Turzai Stepping Down As House Speaker Says Source — A little birdie tells us that the rumors are right and Speaker of the House Mike Turzai is quitting the Pennsylvania Legislature. Turzai, a Republican, has been Speaker since 2015 and has represented the Allegheny County -centered 28th District since 2001.
Mike Turzai
Our source says that Turzai’s dreams of becoming governor have been dashed and that he is looking to practice law full time.
Turzai has scheduled a news conference for tomorrow (Jan. 23) and this will either be confirmed or not then.
Pennsylvania Legislative Salaries Hit $90,300 (and this doesn’t include benefits).
By Leo Knepper
As of Dec. 1, the base salary for Pennsylvania lawmakers will increase to $90,300 per year. This pay raise comes as the result of an annual cost-of-living-increase (COLA) they receive automatically. The higher salary will be on top of any per diems, health insurance, etc. that lawmakers are eligible to receive.
As an aside, lawmakers pay only one percent per year of their salary for health benefits. In other words, their annual premium is roughly $900 for health insurance that is second to none. There are many taxpayers whose monthly insurance bill exceeds that amount.
The $90,300 salary is the minimum for members of the General Assembly. As noted by the Associated Press:
“Lawmakers in leadership posts will top out at $141,000 for House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson. The four caucus floor leaders in the House and Senate will each make almost 130,900 while the four caucus whips and the four Appropriations Committee chairs will receive $121,100.”
The salary differences between rank and file members and “leadership” are especially noteworthy. It presents another clear example of how our beloved judicial branch ignores the plain text of the Pennsylvania Constitution. According to Article II, Section 8, “The members of the General Assembly shall receive such salary and mileage for regular and special sessions as shall be fixed by law, and no other compensation whatever, whether for service upon committee or otherwise.” (Emphasis added)
Members of the General Assembly aren’t the only ones who will benefit from taxpayers’ forced generosity in the new year. When January rolls around, members of the executive branch will also see an increase in their pay. Governor Wolf’s salary will increase to over $200,000 per year. The Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Tom Saylor, will make over $220,000 per year.
Many lawmakers will, if they haven’t already, make a show of donating their salary increase to a charity. It is a standard public relations move on their part, and has become as regular as the leaves changing colors. However, despite their righteous indignation, there is never any real interest in eliminating the automatic COLA by changing the law. Finally, for any lawmakers in the defined benefit pension plan, the higher annual salary, regardless of charitable contributions, will be used to calculate their pension benefits upon retirement.
Unlike members of the General Assembly, CAP can’t force anyone to pay for projects we want to undertake. Next year is going to be incredibly busy for us. If you value what CAP does and would like to help us continue holding Harrisburg accountable, please consider making a financial contribution to our efforts.
Pennsylvania Legislative Salaries Hit $90,300 (And This Doesn’t Include Benefits)
Mike Folmer Charged With Child Porn Possession — Pennsylvania State Sen. Mike Folmer, the Republican who represents the 48th District which consists of Lebanon County and parts of York and Dauphin counties, has been charged with possession of child porn.
If the charges hold it might help answer why no significant reforms occurred in this state when the Republicans held the House, Senate and governor’s office.
Yeah, we still allow teachers strikes. Yeah, Planned Parenthood still gets tax money.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court released its version (see image) of the congressional districts map on Monday. As we noted previously, the Court lacks authority under the Pennsylvania Constitution to draw districts. It is likely that Republicans will file suit in federal court to stop the Court-created Congressional districts from being used in the 2018 elections. One avenue for seeking a federal injunction is summarized by Justice Max Baer, the lone Democrat to dissent from the final opinion:
“While I have expressed my misgivings with allowing an election to proceed based upon a constitutionally-flawed map, I continue to conclude that the compressed schedule failed to provide a reasonable opportunity for the General Assembly to legislate a new map in compliance with the federal Constitution’s delegation of redistricting authority to state legislatures.[US Constitution, Article 1, Section 4]
“My skepticism regarding the time allotted the Legislature has been borne out. Democracy generally, and legislation specifically, entails elaborate and time-consuming processes. Here, regardless of culpability, the Legislature has been unable to pass a remedial map to place on the Governor’s desk for signature or veto.Under these circumstances, Pennsylvania and federal law permit the use of the existing, albeit unconstitutional, map for one final election.” [Emphasis added]
A second issue is the Court’s districts do not minimize the number of splits to local governments (i.e., townships, municipalities, counties, etc.). An analysis by Amanda Holt found that the districts adopted by the Court resulted in more splits (79) than the district maps submitted by Republicans (61) and a separate plan offered by the Senate Democrats (60). You may not recognize her name, but Ms. Holt’s research in 2011 was the primary evidence used to throw out the state House and Senate districts for constitutional reasons. Her current finding is significant because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stated in their original decision that local governments could only be split to ensure equal population. Furthermore, as she notes on her blog, the fact that the Court’s districts are drawn with more splits could demonstrate to a federal judge a lack of “good faith effort.”
