Former Pa. Senator Rick Santorum, who announced his run for president June 6, is admittedly a long-shot to win the nomination and would likely lose a general election to Barack Obama. A run for the top spot, though, could be enough to earn him a consolation prize in the form of a vice presidential candidacy.

Santorum has long positioned himself as a very conservative and often polarizing figure and that could hurt him if moderate Republicans make up a healthy portion of the primary voters. Santorum, however will be competing against better-known Conservatives such as Sarah Palin, Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann, who has also formally announced for the presidency during the second GOP presidential debate. On the other hand, primary voters might decide to go with the most electable candidate such as Mitt Romney or even Rudy Giuliani who could appeal to more moderate voters.

Meanwhile pundits have begun a narrative that Santorum is a willing attack dog figure even toward other conservatives. While his obvious goal is the White House, Santorum might ultimately have to settle for the vice presidential nominee to a more moderate Republican. The vice presidential candidate can serve as a political attack dog, usually freeing the top of the ticket from most of the mudslinging. This dynamic was particularly pronounced in 2008 with both Palin and Joe Biden taking to that role. Biden also ran for president in 2008 and pulled almost no support.

Another consideration for the GOP is Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes. Though that is down from 21 in 2008 due to the new census numbers, Pennsylvania is still tied for fifth (with Illinois) for most electoral votes. The Harrisburg Patriot News noted that the parties should be very focused on the state because independent and centrist voters make Pennsylvania among the largest of the swing states. Of the others, California, New York and Illinois with their large urban populations tend to be solidly Democratic while Texas remains solidly Republican. Only Florida, with 29 electoral votes, has been a larger swing state. Whereas Pennsylvania leans Democratic, Florida tends to lean Republican.

With so many large states in the solid-Democratic and lean-Democratic column, Republicans should be looking for some edge here. Biden’s roots in Scranton arguably helped Obama win Pennsylvania by ten points in 2008. Santorum might be able to counter that dynamic. Traditionally, vice presidential candidates were selected with their home state in mind and candidates from swing states were expected to deliver their home state.

Admittedly this dynamic changed in 2000 with the selection of Dick Cheney from the solidly red state of Wyoming. Cheney, who essentially selected himself for the post, offered ideological rather than geographic supplement to the campaign. In 2008, neither Biden nor Palin were from swing states and rather took the ideological attack dog role. For his part, Biden brought decades of legislative experience and foreign policy expertise while Palin brought conservative credentials and became the first woman to seek the vice presidency for the GOP. In spite of a propensity for verbal gaffes, neither Biden nor Palin back down from political fights. Santorum could serve in a similar role for the GOP in 2012.

So would Santorum offer both ideological and geographic supplements to a more moderate presidential candidate? His conservative credentials are impeccable and he is a darling of the Tea Party movement. One important criticism of the McCain-Palin ticket was that Palin was too inexperienced and too ideological to be president. This was compounded by McCain’s age and health problems. If the Republicans nominate a younger and healthier candidate – and so far all of them fit that bill – Santorum may be acceptable to voters, especially with his 12 years of Senate experience.

As for geographic balance, Pennsylvanians have long accepted that our track record of nominating presidents ranks among the worst in the nation among states that have produced presidents. As for Vice Presidents, Pennsylvania has only produced one of those, too. George M. Dallas served under James K. Polk and did indeed win Pennsylvania in 1844.

Still, that is no guarantee that Santorum carries the Keystone state for the Republicans. On one hand, Pennsylvania voters did send Pat Toomey, a rather similar candidate, to the senate in 2010. On the other hand, Santorum lost his 2006 reelection bid by 18 points. Moreover, Santorum’s Pennsylvania credentials may be tarnished from the controversy that developed in 2004 concerning his state residency status and whether the Penn Hills School District had to pay the tuition when the Santorums enrolled their children in cyber-charter school. Santorum was raised in Butler, Pa. and attended Penn State, Pitt and Dickinson for various degrees. He still maintains a residence in Penn Hills as well as a home in northern Virginia, close to his work in Washington DC.

Meanwhile, Biden was known as Pennsylvania’s third senator. While Biden represented Delaware, he always had the interests of his native state in mind. The 2008 Obama campaign cast Biden as a working-class Scranton native, a narrative that won over a sizable number of northeastern Pennsylvania voters. The 2012 Obama campaign will presumably run with the same messaging while potentially painting Santorum as something of an absentee senator.

Obviously, eight months out from the first ballots being cast in the Iowa caucuses might as well be an eternity in politics. At the moment, however, Santorum seems like a long shot for the presidential nomination and a dark horse at best for the vice presidential nod. However, if that would happen, expect the bottom of the ticket to serve as important proxies in the battle for Pennsylvania with Biden appealing to the base voters and NEPA working class and Santorum playing to the conservative rural voters and Pittsburgh area Republicans.

The announcement is not particularly surprising. Santorum did participate in the first Republican presidential debate with former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and pizza magnate Herman Cain. That debate has been criticized for lacking the presumptive front runners including Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mitch Daniels and Mike Huckabee (though Huckabee and Daniels have since announced that they won’t be running). Santorum did win a post debate straw poll among South Carolina Republicans when he was the only candidate to show up for it.

