A recent email from our state senator, Jake Corman, notified me that today, June 1, is the last day for us to get in our comments on funding options that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation wants to use to fill our transportation funding gap. One of those funding options already received the necessary board approval back in November 2020, during the dark days of the pandemic.
The approval was to toll nine bridges on interstate highways around the state. Six of those will directly affect Happy Valley residents as we try to drive east, west or south from here (a map and details of the proposed toll bridges are on this webpage).
Students who lost ground in school during the COVID-19 pandemic may soon be allowed to repeat the current academic year even if they ve met the requirements to advance a grade level or graduate.
Senate Bill 664, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre, also would allow special education students who are set to age out of school by turning 21 before the start of the 2021-22 academic year to access an additional year of educational services.
On Wednesday, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Education Committee voted 24-1 to advance the bill to a full vote in the House. The Senate approved the bill 48-0 on May 12.
State College
In February, Pennsylvania state Sen. Jake Corman, (R-34th District), said on WPSU that he planned to check with other states to determine the best voting system for Pennsylvania.
This shouldn’t be difficult to do for a person who likes to travel the country for political purposes. We assume Senator Corman will have surveyed the widest range of states and will report to all of us real soon.
We should all be especially interested to learn if our senator checked with Oregon and Colorado. As was publicly pointed out in CDT letters, both states use 100 percent mail-in voting.
Angela Couloumbis of Spotlight PA and Brad Bumsted and Sam Janesch of The Caucus
HARRISBURG For the first time, the Pennsylvania legislature’s top leaders are expected to throw their weight behind reining in the influence of lobbyists who also moonlight as political consultants, blurring the worlds of politics and policy in the Capitol.
In the coming weeks, House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman plan to unveil a proposed ban on the practice as part of a lobbying reform package. The hope, the Republicans have said, is to restore public faith in government.
Yet even as the final details of the plan are being penned, Corman is jetting off to a ritzy fundraiser organized by one in a trio of companies that has cornered the market on the business practice Corman’s lobbying reform legislation aims to stop. The Harrisburg-based firms, called The Mavericks, fundraise for elected officials, run their political campaigns, then lobby them once they are
Spotlight PA and The Caucus
Editor’s note: Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media.
HARRISBURG For the first time, the Pennsylvania legislature’s top leaders are expected to throw their weight behind reining in the influence of lobbyists who also moonlight as political consultants, blurring the worlds of politics and policy in the Capitol.
In the coming weeks, House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman plan to unveil a proposed ban on the practice as part of a lobbying reform package. The hope, the Republicans have said, is to restore public faith in government.