Politics Election category, Page 178
Pa. officials fly high in state plane on taxpayers’ dime
Gov. Tom Wolf appeared in Allentown one day last fall to celebrate his success in boosting early education funding. An hour later he was at a news conference 90 miles away in Steelton, touting free breakfasts for students. Despite the distance, no speed limits were broken. Wolf winged it from...
Pa. county is about to start a hand recount of its 2020 presidential election results
This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. This article is available for reprint under the terms of Votebeat’s republishing policy. More than two years after the last ballot was cast in the 2020 election, Lycoming County...
Allegheny County lawmaker Jessica Benham named as co-chair to state LGBTQ caucus
Pennsylvania’s statewide LGBTQ caucus has new leadership and one new co-chair is a lawmaker from Allegheny County. State Rep. Jessica Benham, D-South Side, is the new co-chair of the state legislature’s LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus. Her co-chair is state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, D-Philadelphia. This marks the first time since the caucus’...
Georgia special grand jury finishes probe of 2020 election
ATLANTA — The special grand jury in Atlanta that has been investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies committed any crimes while trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia has finished its work, bringing the case closer to possible criminal charges against Trump and others. Fulton County...
Can council presidents make a motion? State boroughs association says yes
Delmont Council President Andy Shissler had to restrain himself from using his newfound power at the borough’s Dec. 13 meeting. Or perhaps he just didn’t want his first presidential motion to be payment of an annual service fee. “I’d rather not make my first motion paying Westmoreland Transit,” Shissler joked....
GOP Rep. Scott Perry won’t step back from House probe that could involve allegations against himVideo
As the newly Republican-controlled House of Representatives readies to push back against recent federal investigations, one GOP lawmaker says he won’t sit things out in spite of a potential conflict of interest. The House is set to vote Monday on new rules including the formation of a special committee to...
‘Crisis and confusion’: 4 days of GOP barbs, chaos and cigarsVideo
WASHINGTON — It was a near-fist fight on the House floor. It was four days of name-calling, late-night huddles, rush deliveries of pizzas and burritos. It was cigar smoke wafting through the hallways, diaper changes and a dog on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Establishment Republicans were...
Lauren Boebert’s backers urge her to ‘tone down the nasty rhetoric’Video
RIFLE, Colo. — Debbie Hartman voted for Lauren Boebert for Congress in 2020 and again in 2022, delighted by Boebert’s unequivocal defense of cultural issues that animate the Republican Party’s far right flank. But as Hartman shopped recently at a supermarket in this Rocky Mountain ranching outpost, she had one...
Rob Ritson, Sen. Ward’s chief of staff, on his local impact
To Rob Ritson, public service is an “intimate responsibility.” When people seek a public official’s help, it’s typically with concerns about their homes, neighborhoods and communities, he said. It’s personal. “In that moment, they don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democrat,” said Ritson, who has been a key player...
New year brings new faces and new politics to Western Pa.
After a midterm election with several surprising results, Southwestern Pennsylvania is poised to see a new class of politicians and a different political makeup beginning this year. Some well-known incumbents and familiar names are out, and some political upstarts are in, including progressives who are left of the region’s prior...
Westmoreland County Sheriff James Albert announces bid for 2nd term
Westmoreland County Sheriff James Albert is running for a second term. Albert launched his campaign with an announcement Saturday afternoon to a gathering of about 200 supporters and local officials at Greensburg’s Pizza Siena restaurant. Albert, 73, of New Alexandria, said he’s overcome hurdles that remained from the previous two-term...
McCarthy elected House speaker in vote 15 after chaotic week
WASHINGTON — Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected House speaker on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot early Saturday, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks and floor tensions boiling over after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern. After four days of grueling ballots, McCarthy flipped more...
2 years after Jan. 6, speaker scrap paralyzes Congress again
WASHINGTON — Such are the fractures in the country, between the political parties and inside the Republican Party itself, that one time-honored specialty of Washington — memorializing and coming together over national trauma — isn’t what it used to be. Friday’s moment of silence at the Capitol to contemplate the...
As speaker bid falters, mixed views of McCarthy in hometown
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy’s political troubles don’t stop at the Washington Beltway. In his Central California hometown of Bakersfield — where oil derricks blanket hillsides and country music fans flock to Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace hall — some voters are asking if what has become an...
Will a surprise speaker pick make the Pennsylvania House less partisan?
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — A surprising pick for speaker of the Pennsylvania House has some lawmakers and good-government groups hopeful the chamber might...
U.S. Sen. Bob Casey to undergo prostate cancer surgery
HARRISBURG — Democratic Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said Thursday that he will undergo surgery for prostate cancer but is expected to make a full recovery. Casey, 62, said in a statement that he was diagnosed last month. “While this news came as a shock, I can report that I...
McCarthy fails for 3rd long day in GOP House speaker fight
WASHINGTON — For a long and frustrating third day, divided Republicans kept the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House sitting empty Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed again and again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough GOP votes to seize the chamber’s gavel. Pressure was building...
Ron DeSantis to scrutinize higher ed programs for diversity, critical-race theory activities
As Gov. Ron DeSantis targets “trendy ideology” in higher education, his administration is asking state colleges and universities for information about resources they are putting into activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion and critical race theory. DeSantis has made the fight against critical race theory — which is based...
Congress more Christian, more religious than U.S. population, survey finds
Religiously speaking, the incoming 118th Congress looks like America — that is, the America of decades past, rather than today. Congress is far more Christian, and religious overall, than today’s general population. Even though nearly three in 10 Americans claim no religious affiliation — a rate that has risen steadily...
Biggest boost in a decade brings maximum Pell Grant award to nearly $7,400 for college students
Millions of college students who receive the federal need-based Pell Grant will see the yearly maximum award increase by $500 to $7,395 this fall, the largest boost in a decade and the second increase in two years. The boost is tucked into the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill to operate...
Here’s what you need to know about new Pa. House Speaker Mark Rozzi
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania House picked state Rep. Mark Rozzi to be the chamber’s new speaker Tuesday in a surprise vote....
4 Democrats enter Allegheny County Council races
Four candidates already have come forward to declare runs for Allegheny County Council. Two of the candidates will be challenging incumbent Democrats, while the other two are facing off against one another in the South Hills. The results of these races could shift power on county council, which has seen...
Kevin McCarthy voted down time after time for House speaker
WASHINGTON — House Republicans flailed through a long second day of fruitless balloting Wednesday, unable to either elect their leader Kevin McCarthy as House speaker or come up with a new strategy to end the political chaos that has tarnished the start of their new majority. Yet McCarthy wasn’t giving...
Analysis: Whoever wins, serving as House speaker will be more like ‘being mayor of hell’
WASHINGTON — Republican leader Kevin McCarthy surely could have seen defeat coming: The wave that swamped him has been building for years. In 2015, attacks from the right wing drove House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio to quit in frustration. Boehner’s successor, Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, stuck...
Ward begins brief lieutenant governor term
HARRISBURG — Kim Ward, Pennsylvania’s ranking state senator, ascended to the job of state lieutenant governor Tuesday after Democrat John Fetterman resigned minutes before he was sworn in to office as the state’s newest U.S. senator. Ward, a Republican from Hempfield and the new and first woman to serve as...