Fox News also suspended Santorum’s contract as a contributor to the network due to the former senator’s political aspirations. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Santorum made less than $100,000 for his Fox News gig while Palin and Gingrich each pull down about $1 million, though Gingrich has also been suspended and Palin would likely be suspended as well if she announces a candidacy.

Santorum has been one of the most active candidates on the ground so far in the 2012 season. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that he has filled out the top campaign spots in early primary states. CNN reported that Santorum has visited each of the first three primary states – Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina – more than a dozen times already.

Santorum faces an uphill battle for the nomination. A recent Gallup poll has him pulling in just two percent support among 11 candidates and only 47 percent name recognition among Republican voters. He also ranks on the low end of Gallup’s positive intensity score scale, with measures how enthusiastic his supporters are about his candidacy. On that scale, he only beats Johnson and former Utah governor and ambassador to China John Huntsman. His numbers are low enough that Gallup did not include Santorum in their expanded analysis of the field.

Additionally, polling and analysis by Zogby still puts Santorum at about three percent in a field of 13, placing him near the bottom of the field and tied with Gingrich, who has seen his poll numbers take a nosedive. The one silver lining for Santorum is that he has a respectable 64 percent support among self-described conservatives in a match up against Barack Obama. Still, he trails Palin, Cain, Pawlenty and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann in that category.

Another problem that Santorum faces will be money. The Center for Responsive Politics noted that Santorum was among the least wealthy senators, ranking 60^th at the time, and has an estimated personal wealth of between $500,000 and $1.8 million. In contrast, Romney may be able to use millions of dollars of his own money in a campaign. During his failed run for the 2008 GOP nomination, Romney spent more than $35 million of his own money along with $88.5 million from other sources. Presumably, that spending did not put much of a dent in the former Massachusetts Governor’s personal fortune of about $250 million. Romney still only won ten primaries and 148 delegates in 2008 before dropping out after Super Tuesday.

On the other hand, Santorum does have an active political action committee (PAC) called America’s Foundation based in Downington. America’s Foundation  raised about $2.8 million, ranking it seventh among PACs and contributed generously to Republican candidates during the 2010 midterms. That PAC would be particularly useful in any fund-raising efforts.

Still, even if Santorum manages to land the nomination, he faces an uphill battle even in his home state. Historically, Keystone State Democrats come out in presidential years and Pennsylvania has swung Democratic for five consecutive presidential elections. In the three previous elections, the state voted Republican, though the Democrats severely underperformed in 1980, 1984 and 1988. Democrats hold a registration edge of about one million voters.

Republicans have been stronger in midterm elections, though Republican Pat Toomey just barely won in 2010 and Santorum himself got trounced by 18 points in 2006. Recent polling shows Santorum would get defeated even more soundly in a hypothetical rematch with Bob Casey Jr. Casey will be on the ballot with Obama in 2012.

Polling from late April, prior to Obama’s popularity surge in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden – and probably the best current predictor of a 2012 election – showed the president’s reelect numbers slipping in Pennsylvania, though he only loses to a generic Republican. Another early April poll from Democratic pollsters Public Policy Polling showed Obama narrowly defeating most Republican candidates, though Romney had a one point edge. The same poll shows Obama beating Santorum by only two points. Both results are within the poll’s margin of error, though the poll was an automated telephone poll, so the number should be taken with a grain of salt. In contrast, an early March poll conducted by Muhlenburg College and the Allentown Morning Call showed Obama only really struggling with an unnamed Republican challenger in Pennsylvania and easily defeating Palin, Romney and Huckabee. Again, those numbers should be used with caution as the poll only included 395 respondents and has a rather high margin of error of 4.5 percent.

The most attention has been attracted by Al Schmidt, the insurgent candidate for City Commissioner.   Schmidt, who served as director of the Philly GOP and ran unsuccessfully but seriously for city controller, has garnered a raft of endorsements and appears to have a serious chance of beating Joseph Duda, the incumbent, for the position more or less guaranteed to the minority party.   (The city commissioners are largely invisible, but have the role of supervising elections and maintaining voter rolls, never an insignificant one in Philadelphia.)

Somewhat less,  but still unusual attention has been attracted by John Featherman, the insurgent candidate for Mayor against the insiders’ pick Karen Brown, who might politely be called an uninspiring choice.    Unlike Schmidt, Featherman has no real chance of being elected in November, but the very fact of a GOP primary contest is noteworthy in a city where Flyers’ timeouts usually attract more attention than the Republican Party.

The real issue here, of course, is not the elections themselves but what they signify.  Anyone with passing knowledge of Philadephia knows that the Republican Party, under the perennial leadership of the Meehan family, has been noncompetitive in result and attitude for as long as anyone can remember.    What is new is that the State party, together with a group of mostly younger people loosely associated with the Loyal Opposition movement, has gotten tired of it and is finally doing something about it.    New York, Los Angeles. and other cities with equally high registration disadvantages have competitive Republican parties and have elected Republican mayors in the very recent past.   Why not Philadelphia?