The high likelihood of another lawsuit being brought by Republicans to the federal court regarding the Congressional districts means the issue is still up in the air. We will keep you posted as the story continues to develop.
By Rocco Polidoro
The political career of retiring State Representative William F. Adolph,165th District is a clear case of why Pennsylvania needs a State Constitutional amendment to install term limits and to lower the number of legislators.
Rep. Bill Adolph
The 165th state house district covers parts of Morton, Springfield, Marple and Radnor. I hear Bill Adolph is a good guy in Delaware County but many people don’t know about the Bill Adolph in Harrisburg.
The Pennsylvania General Assembly has 203 members and the PA Senate has 50 members. Government watchdog groups have labeled PA as the fifth most corrupt state in the Country.
House members start off making $85,339 a year with excellent benefits. When Adolph started in 1989, he was earning about $35,000. Employee benefit specialists estimate that a great benefit package, like what state legislators make, is equal to about an extra 35 percent of their salary. Bill Adolph ended his 28 years with a salary of $120,000.
Employee benefit specialist would also say that the schedule of a state legislator is considered part time. The average full time worker works about 250 days a year whereas state lawmakers work about 125 days a year. In addition many lawmakers have other jobs or businesses which confirms the fact that their state jobs are part time. Plus they get over $600 a month car allowance, $159 a day for expenses and a full medical package which includes Nursing Home protection. So when one adds up Bill Adolph’s salary, his benefits, car allowance, per diem expenses, office rent, staff salaries and their benefits, the State of Pennsylvania has spent over $4 million in the last 28 years.
And there is no way to add up all of the gifts, conference trips and sporting events that had come his way in those 28 years.
Now that Adolph retires in January, he will earn about $120,000 a year in a pension with full medical insurance. The complete retirement package alone can total another $3 million over the next 20 years. So the grand total for Bill Adolph could top around $7 million.
Why do we tax-payers allow all this for career politicians ? There wouldn’t be any pensions with full medical benefits if there were term limits in place. Wouldn’t a 10-year limit be enough?
Our Founding Fathers never planned for us to have public servants spend a life time as a legislator and pay them a pension and medical care for life.To make matters worse, there are 252 other state law-makers that have the potential to draw millions. Now what did we get for the $7 million that we will eventually spend for Bill Adolph?
If you were waiting for property tax relief, Adolph never brought that to PA. If you support public education, Adolph voted many times to cut funding to our public schools but did vote to give millions to Charter Schools. If you supported cutting waste in government, Adolph was a major distributor of WAM (Walking Around Money) money for years. WAM money was unappropriated and unaccounted state money for special projects in the districts of the powerful lawmakers.
Adolph has had a history of not being a good steward of our tax money. While he was on the Board of Directors and then the chairman of PHEAA, the State Auditor General did a report in 2007 which showed that PHEAA wasted $25 million over a 5 year period. PHEAA is the state agency that awards college grants and school loans to college students.
Another example of Adolph’s poor stewardship of our taxes was when he voted in 2001 to increase the pension formula of state lawmakers, judges and teachers by 50 percent. As a result the 501 school districts in PA owe over a billion dollars to the state pension system. And because of this pension-funding crisis, many school districts will be forced to eventually raise property taxes even more.
In 2005, Adolph voted to raise his salary by 34 percent on July 7th at 2 a.m. with no input from the press or the public. Adolph took the first month increase but when the word got out and the pressure mounted on all of the Legislators, Adolph returned the increase in the second month. To prevent another fiasco like the 2 a.m. vote, Adolph and the rest of his friends, voted to permanently build in a cost of living increase so their salaries can go up a little every year. This way most of the public won’t know of their annual increases.
Adolph’s salary has gone up from $35,000 to $120,000. Can you vote yourself a 350-percent increase in your pay over a 28 year period ? You see my friends, we don’t need to be spending hundreds of millions on these politicians. And that is why we need to get behind groups that want to create term limits and lower the number of law makers. I
n PA there are 50 state senate districts. We are paying salaries and benefits for those 50 senators and their staff. Then within each of those 50 senate districts, there are four state house members like Bill Adolph. Why do we need four State House members in an area where we already have a state senator? It’s excessive representation and we over-pay dearly for it. If you think Adolph’s $7 million package is mind-blowing, try to calculate what we are spending through out the State for the hundreds of retired and active law-makers and their staff.
