2015 Year in Review

The end of 2015 marks the half-way point of the 199th Legislative Session, and what a year it’s been. We welcomed a new gubernatorial administration and many new members to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. We’ve seen shake-ups at the Attorney General’s Office and the Office of the Treasurer, as well as at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Even though 2015 will likely be remembered as the year of the eternal budget, let’s take a look at some of the other newsworthy events from the last 12 months.

Welcome, Wolf Pack:

On January 20, we welcomed a new governor to town: Democrat Tom Wolf unseated incumbent Republican Gov. Tom Corbett in a historic election held the prior November. Throughout the following months, Wolf named the members of his senior staff as well as the members of his cabinet. His cabinet is finally complete with the December 9th confirmation of Tyree Blocker as Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police (Wolf’s original nominee never received confirmation by the full Senate), and his senior staff has already seen some changeover. Katie McGinty, who ran against Wolf in the Democratic primary election, came to town with the new Guv. as Chief of Staff, only to resign by July to announce her candidacy for U.S. Senate. Mary Isenhour, Wolf’s Legislative Secretary at the time, stepped in as Chief of Staff upon McGinty’s departure, and former Rendell Deputy Legislative Secretary Will Danowski was brought on as Wolf’s Legislative Secretary.

Wolf also appointed Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) Commissioner Gladys Brown as the new Chair of the PUC, former Congressman Tim Holden as Chair of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board and former state Senator Sean Logan as Chair of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

Though confirmation of his new appointments went relatively smoothly, Gov. Wolf hit a bump in the road with an un-appointment of sorts. Early in his tenure, Wolf removed Eric Arneson from his post as Executive Director of the Office of Open Records. Arneson, who was appointed to the position by Gov. Corbett in the waning days of his administration, challenged the governor’s action and was reinstated by the Supreme Court this fall.

A New Speaker in Town:

Coming into the 2015-2016 session, Republicans had increased their stronghold in the House and Senate alike. At the end of the 2013-2014 session, the House had 111 Republicans and 92 Democrats. By now, there are 119 Republicans and 84 Democrats. The Senate Republicans also increased their majority over last session, going from 27 Republicans and 23 Democrats to 31 Republicans and 18 Democrats.

Both chambers saw changes to their leadership teams; most notably, the House elected Rep. Mike Turzai (R-Allegheny) to serve as its new Speaker, replacing Rep. Sam Smith (R-Jefferson), who held that post since 2011 and had retired at the end of last year. Dave Reed (R-Indiana) replaced Turzai as majority leader setting off a chain reaction of sorts in other leadership positions.

The Senate has a new top banana, too: Lt. Gov. Mike Stack was elected on the same ticket as Gov. Wolf and replaced Jim Cawley as President of the Senate. The Republican caucus also saw some changes: Sen. Jake Corman (R-Centre) unseated Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R-Chester) as majority leader, similarly causing a ripple effect in other leadership posts.

For a complete list of legislative leadership teams, go to:

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/senate/officers.cfm

http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/house/officers.cfm

Beyond Election Day:

Beyond the swearing in of new members in January, we saw some additional changes to the makeup of both the House and Senate over the course of the calendar year. Former Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-170) moved from the State House of Representatives to U.S. Congress and was replaced by Republican Martina White. Amid allegations in a pay-to-play scandal, Rep. Ron Waters (D-Philadelphia) and Rep. Michelle Brownlee (D-Philadelphia) tendered their resignations and were replaced by Joanna McClinton and Donna Bullock, both Democrats, respectively. Rep. Glenn Grell (R-Cumberland) retired to take a post as Executive Director of PSERS; Greg Rothman replaced him in Cumberland County. Meanwhile, Rep. Joe Hackett (R-Delaware) returned to his roots in law enforcement, and his district is now represented by Democrat Leanne Krueger Brankey. Rep. John Sabatina (D-Philadelphia) moved to the upper chamber, replacing Senator-turned-Lt. Gov. Mike Stack in Philadelphia, and former state Representative-turned–City-Councilman-turned–Representative-again Ed Neilson replaced Sabatina. Finally, Sen. Matt Smith (D-Allegheny) resigned from the Senate to become the President of the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce; Republican Guy Reschenthaler now holds that seat.

The November election brought a number of retirements and resignations as well. Rep. Tim Kreiger (R-Westmoreland) will move from the House of Representatives to the Court of Common Pleas of Westmoreland County. Rep. Cherelle Parker (D-Philadelphia) heads home to take a seat on Philadelphia City Council, and Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland (D-Delaware) returns to Chester to take over as mayor. On the Senate side, Sen. Dominic Pileggi is expected to resign to take a seat on the bench of the Court of Common Pleas of Delaware County.

Most recently, Rep. Louise Bishop (D-Philadelphia) tendered her resignation upon accepting a plea agreement in the same pay-to-play case that led to the resignations of Rep. Waters and Rep. Brownlee.

