A lot of polls spelled out a lot of trends this week, and made some Ups and Downs rather easy.
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Tom Corbett. The Governor took a brutal poll this week from Quinnipiac, showing that 51 percent of registered Pa. voters think he DOES NOT deserve a second term. Ouch. (Just 31% said he does). And his new push to privatize the state’s liquor stores – an idea that enjoys wide popular support – was tripped up when members of his own party backtracked on the plan before it was announced.
Philly Traffic Court. Talk about a bad week. The U.S. Attorney’s office indicted 9 people in Philly’s messy traffic court system this week on charges of ticket-fixing corruption. 6 of them are judges. It looks bad for everyone involved…
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Dominic Pileggi. …Except the state Senate Majority Leader. Pileggi (R-Chester) proposed a bill a few weeks ago that would abolish the troubled traffic court in Philly. A Philadelphia Inquirer report triggered the attention on the system last year, and Pileggi January announcement has been vindicated.
Background checks. It’s not very often a poll finds 95% support for anything, but Quinnipiac did this week. By a 19-1 margin, Pa. registered voters support universal background checks for firearms purchases – numbers that are in line with the country at large. Gun legislation is always tricky, but it looks like lawmakers will actually address this problem.
California. The Golden State is getting not one but two of Pa.’s top reporters. Pa. Public Radio’s Scott Detrow is heading west after 2 years of covering Marcellus shale development. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Harrisburg bureau chief Laura Olson is joining the Associated Press. Both will be based in Sacramento and covering state government. Good luck guys. And you thought Harrisburg was nuts…
Tweet of the week: Sen. Rob Teplitz (D-Dauphin), for the lottery-groundhog tie-in everyone has been waiting for.
Tomorrow is #GroundhogDay! If Gus sees his shadow, he faces 6 more years of unemployment under the privatized #Lottery contract.
— Rob Teplitz (@RobTeplitz) February 1, 2013
5 Responses
I for one am very sad to see Scott Detrow and Laura Olson leave our Commonwealth. The environmental journalism in this state just took a nose-dive. I wish them nothing but good luck in their future endeavors!
One Term Tom…
Uh, bad polling and an inability to get anything done in the legislature is not all that made this a REALLY bad week for Major Tom…
Too bad. Representative government depends on serious journalists–as it also depends on borderline lunatic comments like the one above. Both make the system work and in odd ways redeem it.
Glad to hear those liberals are heading home to California where they belong. Maybe your next? Maybe manifest destiny all over – all you far left lunatics can go live in the broke at state in the country, which supports all your ideas but still hasn’t figured out how to pay for them