We have to impose term limits and decrease the number of law makers. It’s no wonder our state is now $1.7 Billion in the red. If we don’t change the State Constitution, you won’t be able to afford living in PA. Bill Adolph may be a nice guy but no politician is worth $7 Million.The hard working people of Pennsylvania need to wake up.
Mr. Polidoro is an outspoken Democrat from Springfield and has been long represented by Rep. Adolph.
The Pennsylvania Constitution mandates that judges retire at age 70. Some thought that was too early and wanted to make it age 75. The amendment process requires one of the legislative chambers — both of which have been under Republican control since 2011 — to write the amendment. It is then advertised in at least two newspapers in every county at least three months before the next general election. It then must be passed again via simple majority by both chambers in the next session. The wording is then placed on a ballot as a referendum giving the general public final say.
The chambers approved this: Shall the Pennsylvania Constitution be amended to require that justices of the Supreme Court, judges and justices of the peace (known as magisterial district judges) be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they attain the age of 75 years, instead of the current requirement that they be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they attain the age of 70?
The referendum was scheduled for the April 26 primary and the mandated advertising — costing the public $1.3 million — was performed.
The Senate leadership had second thoughts, however. Cynics are saying they feared the public might vote it down which would have forced the removal of Chief Justice Thomas Saylor, a Republican, giving the Democrats control of the state Supreme Court.
So they filed a legal challenge claiming the words were too confusing. The state Supreme Court laughed and threw it out.
The legislature then passed resolutions, April 6 and April 11 invalidating the election two weeks away. They re-wrote the amendment for the Nov. 8 general election as: Shall the Pennsylvania Constitution be amended to require that justices, judges and justices of the peace be retired on the last day of the calendar year in which they attain the age of 75 years.
Democrats filed a legal challenge saying the delay was unconstitutional because the legislation was not presented to Gov. Wolf as required. Commonwealth Court rejected the argument.
They filed another challenge saying the delay illegal because it was political in nature. Commonwealth Court rejected this claim on July 6.
A challenged was filed on July 21 by former Supreme Court justices Ronald Castille and Stephen Zappala Sr, and Philadelphia attorney Richard Sprague saying the new wording was deceitful.
Supreme Court took the case and voted 3-3 which left the wording as the short version. Saylor appropriately recused himself.
Yesterday, Sept. 16, the court ruled 4-2 that the case can’t be reconsidered, hence the short version without the mention of an existing mandated retirement age is what the voters will see.
The Court got it right with the last argument. It isn’t their job to determine the wording of amendments. On the other hand, it is judiciary’s job to judge process and if constitutional amendments require legislative votes in consecutive sessions with advertising in between, then one wonders how changes in the wording can be made at the last minute.
And what’s it say about our solons if they can’t get it right in the first place?
The word changes are pointless gamesmanship and political pettiness at the highest level. This stuff always backfires especially when one learns it has wasted $1.3 million of our money.
And, for what it’s worth, the retirement age should not be increased. Vote this amendment down on Nov. 8.
FBI Pranks Pa Senate In Sting LOL — The FBI pranked the Pennsylvania Senate into unanimously passing a bill pushed by a fake business to limit who could dispose of used textbooks.
The vote on Oct. 14, 2010 was 49-0 to pass SB 1379. The bill never got out of the House and never became law.
It was part of a sting to catch corrupt Pennsylvania pols. It worked and is working. Good one, feds. Applause and a big LOL.
The FBI created the phony firm Textbook Bio-Solutions LLC in Florida as the bait and hired lobbyist Long and Nyquist — good choice, there — to do the fishing.
Long and Nyquist, who didn’t know they were being used, worked their magic and if the FBI wasn’t just goofing, the people of Pennsylvania would have had to deal with another stupid, corrupt, wasteful, special-interest law.
Since 2010, there have been significant, for-the-better changes in the Pennsylvania legislature including the arrival of Scott Wagner from the 28th Senatorial District. Wagner has been going after Long and Nyquist in the most beautiful fang-and-claw way.
Bill Adolph Tribute –Bill Adolph has announced that he will not seek re-election which will mean that come 2017 the 165th District in the Pennsylvania State House will have a new face for the first time since 1989.
The 165 District consists of all of Morton Borough, most of Springfield and Marple Townships and a large part of Radnor. Specifics can be found here.
Since this blog came into existence, we’ve probably been harder on Bill more often than not — actually we have been seriously hard on him at times — but we will never deny he cares deeply about his community. A Springfield resident, he has lived in the same house off Springfield Road for as long as we can remember, and the same can be said about his accountant’s office on Saxer Avenue. He was easy to find and easy to approach and if he wanted to hold the seat for another 28 years we suspect he’d have no problem doing so.