Special elections have not yet been called.

Trouble at Treasury:

Our state Treasurer Rob McCord resigned in the middle of his term earlier this year amid a scandal that ended with McCord pleading guilty to two charges of extortion. The governor appointed—and the Senate confirmed—Tim Reese of Montgomery County to replace him for the remainder of the term of office.

Unrest at the Office of Attorney General:

The Attorney General’s office has been at the center of a lot of news for this entire year. In January, a statewide grand jury concluded that Kathleen Kane should be criminally charged for violating grand jury secrecy rules. These allegations are a result of Kane leaking secret grand jury information as a retaliatory measure against some of her political rivals. Charges for perjury, false swearing, obstructing administration of law or other governmental function, official oppression and criminal conspiracy were filed by Montco D.A. Risa Vetri Ferman by August, and later that month, Montgomery County Magisterial District Justice Cathleen Kelly Rebar ruled that the charges against Kane warranted a trial. Shortly thereafter, the Disciplinary Board of the PA Supreme Court recommended an emergency suspension of the attorney general’s law license. Finally, in September, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court temporarily suspended Kane’s law license. Although the court order did not pertain to removal from office, it created a grey area as to whether she could perform the duties of the office. The Pennsylvania Constitution states that “no person shall be eligible to the office of Attorney General except a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.”

The month of October began with another perjury charge against Kane. The new charge arises from the attorney general’s testimony surrounding the first perjury charge. She stated that she never signed a secrecy oath for grand jury investigations. A search of her office by investigators led to the finding of the previously denied oath.

And finally, on November 25, after multiple hearings, a bipartisan Special Committee on Senate Address found there was a sufficient basis for the Senate to move forward and hold a full hearing to determine whether Kane should be removed from office. Only weeks later, the Senate unanimously voted to take the recommendation of the Committee and begin the removal process as provided in the Pennsylvania Constitution. A hearing is set for January 12, where the attorney general will make her case to remain in office.

Order (and Disorder) in the Court:

In 2015, we elected a historic three new Supreme Court Justices; David Wecht, Kevin Dougherty and Buchanan alum Christine Donohue will all take their seats on the bench in January. All three of them are Democrats, which means that for the first time in a long time, Democrats hold a majority on the court. We also elected a new Superior Court Judge, Alice Dubow, and a new Judge at Commonwealth Court, Michael Wojcik.

It remains to be seen if we’ll have a fourth new face on the Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board filed formal charges against Supreme Court Justice J. Michael Eakin. The complaint alleges that Justice Eakin violated the Pennsylvania Constitution and the Code of Judicial Conduct. The allegations arise from his participation in the now infamous “Porngate” scandal: the Office of Attorney General and the Judicial Conduct Board investigated the matter and found emails sent and received from Eakin’s private email account that were demeaning to women, minorities and religious groups.

The complaint describes the Justice’s conduct as “so extreme that it brought the judicial office into disrepute.” In response, Justice Eakin stated that he has “cooperated with candor and openness and will continue to do so as the Constitutional process goes forward.” Next up for Eakin is a trial by the Court of Judicial Discipline and, if found guilty, a sentence ranging from reprimand to removal from the Court.

Legislative Highlights:

Enactment of the state budget typically brings enactment of any number of initiatives (expect more news when they are finally enacted), but the General Assembly did send a few interesting items to the governor throughout the rest of the year: Act 8 allows pharmacists to administer the flu shot to anyone nine years of age or older; Act 15 cleaned up some issues in the Child Protective Services Law that came to light after last year’s major overhaul; Act 64 updates the PA Long Term Care Council; Act 49 clarified physical examination requirements for school bus drivers; and finally, Act 80 creates a county-level pilot program for the use of non-narcotic medications to treat substance abuse.

In the Pipeline:

The rapid development of the Marcellus Shale industry has raised some concerns about the safety of pipelines running through our Commonwealth. To that end, Gov. Wolf convened the Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force, comprised of stakeholders from the public and private sectors to develop polices and tools to assist in safe pipeline development. The Task Force is charged with delivering a report to the governor by February but has already published a draft for public commentary.

http://files.dep.state.pa.us/ProgramIntegration/PITF/Meetings/11-18-15/Governor’s%20Pipeline%20Infrastructure%20Task%20Force%20DRAFT%20Report.pdf

From Buchanan:

Finally, some news from our home front. In February, former Chief of Staff to Gov. Tom Corbett, Leslie Gromis Baker, joined our practice as Co-chair, alongside Shareholder Robert L. Shuster. In August, we welcomed Matt Fine to our team of Pennsylvania State Government Relations Professionals; he had interned with our group since 2013 and graduated from Widener University School of Law in May.

As always, that’s the news as we know it. We hope that over the course of 2015 you’ve found the information in this blog to be helpful and informative, and we look forward to delivering the weekly highlights throughout 2016. We wish everyone a happy holiday season and a safe and healthy New Year!