FILE PHOTO: The dome of the Pennsylvania Capitol is visible in Harrisburg.
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
Findings from investigation into lobbying disclosure expected this week
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Emily Previti/PA Post
Matt Rourke / AP Photo
FILE PHOTO: The dome of the Pennsylvania Capitol is visible in Harrisburg.
If you’re free Wednesday night, consider heading over to the WITF Public Media Center in Harrisburg for a free event focused on Pa.’s environmental challenges. Smart Talk’s Scott LaMar will lead a panel discussion following a preview screening of “RETRO REPORT on PBS,” More informatoin is here. -Emily Previti, Newsletter Producer/Reporter
Also on week’s agenda: Election security, voting machines
Tom Downing / PA Post
The Pennsylvania state Capitol is seen in this file photo. (Tom Downing / WITF)
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Upon their return to Harrisburg this session, lawmakers created the House Government Oversight Committee. The new committee is charged with looking into matters referred by the chamber’s leadership, according to this statement announcing the panel’s first investigation into lobbying disclosure. The committee will discuss the results of that probe at its first meeting Monday morning. Capitol Bureau Chief Katie Meyer will be there. Follow her on Twitter for live updates and check PA Post later on for her story.
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The House State Government Committee this week is expected to look at legislation that would eliminate straight-ticket/party voting. It passed the Senate in June and hasn’t moved since then. Some of its language, however, ended up in a different bill that also set aside funding to help compensate counties for buying new voting machines. Gov. Tom Wolf ultimately vetoed that measure, citing the provision that would’ve scrapped straight-party ballots. I’ll be following the HSG discussion.
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Wolf wants to borrow the money to reimburse counties through the Pennsylvania Economic Development Financing Authority. That option, however, might not be legally viable. The board is scheduled to meet next week to talk about it, with a vote anticipated in November.
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The vast majority of counties have moved ahead with buying new election systems absent any true guarantee that they’ll get at least half their money back as promised by the state. Check out our map showing what voters can expect to see on election day and where the mass upgrade — prompted by the settlement to a lawsuit over election security — stands.
Best of the rest
Katie Blackley / WESA
The PennDOT Driver License on Smithfield Street in Pittsburgh. (Katie Blackley, WESA)
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Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision barring the government from putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census, the federal government is new trying to obtain citizenship information from state drivers license databases. Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials haven’t yet decided whether they’ll hand over the info, WESA’s Lucy Perkins reports. Meanwhile, this Pew Center study finds plans to participate in the decennial census differ among people of different ages, incomes, races and other demographic measures.
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J.P. Mascaro & Sons’ TotalReycle in Pottstown, Montgomery County, recently started accepting bubble wrap, grocery bags and other no-longer-recyclable plastics. The company’s curbside pickup program is the first of its kind in the nation, according to this analysis from The Morning Call on the pilot’s future prospects.
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Lebanon County political leaders settled on candidates over the weekend to run in the Jan. 22 special election to finish out the last two years of state Sen. Mike Folmer’s term. Democrats picked Michael J. Schroeder; Republicans chose Lebanon’s District Attorney David Arnold on Saturday, PennLive’s Sean Sauro reports. The winner will represent the 48th district, which is comprised of Lebanon County and parts of Dauphin and York counties. Folmer, a Republican, resigned last month after being arrested on child pornography possession and other charges.
