Democrat Dan Onorato and Republican Pat Toomey are headed to Philadelphia for events today, lawmakers in Harrisburg stay up all night, and Rick Santorum raises some eyebrows from Iowa. This is Tuesday’s Buzz.
From PoliticsPA:
Legislative leaders and Governor Ed Rendell are in a scramble to reach a budget deal by mid-day after negotiations that spilled into the early morning hours Tuesday failed to produce an agreement.
If a deal is not reached by Tuesday afternoon, lawmakers will likely miss the budget’s June 30 deadline, which could deal a serious setback to the negotiations.
“The thought was if we don’t have an on-time budget, we would go back and renegotiate the elements we conceded to get an on-time budget,” Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) told reporters at about 2:20 a.m. after the night’s final meeting. “It’s still possible to get an on-time budget, but it would require a suspension of the rules.”
In Iowa for the millionth time, former Pa. Sen Rick Santorum had this to say about the POTUS: “Obama is detached form the American experience. He just doesn’t identify with the average American because of his own background. Indonesia and Hawaii.”
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato will be in Philadelphia’s University City today touting his jobs plan…
…and GOP Senate candidate Pat Toomey will be right across town, announcing his “Vets for Toomey” campaign group.
Headlines:
PA Public Radio’s Scott Detrow reports that the budget deal is largely in place. “The deal calls for a bit more than $28 billion in spending, and includes the boost in basic education funding Governor Rendell had pushed for. Leaders have also agreed to tax natural gas drilling – though the severance tax would be passed later this year, in a separate bill.”
Dan Malloy, the P-G’s DC correspondent, remembers WV Sen. Robert Byrd: “The respect for Mr. Byrd extended across the country and across the aisle, with senators citing their admiration of his sharp wit, encyclopedic knowledge of world history and his devotion to the Constitution.”
From Politico: Democrats quietly cheer high court gun ruling
Our pal, The Fix, says Specter’s one of the Senators to watch in Elena Kagan’s SCOTUS confirmation hearings
Scranton Times: Drillers want “forced pooling” to go with likely severance tax: “The Marcellus Shale natural gas industry wants to see legislation attached to any severance tax adopted by the state that would force property owners who refuse leases to allow drillers to gather the gas beneath their land, an industry coalition leader said Monday.”
Post-Gazette: If it wasn’t already bad for Mike Veon, his $50k pension is now out the window.
The Daily News on the Daily News: A federal bankruptcy judge yesterday approved a plan to bring the Daily News and Inquirer out of Chapter 11 with a sale to a coalition of investment firms, willing to put up $105 million in cash for the newspapers and their Web site, Philly.com.
Remember the Philly soda tax? – A similar tax passed this week in Baltimore, MD, another city beset by serious financial problems. Expect Philly pols, especially Mayor Nutter, to keep a close eye on it.
Mike Kelly names campaign manager – Republican Mike Kelly, who’s challenging freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-3rd), named Josh Snyder as his campaign manger. Snyder previously worked for Sen. Specter in his Erie office.
Subtle headline of the day goes to the Daily News: Nutter has plan for bail deadbeats
No-tax politics – State Sen. Dominic Pileggi, the Senate majority leader, said that if Tom Corbett were to become governor, he would have a hard time keeping the no tax increase pledge he made recently.
Fumo’s back – Not from federal prison in Kentucky, but back in the news. The U.S. Department of Justice is allowing federal prosecutors to appeal the sentence given to fmr. State Senator Vince Fumo.
Today’s Opinions:
The Inquirer says that a punctual budget doesn’t mean a better budget: “WHAT a difference a year makes: Last year at this time, the state budget was still 102 days from being passed, and the consequences of the delay weren’t pretty. This year, it looks like lawmakers will pass a state budget close to the June 30 deadline. But the rush to craft a deal could lead to a spending agreement far worse than last year’s.”
The Scranton Times: A University of Scranton study says that the University of Scranton is pretty great, and the Times agrees.
A year removed from their own G-20 summit, the Post-Gazette on this year’s conference in Toronto: It seems like a squishy compromise between divided delegates who could not really agree which was the greater threat, lagging economies or unrestricted debt. What they came up with is an echo of St. Augustine’s famous prayer: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet.”
In the Patriot-News, Jeanette Krebs says that Specter’s not done yet: Navigating the brainy world of Supreme Court hearings has been the forte of Specter’s U.S. Senate career. In his final hearings, his greatest legacy would be to show other senators how to make hearings more meaningful to them and to the nation.
