News

Gov takes message of reform to NEPA

BILL O ’ BOYLE boboyle@timesleader.com

WILKES-BARRE – Gov. Ed Rendell traveled around the region Tuesday talking about his three-point plan for reforming state government.

He said campaign finance reform, merit selection of judges and citizen-based reapportionment are the three issues at the top of his list.

“In context, the Legislature gets beat up a lot, and I’m about to beat them up again,” Rendell told The Times Leader Editorial Board. “The process is woeful; the process is broke. We don’t do a lot of things we should be doing.”

Rendell gave the same speech to the Scranton Chamber of Commerce, to about 100 students at Wilkes University and at a Can Do meeting in Hazleton during his daylong visit to the area. He said he will travel around the state during the next three months to deliver his message.

The governor said he learned a lot during the 101-day budget struggle, calling it “an unprecedented situation.”

He said the state has lost $3.2 billion in revenue, the worst shortfall since the Great Depression.

“We had an incredible reduction in spending,” Rendell said. “In this budget, we have 73 percent of the line items cut; they were either hit hard or eliminated.”

Rendell said that in three years the situation will worsen. The federal stimulus dollars will be gone in a year and without increasing revenues, he said, the state will face a $4.5 billion to $5 billion deficit in 2012.

He said the Legislature rejected increasing the state income tax and taxing cigars and smokeless tobacco, despite the promise of producing an additional $1.3 billion in revenue.

Rendell said many legislators were influenced by campaign contributors and by businesses operating in their districts.

Campaign finance reform

Rendell said he would favor a bill that would limit the amount individuals and political action committees could make to campaigns to $5,000 for statewide races and $2,000 for all other races. He said municipalities would be allowed to impose stricter limits.

Individuals would be limited to a total of $50,000 in any two-year cycle and PACs would be capped at $100,000.

Rendell said lobbyists should be banned from donating to campaigns.

Merit selection of judges

Rendell advocates going to merit selection of judges and said there are 29 states that appoint all of their appellate judges.

“People don’t have a clue who they are voting for,” Rendell said. “In an exit poll conducted five years ago, voters were asked five minutes after they voted to name any of the judicial candidates they voted for, and 50 percent couldn’t remember one.”

Rendell also criticized political campaign donations to judges.

“Who gives money to judicial candidates? It’s lawyers, for the most part,” he said.

Rendell said he would form a nominating committee that would forward a list of candidates to the governor to then forward to the Senate. He said that at the county level, he would favor a local option that would allow counties to choose the merit system or election.

“With all that has gone on here in Luzerne County, voters here might be willing to go for merit selection,” Rendell said.

Lynn A. Marks and Shira J. Goodman, of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts, said they were pleased to hear Rendell’s comments on merit selection.

“Merit selection focuses on getting the most qualified candidates on the bench, offers an opportunity for qualified men and women of all backgrounds from all over Pennsylvania to serve and gets judges out of the fundraising business,” Marks said.

A new reapportionment

Rendell said nothing has done more to destroy the legislative process than reapportionment – the process that defines territories of districts for state and federal legislators.

“(Political) parties make deals and they make deals to protect incumbents,” Rendell said. “They create districts that are challenge proof.”

Sometimes hot issues change the complexion of races, he said, but in most cases incumbents cannot lose a general election.

“Incumbents take care of each other,” Rendell said.

Most incumbents fear primary elections in which serious challenges come from within the same party, he said. What often happens, he said, is that most candidates tend to become more extreme to appeal to the core voters of each party.

Wilkes students Kevin Anyan and Laura Gonzales said they were impressed with Rendell’s speech and his sincerity.

“He made you understand that the state has the same problems as a family struggling to make ends meet,” said Anyan, 19. “I like what he’s trying to do.”

Gonzales, 20, agreed, saying, “You could tell he didn’t want to make so many cuts, but there weren’t many options. He seemed like he really wants to fix the state’s problems.”

Rendell said he will propose changes in the state’s budget structure when he addresses the Legislature in February.

“The bottom line is reform is needed,” Rendell said.

Send Question/Comment to the Publisher
Note: This will not appear in the "comments" section. Please see below to post a comment to the story