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The Pennsylvania Society
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What We’re Hearing
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.” – President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address

Happy Birthday
Cake and candles for President Joe Biden, Sen. Rosemary Brown and Rep. R. Lee James.

Start Your Day Smart
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Top Story

1. PA Latinos Don’t Vote As A Single Bloc, But Could Have Singular Effect In 2024 Elections

“Margarita Mazyck understands the political apathy. She, too, once grappled with it.

“Most Latinos, they think that our voices don’t count, that it’s a waste of time to go register,” said Mazyck, a 59-year-old voter registration field director for Pennsylvania’s branch of CASA in Harrisburg, Lancaster and York.

CASA — an advocacy organization lobbying, in part, on behalf of 11 million undocumented workers in America — is one of several groups that hope to shape the future of the country through voter registration.” (Erie Times-News)

Related

Voters Are Backing Abortion Rights, But Some Foes Won’t Relent. Is The Commitment To Democracy In Question? “The statewide battles over abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion have exposed another fault line: the commitment to democracy.” (AP)

Here Comes 2024: List of PA Congressional Candidates. “Now that the 2023 municipal election is in the rearview mirror, it is time to focus on the consequential 2024 election.” (PoliticsPA)

Political Violence Threatens To Intensify As The 2024 Campaign Heats Up, Experts On Extremism Warn. “From “Pizzagate” to QAnon and to “Stop the Steal,” conspiracy theories that demonized Donald Trump’s enemies are morphing and spreading as the front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination aims for a return to the White House.” (AP)

State

2. Shapiro’s Deal With Fracking Company Splits Environmentalists

“Environmentalists are split over a new deal struck by Pennsylvania’s governor with a natural gas producer: while some have applauded the effort to move forward amid a legislative deadlock on climate action, those on the front lines fear the agreement amounts to little more than PR, offering a model for the industry to regulate itself.

The partnership, which Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office said in a press release added to “an already robust regulatory framework,” comes three-and-a-half years after Shapiro, as state attorney general, published a grand jury report that found the DEP had failed to protect Pennsylvanians from the health and safety risks of fracking.” (Penn Capital-Star)

Related

PA Unemployment Rate Holds at 3.4%. “Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was unchanged over the month, remaining at the record low of 3.4% in October.” (PoliticsPA)

PA Senate Revises Security Bill To Give Schools More Time To Comply And Create Opt-Out Provisions. “The state Senate on Wednesday revised a bill that originally would have required all schools to have armed security — adding language that would phase in the requirement and allow school officials to decline to add armed security if they can’t easily find personnel to serve in that role.” (Capitolwire)

Pennsylvania Ranks Near The Bottom In National Study Of Charter School Performance. “A decade’s worth of testing data ranks Pennsylvania among the states with the lowest charter school performance. Pennsylvania ranked 31st, followed by Oregon, Michigan, Tennessee and Hawaii. The commonwealth was also among the states with the largest gap between white and Black charter students’ scores, with the seventh-largest gap.” (Penn Capital-Star)

Miss Pittsburgh Launches Super PAC To Take On ‘Squad’ Democrats, Oust Anti-Police Politicians. “Madison Campbell, the recently-crowned Miss Pittsburgh and CEO of Leda Health, launched the new Survivor PAC to help elect tough-on-crime candidates and oust anti-police politicians.” (Fox News)

PA House Panel OKs Bill To Hike Municipal Waste Recycling Fee. “A House committee approved legislation Wednesday to increase the state municipal waste recycling fee for the first time since it was set in 1988 when Pennsylvania launched municipal recycling.” (Capitolwire)

Around The Commonwealth

3. Rosalynn Carter A Local Figure

“Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, who died Sunday at 96, was no stranger to Blair and Huntingdon counties as she often accompanied her husband Jimmy Carter during and after his presidency on visits to Wayne Harpster’s farm in Spruce Creek, Huntingdon County.

The Carters were avid fishermen, Harpster said, and had heard about Spruce Creek, known for its fly fishing opportunities.

Harpster said he had less than an hour’s warning before the president’s helicopter landed on his farm, and the president and first lady disembarked already dressed in fishing gear.” (Altoona Mirror)

Related

McCormick Says Penn’s Magill “Not Qualified To Lead.” “I think what’s happened on our college campuses since the horrific attack on Israel, the barbarism, (is) an eye-opener,” said David McCormick. “I mean, it has been an absolute eye-opener. Because it’s been explicit antisemitism.” (DV Journal)

Ex-Employee Suing Erie County Executive Will Litigate In Federal Court, Not County Court. “A whistleblower lawsuit against Erie County Executive Brenton Davis is getting removed from the Erie County Court of Common Pleas and transferred to federal court in Erie.” (Erie Times-News)

David Oh Doesn’t Rule Out Another Run After His Loss In Philly Mayor’s Race, Calling Himself A ‘Blank Slate’ “Oh, a Republican who lost to Cherelle Parker last week, is now looking for a new job and fundraising to pay off his campaign debt. He hasn’t ruled out another run for office.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

PA Court Sides With Transparency. How To Know If Your Local Gov’t Is Following The Law. “A court has ruled that elected officials can’t vote on contracts or other major projects in Pennsylvania without first giving taxpayers a 24-hour notice.” (PA Pressroom)

Wyoming County Commissioners Ask State For A Second Judge. “At a meeting Nov. 7, commissioners backed a resolution that would bring a second judge to the 44th Judicial District, which covers Wyoming and Sullivan counties.” (Scranton Times-Tribune)

Editorial

4. What They’re Saying

• The Enduring Importance Of The Gettysburg Address. (Salena Zito)
• Gettysburg Tells The Story Of More Than A Battle − The Military Park Shows What National ‘Reconciliation’ Looked Like For Decades After Civil War. (Katrina Stack and Rebecca Sheehan)
• America’s Greatest Battlefield Illustrated The Most Noble Of Heroes And Its Finest Speech. (Larry Hypes)
• There Needs To Be An Urgency To Defuse The Trump Time Bomb. (Mark S. Singel)
• In Allegheny County, Party Politics Is More Complicated Than It Seems. (Tribune-Review)
• Weed’s A Winning Issue For The Democrats. (Jonathan Bernstein)
• It’s Time To Figure Out Marijuana In PA. (Meadville Tribune)
• Teach Your Students, Penn. (Larry Platt)
• Standardized Test Scores Are Published – As Soon As The Election Is Over. (Beth Ann Rosica)

1 Thing

5. In Nod To PA, Liberty and Bell Are Up For White House Turkey Pardon

“In a nod to swing state Pennsylvania, turkeys Liberty and Bell will appear at the White House’s annual turkey pardoning this week, continuing a decades-long tradition in the nation’s capital.

Liberty and Bell made their debut Sunday at a news conference with the National Turkey Federation at the Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington. The lucky birds hail from Willmar, Minn., and were hatched as part of the “Presidential Flock” back in July.” (The Hill)

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