential elections by changing the way electoral votes are allocated. Under Priebus’ proposal, blue states such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would stop awarding electoral votes to the winner of the state as a whole, and instead would award them one-by-one to the winner of each congressional district. Meanwhile, red states would continue to award 100 percent of their electors to the Republican. This plan appears to have lost steam, however, as several top Republicans in key states announced they will not support it.

Even as Republicans in key states such as Michigan, Ohio, Florida and Virginia came out against this election-rigging plan, however, Pennsylvania Republicans have been eerily quite. We now know why. According to the New Castle News a local paper in western Pennsylvania, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R) will introduce legislation this month that will effectively give away a large chuck of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes to the Republican presidential candidate, regardless of who wins the state as a whole.

How This Election-Rigging Plan Works

Unlike the plan Priebus backs, the New Republican Plan would not tie electoral votes to congressional districts. Instead, it would award the overwhelming majority of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes proportionally according to the popular vote, with two additional electoral votes going to the winner of the state as a whole. If the New Republican Plan had been in effect in 2012, Mitt Romney would have received 8 of Pennsylvania’ 20 electoral votes, despite losing the state by a substantial margin.

The problem with the New Republican Plan is that it would only be enacted in blue states such as Pennsylvania — the Democratic candidate for presidential won Pennsylvania in every single election for the past two decades — while red states would continue to award all of their electoral votes to the Republican. Thus, the plan gives away Democratic votes to the Republican for free, while letting the Republican candidate keep all the votes they earn legitimately in other states:

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Justice

Pennsylvania House Republicans Introduce Bill To Rig The 2016 Presidential Election

By Ian Millhiser on Jan 16, 2013 at 10:30 am

If The GOP Election Rigging Plan Were In Effect, This Man Would Have Won The Electoral College Last November

Earlier this week, Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus endorsed a Republican plan to rig the next presidential election to make it nearly impossible for the Democratic candidate to win the White House, no matter who the American people vote for. The election-rigging plan, which would allocate electoral votes by congressional district rather than by states as a whole in a handful of states that consistently vote for Democratic presidential candidates, would have allowed Mitt Romney to narrowly win the Electoral College last November despite losing the popular vote by nearly four points.

On Monday, seven Pennsylvania Republican state representatives introduced a bill to make this vote-rigging scheme a reality in their state. Under their bill, the winner of Pennsylvania as a whole will receive only 2 of the state’s 20 electoral votes, while “[e]ach of the remaining presidential electors shall be elected in the presidential elector’s congressional district.”

Pennsylvania is a blue state that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every single presidential race for the last two decades, so implementing the GOP election-rigging plan in Pennsylvania would make it much harder for a Democrat to be elected to the White House. Moreover, because of gerrymandering, it is overwhelmingly likely that the Republican candidate will win a majority of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes even if the Democrat wins the state by a very comfortable margin. Despite the fact that President Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 5 points last November, Democrats carried only 5 of the state’s 18 congressional seats. Accordingly, Obama would have likely won only 7 of the state’s 20 electoral votes if the GOP vote rigging plan had been in effect last year.

One mitigating factor is that only 7 of the Pennsylvania House’s 109 Republicans are original sponsors of the election-rigging bill, so it is unclear that this is a major priority for the GOP state house caucus. Nevertheless, both Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) and state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-PA) support the plan, so there is a real risk that Pennsylvania Republicans will try to write the voters out of the next presidential election.

Alyssa

In Pennsylvania Lawsuit, NCAA Gets Challenge It Asked For With Penn State Sanctions

By Travis Waldron on Jan 2, 2013 at 3:32 pm

Last July, the NCAA leveled Penn State University’s football program with sanctions for its involvement with and cover-up of the Jerry Sandusky rape scandal. The sanctions vacated 14 years of wins, banned the school from participating in bowl games for four years, and levied $60 million in fines. With the exception of the so-called “death penalty” it leveled on Southern Methodist University in 1986, it was the most far-reaching punishment the NCAA had ever issued.

This morning, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) announced at a press conference that his state was bringing an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA to challenge those sanctions. Flanked by area business owners, state politicians, and Penn State students, Corbett called the NCAA’s actions “overreaching and unlawful,” and accused the organization of overstepping its legal bounds in punishing Penn State.

The lawsuit may be futile. Penn State, after all, agreed to the sanctions, though Corbett reasoned that it did so only to evade the “death penalty.” Corbett’s motivations, meanwhile, seem far from pure. He has an election coming up in 2014, and he’s about to become the subject of another investigation, as incoming Attorney General Kathleen Kane (D) has promised to probe his role as attorney general in the investigation and cover-up of Sandusky’s crimes. And there are plenty of other questions to be asked. Neither Penn State nor the current attorney general are party in the suit, which only contributes to the feeling that the lawsuit is more exhibition than substance. It is also unclear how expensive the case will be for taxpayers at a time when the state is already facing a multibillion-dollar budget gap.

