A long press conference for Kane, some welcome news items for Gov. Corbett and the re-election of a party chair. See who made this week’s list.
Kathleen Kane. The release of the report into Tom Corbett’s conduct during the Sandusky scandal was always going to be an important day in the Attorney General’s tenure. It’s hard to imagine, though, that Kane anticipated that it would unfold as it did. The report found some problems with the methods used in the investigation but overall found no evidence of political tampering. This in and of itself might not have been such an issue if Kane had a better prepared response to her earlier claims that political motivations were “probably” involved. Additionally, her apparently incorrect assertion that two children were abused during the investigation in 2009 garnered the most attentive of all, little of it positive.
Tom Corbett. The Governor had three bits of good news this week. The first, of course, is described above. The release of the report could have reminded voters that regardless of the validity of claims that the investigation was deliberately slowed down, the crimes did happen on Corbett’s watch. Instead, Kane received nearly all the animus thanks to her comments while the Gov escaped relatively unscathed. Second, the unemployment rate in Pennsylvania dropped to 5.6%. Finally, his re-election campaign had a fine post-primary quarter which shows the incumbent with a critical cash on hand advantage.
Tom Wolf. Wolf may not have handled the episode over party chair perfectly, but it does actually fits into a narrative he is seeking to promote; he truly is an outsider. Not only that but Wolf had a very successful fundraising report after the primary. It was important that Wolf receive a nice boost in contributions after his victory (it would be tough to spend another $10 million) and the Democratic nominee brought in more than double what Gov. Corbett did.
Jim Burn. Now that all is said and done, Jim Burn ultimately got what he wanted, another term as party chair. He faced significant opposition from his party’s gubernatorial nominee (and even lost some staffers) but Burn still easily won the prize after Wolf gave up the fight two days before. Whether Burn will regret his victory is a question for a later date, for now though he remains Chairman.
On-Time Budget. After Sen. Pileggi’s comments it appeared that we would blow past the June 30th budget deadline. While there has been some recent movement in the legislature, an agreement is far from close. We’re just four days out now and we still don’t have a clear indication whether the budget will be done on time or not.
Our tweet of the week goes to the Washington Post’s Colby Itkowitz, who commented about the unfortunate news emanating from an EPA office in Denver.
New meaning to govt waste RT @GovExec Does your agency have a rogue pooper or a simllar problem? Email webmaster@govexec.com. Seriously.
— Colby Itkowitz (@ColbyItkowitz) June 25, 2014
Loading ...
12 Responses
Why isn’t Jim Burn’s a mixed arrow? Sure he got what he wanted, but it came at a cost – alienating the future governor and an up and coming candidate. That’s what we call winning the battle but losing the war.
Larry-
I know she wasn’t on the case, but your claim that she “defended” it is a stretch (though YOU did imply she litigated the case).
My point was that she didn’t have her office put a lot of resources into it and let Corbett’s team take the lead (as the OAG’s office was the least useful they could get away with being to Corbett. No one was going to get demoted for losing the case.).
Also, part of the reason given for having her office stay on the case was that it was already involved from her predecessor.
But, if you read her statement, (that didn’t really support the law) was that it might be constitutional on it’s face, but that the implementation wasn’t.
If you look back at my arguments over the past few years on this issue, my objection was NOT to people showing an ID, but to the specific ID choices in the bill that were tailored to exclude students, the poor and the elderly. The bill prevented the county board of election from issuing an valid ID. In the past, the county would mail a non-photo voter registration certificate. Printed on it was the assertion that the certificate itself was valid proof of identity to vote.
The previous bill had allowed other non-photo forms of ID including utility bills. Under the new bill, local government issued photo-IDs were not valid.
The bill was ALWAYS about voter suppression. There was no actual problem with voter impersonation fraud. Besides, a simple ink-pad stamp and a place to put your thumb-print would be more than ample deterrent against such impersonation.
What made the law unconstitutional was requiring forms of ID that were not easily obtained (or undue burden) while ignoring other forms of ID that were perfectly acceptable. (Judge McCaffery’s own supreme-court photo ID was deemed insufficient under the voterID law).
So, Kane was dead on about why the law didn’t pass muster.
And, when it did get overturned, she didn’t even considering appealing it, but shoved it to Corbett. If she thought the law was good, her office could have appealed it.
So, let’s not pretend that Kane had any genuine support for voterID.
David “The Lying Criminal” Diano,
Kane said it was valid and constitutional.
http://www.keystonepolitics.com/2013/08/pa-ag-kathleen-kane-d-will-defend-voter-id-in-court/
On the second point, Kane had nothing to do with the actual litigation. She wouldn’t know where to start with a constitutional challenge in Commonwealth Court.
So, you continue to lie.
Kane made it clear that she didn’t think the VoterID was valid, which pretty much tanked the case before it started. It’s not like Kane busted her @ss to win the case.
Larry, Kane defended Voter ID. Why do you find it so easy to twist or ignore the facts? Also, did you pay restitution for your crime?
Larry-
I’ve commented favorably on Kane on the other threads. I rarely bother with Up/Down thread because it’s just a recap of earlier threads.
Kane was on the right side of:
lottery privatization
VoterID
marriage equality
Those alone have earned her reelection and my vote.
Hey Signor, is Bubba still riding you like a Ferrari. Go Back to prison where you belong.
Signor — she admitted that she was wrong.
Why is Kane’s assertion that that two children were abused during the investigation in 2009 “apparently incorrect?” Corbett’s team has hedged about the exact dates of Victim 9’s abuse, and acknowledges there was another victim who claimed to be abused in 2009. Kane believed the two of them, and Corbett didn’t. Why isn’t Corbett “apparently incorrect?”
If your definition of a good week as a politician is one in which you are cleared of enabling a pedophile rapist, then it’s really time to start looking at the people you’ve surrounded yourself with for the last 4 years. His political team has been terrible since 2011 and while his campaign has been decent so far, they will not be able to undo the damage done by Nan & Co.
David Diano remains silent on this Kane “down arrow.” It’s a painful time. Or, DD is off stealing someone’s Civil War musket:
http://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/CPReport.ashx?docketNumber=CP-67-CR-0004610-2012
Again, Jim Burn did not lose staffers as a result of his decision to run for Chairman again. Those moves are decided on much earlier than that.