Pennsylvania’s closed primary election effectively freezing out third party and independent voters except for the occasional ballot question. On the other hand, it is incentive for voters to join one of the two political parties. According to the Pa. Secretary of State, as of May 9 there were 8.17 million registered voters in Pennsylvania. Of those, 3.03 million were Republicans and 4.15 were Democrats. About half a million claimed no affiliation while 483,000 were registered with other parties. Full statistics are available for download here. The registration numbers are down from November, 2010 following scheduled purges of voter rolls. The Scranton Times Tribune explained that counties may purge rolls of people who have not voted in two consecutive federal elections, meaning one presidential election and one midterm election. These are usually voters who have passed away or moved. Lackwanna County’s rolls lost 2.7 percent of registered Democrats and 3.1 percent of Republicans.

Additionally, primaries tend to attract only the most dedicated voters and turnouts in the 15-25 range are common. A blogger for the Norristown Patch calculated that about five percent of Pennsylvanians often decide who will hold the reins of local power. Joe The Nerd Ferraro assumes turnouts in the 15 percent range for municipal primaries, equating to about 10 percent of the population. Voter apathy seems to be the underlying cause, though the closed primary system should not be over looked.

The Lebanon Daily News issued the usual scolding to the 85 percent or so of voters who won’t turn out for municipal primaries. “It really doesn’t matter if you vote,” the paper editorialized. “Unless you care about your tax rates, police protection, the zoning ordinances that govern what you (or your neighbor) can build on a property, and the education of your children.”

Furthermore, Pennsylvania is one of a few states that allow candidates for local and state office to run in both parties’ primaries, a practice known as cross-filing. Quite often, a popular candidate will win both primaries – in many cases unopposed – and have the election wrapped up in May. Obviously, third parties could run candidates, but Pennsylvania’s restrictive ballot access laws limit this option and after-the-fact court challenges can be costly as Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader discovered after the 2004 election. A bill introduced in January would loosen the restrictions, though similar bills have gone nowhere.

In smaller municipalities, though, write-in campaigns and even third party candidates have been successful, such as the late Brian Laverty, who was the first Green Party candidate to win office in Pennsylvania (borough council member in Blossburg, Tioga County).

Currently, it is the Tea Party getting all of the attention in the media. While officially non-partisan, the platform of limited government and low taxes tends to attract supporters to the Republican Party. Furthermore, Pennsylvania’s ballot access laws make forming an official Tea Party difficult here. Still, candidates often tout the tea party label in elections and the conventional wisdom is that the politically engaged supporters can and have decided a lot of primary contests. Perhaps lending credence to former House Speaker Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill’s lesson that, “All politics is local,” the Harrisburg Patriot News ran a story discussing how Tea Party aligned candidates have been keeping their affiliations quiet while the nearby Lebanon Daily News ran a story talking about Tea Party candidates running proudly with that label.

Sometimes it is local issues rather than political ideology that encourage citizens to get involved in local campaigns. Dana Dolney is running a write-in campaign against two Democrats for Allegheny County Chief Executive. Dolney made headlines earlier this year when a spokesman for Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley stopped her from talking at a meeting of the Governor’s Marcellus Shale Commission and mocked her saying, “everything’s a conspiracy.” A video of the incident has more than 18,000 hits on YouTube. Anti-fracking activists in the Pittsburgh area say both Democratic candidates are too close to the drilling industry, essentially making their issue a moot point. Democrats enjoy a huge registration advantage in Allegheny County and the winner of the primary will likely win the election.

In a much lower stakes election, the borough of Elizabethville (population 1500) in northern Dauphin County has a crowded field driven by a proposal to allow the borough to conduct safety inspections of rental units. In contrast, county-wide zoning appears to be a dead issue in Bradford County as four of the five candidates for county commissioner have already announced their opposition and the fifth would only support such a move if township supervisors are in favor.

Crowded primary ballots, however, tend to be the exception rather than the rule. The Harrisburg Patriot News discussed the candidacy of Pete Regan, who is running for Camp Hill (Cumberland County) School Board. The story notes that Regan cast a lone dissenting vote against a 9.5 percent property tax increase. He spent a year organizing residents and giving stump speeches. His organization, Camp Hill Tax Relief, however, did not attract other candidates. The paper blamed several factors including the time commitment, lack of pay and the responsibility to make hard decisions, especially with the looming cuts to public education. Still, school board races can and do attract candidates, particularly in times of fiscal crisis. In northeast Pennsylvania, both the Pittston and Wyoming school boards have crowded primary fields.

Similarly, county government problems can attract large fields of candidates. In Centre County, for example, 13 people are running for three county commissioner seats. The Centre Daily Times cites management problems, dealing with funding cuts from the state and problems with upgrading the 911 communications systems as driving issues.