So Godspeed Bill. Hopefully you stay in Springfield and stay active on the political scene.
Now, regarding those who seek to replace him regardless of party registration, we have your issue.
The (non-partisan) Springfield School Board has approved a new high school with an estimated cost of between $118 million and $140 million. The Pennsylvania Prevailing Wage Act of 1961 requires wages to be paid at an amount set by the Bureau of Labor Law Compliance. This law inflates the cost by perhaps up to 40 percent albeit 20 percent seems to be the consensus. Using the lowball estimates, simply repealing the law — and it doesn’t have to be replaced with anything — would save the Springfield taxpayers $23.6 million on this project alone.
And of course, other communities would save in the same proportions for all county, school and municipal projects.
Repeal should really be a no-brainer.
And so there you have a winning issue, candidates for the 165th District.
Sometimes a song gets so stuck in head the head of Pennsylvania State Rep. Russ Diamond (R-102) that the only way he can get rid of it is to learn it and record it.
Bright by Echosmith was one of them. Here is Russ getting it out of his head.
As a former House member, it was the 1968 revisions to the PA Constitution that causes most of the problem. Governor Scranton forced the legislature to adopt a new constitution changing, among many things, the legislature from part time to full time with full time salaries. He said that they could get the best and brightest by offering full time work with full time executive pay.
That didn’t work out so well. The Late James Gallen, one of the longest serving members of the House, discussed this with me. He was there before the new Constitution took effect.
He and I, in the minority, agreed that the problem was three fold:
First, the legislators had to make it appear that they were busy simply to justify their salary. The current job pays over $100,000 with the expenses along with a generous pension. (I do not collect one). So, they have to introduce legislation vote on legislation and do enormous amounts of constituent work to justify that much money. While most fail, the upshot was lousy legislation and shoddy work. Even in 1972, I ran thinking that I was going to do good things for my constituents. I soon found out that my real job was to stop other legislators from doing things TO their constituents!
Second, instead of attracting the best and brightest, because the job paid so well, it attracts those who want to better themselves financially. It also attracts lowlifes in some areas of the state. When the legislature was part time, it attracted those who wanted to better themselves by “serving” their communities. Thus the term that is used today( without much meaning, I might add). (I served in the legislature from 1973 to 1976, two terms.) In other words, having done well in the private sector, they wanted to give back something to their communities by serving them. (This is Christ’s example: He that is last shall be first. And That Christian doctrinal belief is also missing from the public marketplace.)
At the turn of the 19th century, there were just as many legislators as today. But the population is double today that which it was in 1900. Thus the representation per person is 1/2 of what it was. Limiting the size of the legislature is the wrong solution to the wrong problem.
The third reason is MONEY. The amount of money spent on elections in Pennsylvania and the nation is obscene. It is estimated that nationwide in all state and national elections, 10 to 11 BILLION Dollars will be spent. Only special interests have that kind of cash. When I ran, while there were a few fat-cats that contributed to my campaign, most of the money I raised was from ordinary folks, friends and family. It takes at least $100,000 average per state house race.
FollowTheMoney.org says that the amount of money spent in Pa in 2014 alone was over $152 MILLION! Now when you understand that because of gerrymandering only a small percentage of House and Senate seats ever change hands (usually under 10%), you can see that someone is paying a huge chunk of cash for relatively small gain.
These guys don’t give money because they’re nice guys.
There is an additional problem: US
“The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.” said Alexis De Tocqueville. He also remarked that people get the government they deserve. That is, unless the people take part in their government on a continuing basis, they will continue to get the kinds of results we get now. When, three or four generations ago, they stopped teaching real “Civics”, people began to lose their connection to their government.
When asked what kind of government do we have, Ben Franklin was said to have replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” The price of liberty being eternal vigilance,who can say that they actually keep a watchful eye on their various governments? Few. Very few,indeed.
When I was a legislator, for instance, if I received more than 8 personal letters on a subject, I was worried. Even 40 years ago people stopped participating in their government.
There are solutions.
It is easy to demonize the size of the legislature. But,hopefully, I have dissuaded you from that angle. What we should do is to return the legislature to part time status. By nature, it will become more conservative. Next, reduce the pay by three-quarters, eliminate pensions, perhaps discuss healthcare, eliminate bloated staffs, control the cost of elections by limiting to x dollars per person served, adjusted annually for inflation or deflation.
And then we must mandate the teaching of Civics to our students. And that teaching must include the notions expressed in our original founding documents: the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