Despite the facts against the case and the murky questions that remain, though, it is hard to argue that the NCAA and president Mark Emmert didn’t leave the door open to such a suit when they punished Penn State. And as such, it’s hard to imagine that the organization and Emmert are getting anything else than what they asked for.

The NCAA’s punishment of Penn State was sloppy. It reeked of desperation, a public relations ploy to comfort everyone into thinking that it had done something — anything — to address the Penn State problem. The NCAA never conducted its own investigation, instead relying on the Freeh Report commissioned by the university. There was no hearing before the Committee on Infractions, no notice of allegations, no charges against the school, all typical components of an NCAA case. In announcing the sanctions, which he seemed to reach unilaterally, Emmert never specified which NCAA rule Penn State had broken.

That is the heart of Corbett and Pennsylvania’s suit. “The NCAA has punished Penn State without citing a single concrete NCAA rule that Penn State has broken, for conduct that in no way compromised the NCAA’s mission of fair competition, and with a complete disregard for the NCAA’s own enforcement procedures,” the complaint states. In doing so, the complaint asserts that the NCAA, acting as a trade association, violated antitrust law in a way that will have a “devastating, long-lasting, and irreparable effect on the Commonwealth, its citizens, and its economy.”

That the NCAA violated antitrust law, that its members essentially conspired to decimate Penn State football, is “going to be very hard to prove,” ESPN legal analyst Roger Cossack said this afternoon.

Regardless of whether Pennsylvania wins the suit, though, the NCAA’s sloppy punishment has indirectly turned this into an even bigger mess than it already was, and it could get even worse. The lawsuit could jeopardize the investigation Kane, who takes office this month, has promised to lead, giving Corbett an easy out to avoid commenting on a pending issue and perhaps preventing the public from learning exactly how far into the state government the vines of the Sandusky scandal stretched. Corbett isn’t a hero here, and I’m still not sold that this lawsuit should have been filed. But it is now entirely and unfortunately possible that the NCAA’s punishment may inadvertently cause more problems in the clean up of Penn State than it ever hoped to fix.

Justice

Three Republican Governors Embrace Prison Reform, Saving Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Aug 2, 2012 at 12:20 pm

Pennsylvania has taken a strict approach to sentencing over the past several decades, resulting in a prison population that has swelled by 40 percent in the last dozen years, a corrections budget of over $1 billion, and over 20 penitentiaries currently over capacity.

However, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, the state has begun to shift away from over-incarceration and move toward reforms with an emphasis on rehabilitation programs for nonviolent offenders:

Emblematic of that philosophical shift, impelled in no small part by the parlous economy, is legislation signed last month by Gov. Corbett. The measures mandated by the Criminal Justice Reform Act are projected to lower Pennsylvania’s prison population by as many as 4,000 inmates over four years and to save up to $370 million in five years.

[...] William F. Plantier, Bucks County’s director of corrections…called the new law “an enlightened approach” to corrections and said he was buoyed by the effort to move away from the notion that more prisons were the only way to ensure public safety. The reality, Plantier said, is that “you just can’t keep on locking up everyone.”

Gov. Tom Corbett (R-PA) is just one of several conservative governors to take steps toward important — and fiscally responsible — prison reforms in their states. Most recently, Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) signed a bill to eliminate jail time and expand rehabilitation programs for nonviolent drug offenders, explaining that this type of prison reform is a more effective way to combat drug crime than the failed policies of the nation’s Drug War. John Kasich (R-OH) pushed a similar bill through his state legislature this May.

Considering the fact that the country’s broken criminal justice system contributes to wrongful deaths, potential psychological abuses, and incidents of sexual assault, these Republican governors are right to take steps toward reforms. States like Florida and New Hampshire, however, continue to advocate for disastrous policies to privatize their prison systems, a move that wouldn’t actually save any money and could actually increase the rate of incarceration.

Health

Pennsylvania Governor Hopes To Change Women’s Choice On Abortion

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on May 2, 2012 at 12:02 pm

Republicans across the country have pushed for a slew of abortion regulations that limit women’s access to health care. State lawmakers have considered measures that put up more hurdles for women seeking abortions, with the goal of ultimately preventing them from having the procedure.

Pennsylvania was one of 17 states to consider requiring women to undergo an unnecessary ultrasound before an abortion, which Gov. Tom Corbett (R) supported even though the House stopped the bill. He defended the measure by telling women “you just have to close your eyes” if they didn’t want to see the ultrasound. And in an interview with UW Election Eye, Corbett said he supported the abortion bill in the hope that it would stop women from having an abortion:

CORBETT: I think we have over 30,000 abortions a year in Pennsylvania. [...] I think adoption is a much preferable way to go. When you see that kind of number, if an ultrasound, which is not invasive at all, would convince somebody maybe to carry that baby to term and give it up for adoption and save that life, I think that’s the way to go.

Watch here:

Research has shown that seeing an ultrasound does not lead women to change their minds about having an abortion. Instead, it only forces women to jump through more time-consuming hoops before they can have a medical procedure.

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