More typical, however, is Monroe County which expects turnout below 20 percent. The only races of interest that the Pocono Record discusses are a county judge and county commissioner race. Still, 38 people are running for 17 open seats on the county’s four school boards. (Note: links are to the Pocono Record. Users must register in order to read more than three stories per month.)

Elections can also serve as proxies or votes of confidence for officials not up for election. In Harrisburg, for example, Mayor Linda Thompson’s popularity has plummeted after defeating 28-year incumbent Stephen Reed. A major issue is how to deal with $310 million in debt from a garbage incinerator project. Thompson’s strongest ally on the city council is retiring and seven people are running for three open seats. Voters are essentially voting whether to fill council seats with opponents or allies of Thompson.

Other times, election results are a direct comment on a candidate. In Northumberland County, one incumbent candidate, Vinny Clausi, is facing allegations of sexual harassment. However, the district attorney has announced that no charges will be filed and the Sunbury Daily Item reported that voters, particularly in the commissioner’s hometown, are skeptical of the charges.

In another election the Daily Item is covering, the election is very personal. The borough of Selinsgrove, Snyder County, cut a position held by Michael Moyer for nine years in December. Now Moyer and his cousin Kimberly Riegel are running for council seats.

Finally, ballot questions can drive some turnout. Dover Township, York County, for example will be voting whether to allow alcohol sales. Following the repeal of Prohibition, municipalities were allowed to stay dry. The college town of Mansfield, Tioga County, hung on to prohibition until a vote in 1981 – a vote that for the first time included university students. Some other 2011 ballot questions include, but are hardly limited to, a proposal to create a jobs commission in Philadelphia, whether to spend $155 million on a combined high school for Armstrong School District, whether to raise property taxes in the Wellsboro Area School District to support full day kindergarten and extracurricular activities, and whether to allow the Lancaster County development of Millrace leave Lancaster Township and join Pequea Township.

Polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday and close at 8 p.m. The Secretary of State will post results as they come in through the night. In addition to municipal elections and ballot questions, voters will also select nominees for the state superior and commonwealth courts.

For the right-wing zealots of the Republican Party, Corbett is viewed as the second coming.  In short order he intends to destroy public sector unions, flush public education down the toilet, help private colleges become more competitive, screw poor people and hand natural gas drillers a pass to rape our landscape.  What more could Corbett do for his base and his wealthy friends?

If Corbett stumbles or outright fails to deliver on his promises, the fault will belong to the leadership in both legislative houses, even though they are members of the same political party.
School vouchers are an example.

Corbett prefers to deal with vouchers after getting his budget through the House and Senate by the July 1 deadline.
That schedule conflicts with the personal ambitions of Sen. Jeff Piccola, chairman of the education committee.  The Senator is considering a challenge to Bob Casey for the U.S. Senate seat up in 2012.

Corbett’s priority is the 2011-12 budget.  Even after that he would prefer a smaller voucher program at the outset, mindful of the cost.  Corbett proposes a pittance that would barely extend options to poor children in the worst school districts.

Piccola wants to be known as the state lawmaker who delivered on vouchers.  He also needs enough funding to insure that Republican families get taxpayers to pay for sending their kids to private academies as soon as possible.

Corbett will have a difficult time getting his budget through without the grandstanding on vouchers.  Unless he also gets legislation that provides local school boards with tools to deal with state funding cuts, Corbett’s delivery on campaign promises will amount to no more than a huge shift to local taxpayers.

Existing state law prohibits furloughing teachers for lack of funds.  The number of teachers in a district can only be reduced because of a decline in enrollment.  That needs changed, presumably by July 1.

Collective bargaining has been a right extended to PA public employee unions since 1971.  As the law stands, school districts must bargain to get employees to pay higher contributions for health care.  Existing union contracts require layoffs to be based on seniority and include rules that define hours of work and duties. Legislation limiting the power of teacher unions must move alongside the budget to prevent big increases in property taxes.

“I want to introduce a new standard of living,” said William “Bill” Durham, a candidate for the City Council from the 8th District.

Donna Reed Miller has held this position for over 10 years. But Durham said that he has faith in the future.

“We can change this district in two to three years,” Durham, 55, added.

Durham has been a life-long resident of Germantown. After finishing a tour of duty as a medical corpsman during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm and almost two decades of service as a Marine, he dedicated himself to serving the community in one way or another. His past jobs have all been dedicated to helping others whether it was as manager of New Courtland Elder Services or one of the six different political positions that he has held locally.

Throughout the years Durham said he has chosen to remain and represent the community because of his attachment to it. It used to be a safe community, he explained, when he attended high school. Throughout the 1960s, his family and he took part in the civil rights movement.

“I used to have negative thoughts about people,” Durham said.

But it wasn’t until he served in the Marines that he finally opened his eyes past his block, he explained. Living with people from all around the country helped him understand what he wanted to do with his life. All of his past jobs have revolved around helping with others or being involved in community advocacy and politics.

“Politics is always involved in community matters,” Durham said. He explained that he plans on using politics as a tool to help more people rather than being limited to specific programs and groups that he has worked with in the past.

He explained that his business card has a drawing of a little broom on it. Why? He wants to clean Philly up a bit.

“I’ve always thought that certain politicians get to a point that they do really lose contact with or don’t possess the energy or zest…. or they get tired of the fight… I’m a very harder worker, so I’ll be asking a lot of the staff that works for me. I need people to see that because of this choice their lives are getting better,” Durham said.

Durham said he has been asking his neighbors several questions, including, “What is the one little thing that irritates you to no end that you believe that a councilperson can take care of?”

Usually the answer has been city services such as trash and parking. Another question he asks is, “What long-term [goals] do you think that I can do in my position with your support that we can get done?”

He explained that the latter question is more of the needed cooperation between the city and its residents.

“I can do it but only with your support! A community has to support programs of intervention…education… all these things and give their 100 percent in order for me to come along and use the system to put these things in place,” he said.

Durham’s two key issues he would like to address are jobs and education. He explained that it’s been shown that people with less education are usually the ones who are more involved in crime. He added that even though the national unemployment may be at 8 percent, some blocks in Germantown may be at 40 percent unemployment.

Durham said that his focus would be on reeducating individuals and helping these pockets of unemployment turn around.

“I would like to see a vocational program right here in the district where it’s needed. Teaching people carpentry, teaching people manual things from which they can make money and sustain their family with,” he explained.

A primary problem in Germantown, he explained, is that there is little help or support for ex-convicts. There needs to be a supportive community who would receive business from those individuals, but there also needs to be a more equal income distribution, he added.

Durham explained that there’s a significant problem with those ranging from 18 to 25 since they’re already marred with a conviction.

“They want to be productive and do other things. But those opportunities do not exist when you have those kind of records in your past,” Durham said.

Abandoned houses are also a major issue in his campaign. He wants to target and renovate them instead of riding them of the drug dealers or other potential crime that they may attract.

He explained that these properties could be lucrative investments for developers and help provide jobs for those in the community with any experience in general construction. Such projects would also help boost the self-esteem of those living close to them.

“I believe that there’s a job opportunity by even keeping lots clean,” Durham added.

Durham said that he hopes that his knowledge of community politics and his role as resident of the area will help increase votership to help him get elected.

“The Marines believe in a mission. We don’t accept failure,” he said.

His statements echo those of Lt. Gov. and Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission Chair Jim Cawley. The commission was created to investigate issues surrounding gas drilling and make recommendations to the governor. Cawley took off the table any discussions of a severance tax during the commission’s first meeting. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also reported that 19 of the commission’s 29 members donated anywhere from $200 to $411,000 toward Corbett’s campaign.

DCED, the Environment and DEP’s 35 Minute Response

Corbett also handed political ammunition to opponents of the gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” with his pick to head the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED). Typically, DCED hands out grants to local communities to create jobs and improve quality of life. However, Pro-Publica reported that the Corbett’s DCED secretary (and Marcellus Shale Advisory Commission member), C. Alan Walker, enjoys broad authority to “expedite any permit or action pending in any agency where the creation of jobs may be impacted.” Presumably, this directly applies to natural gas permitting. Pro-Publica also documented Walker’s history of pushing for environmental deregulation, his companies’ history of pollution and his $184,000 in campaign contributions to Corbett since 2004. It should be noted that Walker has been generous with his wealth, particularly to the Clearfield area and his alma mater, Bucknell University, which earned him a service to humanity award from Bucknell in 1996.

The power granted to Walker to expedite permits sets up a potential political showdown between DCED and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). DEP has already ordered natural gas companies to refrain from dumping fracking water into public sewer systems, which are generally not designed to remove the chemicals used in the process. However, critics claim that Walker could use his authority to effectively override any environmental regulation.

On the other hand, DEP officials have admitted to spending as little as 35 minutes reviewing permits for new drilling in the state and only rejected 31 out of 7,019 permits. In closed hearings, staffers further admitted to lax oversight of drilling and a “fuzzy” understanding of the laws and regulations governing gas drilling. Still, the Scranton Times-Tribune reported significant numbers of DEP staffers – particularly in high-level positions – have been leaving the state for work with the drilling industry. This brings up the problem of iron triangles within political subsystems as regulators and the regulated exchange jobs. Iron triangle theory notes that it is common for the people operating in those subsystems to become too cozy and ultimately set regulation that benefit industry rather than citizens.

Stuck in the Middle

Caught in the middle are the citizens and landowners of Pennsylvania, many of whom are not even benefiting from a lease to a gas driller. On Tuesday night an accident on a drilling well allowed thousands of gallons of fracking fluid to flow across farm land and into a creek near the small town of Canton, Bradford County. In fact, last year the Times-Tribune made an open records request of DEP. According to the documents the paper obtained, there were hundreds of spills across Pennsylvania involving at least 92 drilling companies.

A late March Time Magazine article highlighted the sociological divide in the Marcellus Shale region. On one hand, there is Truman and Bonnie Burnett of Stroudsburg. They have a vacation home in Bradford County where fracking water from a neighboring property spilled, destroying a swath of forest and affecting their pond. The incessant hum from the drills ruins the point of having a vacation home and probably affects the property value.

On the other hand, there is Canton resident Dave DeCristo. He opened a gas station which took off in 2008 when the drillers became his customers. DeCristo has added dozens of employees in this economically depressed region. He also leased his land to drillers and has a well near his front door. DeCristo told Time that he feels blessed to have been able to grow his business due to the natural gas boom.

In another example, the Pa. Board of Game Commissioners accepted an $18 million proposal from drilling companies to drill on state game lands in Lycoming, Tioga and Bradford counties. The article notes that the commissioners could have rejected the deal and drillers would still have been able to access the gas by drilling from neighboring properties. The deal also allows one company to place three wells on Tioga County game lands. Hunting – the primary reason game lands exist – would be restricted around the wells. The company will also donate 585 acres of land to the Game Commission in McKean County, about a two hour drive away. In the past decade or so, the Game Commission has been cutting services as the General Assembly has declined to raise hunting license fees. The $18 million will help, but it would not cover the revenue that higher licensing fees would have generated in the past seven years.

And the next target may be the 117 state parks. The Nation notes that there is very little stopping Corbett from lifting former Gov. Ed Rendell’s moratorium on drilling in state parks and one former Rendell appointee, former Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary James Quigley told the magazine that Corbett would be inclined to lift the moratorium. Regardless, the article also points out that the state does not own the subsurface mineral rights at most of the state parks anyway so drillers could still lease neighboring properties and get to the gas anyway.

In short, the region and the state have to decide if all of that money is worth the declining quality of life and environmental impacts and adapt. There are even law firms specializing in injury claims related to drilling involving hydraulic fracturing.

Bad Gas?

Finally natural gas presents a conundrum for environmentalists. Natural gas produces less pollution and green house gas than fossil fuels like coal, oil and gasoline when burned. Obviously, the United States doesn’t have to import natural gas. Mr. DeCristo has some in his front yard apparently, so the geopolitics of oil are not a factor like they are in Europe. There is probably enough domestic natural gas to last the country for decades and possibly a century or more.

But the environmental benefits of natural gas might be limited at best. Cornell University professor Robert Howarth published a paper arguing that the methane gasses released by fracking actual contribute more to climate change than coal and oil extraction as well as more traditional natural gas extraction. It is important to note that Prof. Howarth was only looking at the extraction impacts and not the effects of natural gas consumption.

Another emerging concern among fracking opponents is the fear that the process could release the radioactive elements radium 226 and radium 228 into ground and drinking water sources. DEP announced March 7 that their tests showed no elevated levels of radium at seven sites they tested. Those tests should not be conflated with tests later in March that found low, but not unsafe, levels of iodine 131. Iodine 131 is most commonly associated with radioactive waste and the tests were conducted in the wake of Japan’s nuclear crisis.

In another development, Democrats on the US House Committee on Committee on Energy and Commerce released a report on materials used in fracking. The report details the various chemicals used in the process. Of the 750 chemicals documented, 29 are either known carcinogens or classified as pollutants under the Clean Water or Clean Air acts or both. The committee also reported that drillers have even tried instant coffee and walnut shells to get to the gas.

If only the walnut shells worked.

Last year, the state had about $1 billion in federal stimulus money to help fund basic education at the state’s 500 school districts. While Corbett’s budget calls for increased spending from the general fund, the loss of federal money effectively means the state subsidy would be $550 million less than last year. That would mean school districts, used to seeing modest increases in the state subsidy, would see cuts of anywhere from five to 10.5 percent. In his budget address, Corbett suggested teachers take a pay freeze to help minimize property tax increases to cover the lost state money. The Pennsylvania School Boards Association is maintaining a list of the districts that have agreed to a freeze. As of April 8, 15 districts have agreed to freeze teachers’ wages while more have frozen wages of administrators and staff.

Eulogy for Public Education

The situation is bad enough that retiring Lampeter-Strasburg Superintendent Robert Frick delivered the eulogy for public schools in Pennsylvania, post-dated to 2020. In his speech, Frick blamed a number of factors for the increasing costs of public education. No one escapes blame. He blamed a focus on non-educational roles such as health checks and extracurricular activities. These are not bad, but they detract from the central function of teaching. He also blamed an increased federal role in education, the collective bargaining rights of teachers, unfunded mandates under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the costs to school districts for charter schools – a thinly veiled voucher system, he called it.

While it may be too early to declare public education dead in Pennsylvania, the commonwealth has two main ways to pay for it. There are state taxes on income, sales and companies and there are local property taxes. As state subsidies fall, school boards across Pennsylvania will be forced to make deep cuts in already lean budgets – even with the stimulus money, Southern Tioga School District in Tioga County was looking at cutting popular programs and delaying the purchase of new text books – or raise property taxes. Raising property taxes may become more difficult as well under a bill that passed the Senate Education Committee earlier this month. That bill would require a two-thirds majority (typically six out of nine) to pass a property tax increase. Property taxes, of course, are based on the assessed value of a home or property. Typically, school property taxes in Pennsylvania are significantly higher than county and municipal property taxes.

Reserve Funds

The Pennsylvania Independent ran a story suggesting that some school districts may look into tapping reserve funds to fill budget gaps. Among all school districts, the reserve funds total $2.5 billion – more than enough to cover the proposed state-wide cuts. However, that would leave reserve funds depleted with no immediate plans to refill them. Additionally, there are wide disparities in the sizes of such funds. At the high end, Abington School District in Montgomery County has $38 million in reserve. Abington School Board, however, passed a preliminary budget before the governor’s budget address which proposes a property tax hike in addition to using more than $8 million in reserves. Additionally, many school districts used reserve funding last fiscal year to balance their budgets, despite the inherent risks of tapping emergency funds. The Pa. Independent story also notes that 13 school districts have no reserve funds and several have only a few thousand dollars in reserve. Under Act 1 of 2006, school districts may not increase property taxes beyond the rate of inflation without either an exemption from the state or a public referendum, which would make refilling depleted reserve accounts even more difficult.

Mandate Relief

One alternative for cutting spending at the district level is a cross-partisan package mandate relief bills, which includes the measure to force a two-thirds vote for any property tax increase. (Nomenclature note: most newspapers will get this incorrect. “Bipartisan” indicates broad support from both parties while “cross-partisan” indicates some support from the opposing party. All of the bills had at least two dissenting votes in the Senate Education Committee and one eked by on a 6-5 vote.)

These bills are generally supported by the Pennsylvania School Board Association, though PSBA Executive Director Thomas Gentzel called for additional reforms. The bills would, among other things, allow school boards to furlough (layoff) teachers for economic reasons, remove the requirement that school nurses hold specialized certification, allow districts to hire non-certified teachers as long as the district shows adequate yearly progress as defined by No Child Left Behind, suspend and possibly eliminate continuing professional development requirements, and raise to $25,000 the limit allowed before seeking formal bids. Gentzel also called for reforms to prevailing wage requirements for construction projects, pensions, and collective bargaining policies.

Committee member Sen. Dylan Leach (D-17) voted against the measures. In a press release, he called the proposals an assault on public education in Pennsylvania. “This pack of bills is an affront to the public education system in Pennsylvania, and I am in disbelief that so many of my colleagues voted to run them through the legislative process,” Leach said.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association, the union representing teachers, pushed back on the furlough proposal. While recognizing that schools sometimes do end up overstaffed occassionally, PSEA treasurer Jerry Oleksiak called for specific triggers in the furlough proposal. For one thing, school boards seek to minimize revenue by avoiding tax cuts rather than maximizing revenue like a private business. Oleksiak pointed out that this would tempt school boards to lower taxes while cutting teachers and thus increasing class size. He also noted that a furlough procedure without triggers creates a backdoor to eliminating underperforming teachers rather than the established protocol of helping teachers to improve before a formal termination.

Vouchers

Sen. Leach also noted the resurrection of school vouchers in Pennsylvania. On March 1, the Senate Education Committee also passed a bill to allow for education vouchers in the state. If passed in its current form, the bill would provide approximately $7,900 in state money to cover private school tuition. Initially, the program would provide vouchers to families at 130 percent or lower than the federal poverty level with children attending underperforming schools. By the third year, they would be available to all low-income families regardless of where they live.

While highly controversial, a voucher program might be a slight improvement over the funding mechanism of the current private school option. Under current law, parents may enroll students in charter schools or use cyber-charter schools to facilitate home-schooling. While charter schools are “free” to families, a student’s home district must pay the charter school the average cost of educating one student for every enrollee. This is higher if the student is considered “special needs” and the district gets special education funding for that student.

Unfortunately, economies of scale being what they are, this hurts districts all across the state. Eastern Lancaster County School District had 49 students go to charter schools, costing the district $656,000 for the 2009-2010 school year. This year, charter school enrollment more than doubled to 106 students, a major driver behind the district’s $1.1 million deficit. The district has about 3,200 students, down from 3,700 a decade ago. The declining enrollment coupled with the budget deficit led the district to announce a plan to lay off 15 teachers even though the district lost less than nine students per grade level to charter schools. The charter school funding law nearly led to Penn Hills School District paying $55,000 to send five children of former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum to charter schools despite residency questions. The State Department of Education agreed to reimburse that money at the height of Santorum’s failed 2006 reelection race in order to avoid costly legal proceedings.

On the other hand, the issue of charter schools and vouchers brings up the issue of whether education money derived from taxes “follows the student” as Corbett has also proposed for higher education spending. This philosophy is largely espoused by school choice advocates who want to take their students out of public schools for whatever reason. Since tax money is ultimately the people’s money, then the people should have a say in how it is spent according to this view. If the state and local governments spend X dollars to educate a student, it should not matter where that student attends school, but the money should go to the school of the parent’s choice. Moreover, since private schools are free to hire and fire teachers, only the best teachers would be employed. Finally, this free market approach would encourage all schools to improve as they face competition.

The libertarian Cato Institute published a piece arguing for such a measure to deal with the District of Columbia’s failing education system. In Connecticut, the governor is pushing back on an effort to establish such a scheme. This is not solely a Republican or Conservative plan as former Democratic New Jersey Governor John Corzine supported it as well.

Critics of such a plan argue that it would siphon away money from already struggling school districts. This creates a self-fulfilling prophesy as public school districts continue to underperform in the face of declining revenues. They also note that school choice would do little to improve education, arguing that student performance differences are generally tied to demographic differences between public and private students. Initially, some low-income students may benefit. However, in the long run critics say, vouchers lead down the road to school privatization with the same student body and many of the same teachers as public schools. This could lead to de facto segregation along class lines as the best private schools only take the best students while others languish in second-rate private schools. The average student still has to go to school somewhere and there are already questions about the quality of some cyber-charter schools.

Then there is also the philosophical question of whether citizens without children in school should have a say in how their tax money is spent. Every property owner pays property taxes and tenants pay indirectly through their rent. Should they also have a say in whether their share of the taxes may go toward private schools? If so, then parents would only be entitled to the school taxes they pay and one-third of all other taxes since 33.21 percent of the state budget is spent on public education. This would not be enough to cover private school tuition for every family.

This debate goes back to the days of Henry David Thoreau when he refused to pay a poll tax to a government that supported slavery in 1846. He spent a night in jail and was highly annoyed when an aunt paid the tax on his behalf. In a subsequent writing on the subject, On Civil Disobedience, he attempted to parse out this idea. He hated slavery and considered the war with Mexico to be illegal and immoral. He was arrested for not paying a poll tax, which supported the federal government and thus the war and slavery. However, Thoreau was more than happy to pay the highway tax as he supported road construction. Generations of political philosophers have struggled with this idea of individuals only paying taxes for the government programs they support. Eventually, it would mean the end of all government as people realize it is not in their financial interest to support any government program, even worthwhile ones, through essentially voluntary taxes.

Ultimately, voucher critics warn, they would eliminate public schools entirely and if such a policy were to continue, the state would essentially be subsidizing all private schools. One has to wonder how long spending like that can be sustained or justified. Furthermore, would the state eventually feel the need to set regulations and standards at these ostensibly private schools? How long would it be before private schools once again had all of the hallmarks of a public school system?

Philosophically, public school advocates argue that communities have a shared responsibility to educate the children of the community, even if individuals opt for private or home schooling. Americans United for Separation of Church and State points out that vouchers ultimately force taxpayers to support religious schools. Additionally, the Nebraska State Education Association notes that public schools do not turn any student away, ensuring that all students have access to education.

As an alternative to improving education, the liberal Center for American Progress suggests more investment, particularly at the federal level, in community schools which emphasize non-academic factors that shape a child’s grown, as well as targeted expansions of the school calendar. They found hundreds of schools using at least one of these strategies, but few using both.

Increasing Revenue

Finally, this entire discussion overlooks the other side of the budget debate. The Scranton Times-Tribune notes in this editorial that there are ways of raising revenue that touches neither the income tax rate (see how the 3.08 percent stacks up here) or the sales tax. They call for a severance tax on natural gas drilling since Pennsylvania is the only major producer that does not charge such a tax. They also call for closing the “Delaware loophole” that allows Pennsylvania companies to report income in low or no tax states like Delaware. The paper reports that 70 percent of state businesses dodge corporate taxes this way while small companies without a multi-state presence pay the full amount. This would allow the state to decrease the corporate net income tax rate of 9.9 percent and still increase revenue. Finally, they propose eliminating the vendor discount (allowing the vendor to retain one-sixth of the six percent sales tax) and expanding the sales tax to internet sales. The editorial also asserts that the $4 billion deficit will probably not be as large as that by the end of the year as the economic recovery generates more state revenue. In fact, the liberal leaning Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center found March revenue collection was better than expected.

Joseph Corrigan started working on election campaigns when he was 13 and has yet to stop 12 years later. He has worked primarily in Montgomery County but also in Delaware County and was a manager for the race for the state legislature.

After his last election, he decided he, “wanted to keep going on the campaign trial and to break into Philadelphia.”

A friend helped him get in contact with Cindy Bass, a candidate for City Council in the 8th District. Now Corrigan is the deputy campaign manager for Bass.

Corrigan said, “I was looking for another campaign and it [Cindy] just happened.” When asked about working with Bass, he said, “Cindy is an easy sell; she’s smart, she’s energetic, and she’s young.”

His main responsibilities are managing fundraising and the press, along with “making sure that Cindy is happy and working for the day.”

Corrigan works in the office, located at 5539 Germantown Ave., for about 12 hours every day. He said, “you kind of forget the outside world” because of the amount of work required for the campaign.

Corrigan has one other full-time staff member working on the campaign, along with one part-time member and two full-time volunteers. He said there are 30 to 50 community members who also come daily to volunteer at the office and for neighborhood walks.

For more information on the campaign, go to www.cindybass.com.

By Rebecca Arden and Matthew Beck