Posted on 01/04/2013 12:20:44 PM PST by bjcoop
Republican Bruce Castor who has expressed interest in taking on Gov. Tom Corbett in the 2014 GOP gubernatorial primary said Wednesday's announcement a lawsuit against the NCAA over Penn State's sanction "smacks of political gamesmanship and ‘too little too late.'"
The lawsuit filed in U.S. Middle District Court seeks to have the court lift the sanctions that were imposed on Penn State in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.
(Excerpt) Read more at pennlive.com ...
Corbett has done a great job and has held the line against the anti-fracking crowd.
He signed Voter ID and helped setup the prosecution of Sandusky and Penn State officials.
With regard to the NCAA, I don’t see how their punishment is fair to current students. Fine the school and punish the school, not the students.
Lastly, Bruce Castor is the typical Philadelphia RINO and is just another Arlen Specter.
Any conservative that supports him will be very sorry.
Corbett has held the line on taxes. That’s what I was expecting him to do. No easy task as somebody in this state seems to have their hand out shouting “gimme gimme gimme” nearly every day.
His 180 on this is troubling. Tells me that he has internal polls showing he’ll lose absent a Hail Mary play for the Paterno kool aid drinkers.
Corbett has done minimal with a GOP legislature. There has been no liquor privatization, attempt on right to work, pension reform etc.
What gives the NCAA the authority to lift 60 million from the taxpayers of Pennsylvania? If they want to punish the football program, fine, shut it down. But, the University gets a great deal of it’s funding from the state (the taxpayers). Did we do something wrong?
Those bills stalled in the Assembly and is the responsibility of weak-kneed Republicans there, not Corbett who has said he would sign it.
The NCAA didn't do this unilaterally. Penn State agreed to it. PSU saw this as much preferable to one option the NCAA had, namely the death penalty for the football program.
I think that this is a great opportunity for the Governor and the legislature to make some serious reforms to Penn State. It receives a lot of money from the state, but has a lot of freedom to what it wants.
The football coach just made more headway in cleaning out the trash at PSU than the sitting governor has done in the past 13 months. Corbett was part of that 11/11 b.o.t. that acted like cowards and all the while individually, as well as collectively, had FAR more interactions with the Second Mile than Joe Paterno or anyone else inside that football program.
By forcing administration changes (with his new contract), like the soon to be ex-athletic director Dave Joyner (another 11/11 b.o.t. holdover), Bill O’Brien at least is leading.
Nerds painted into a corner by the dumb jock coach again. What else is new.
The NCAA may not have touched a penny from the taxpayers of Pennsylvania. Penn State's football program made a profit of $53 million for the 2010-2011 football season (the last season for which Penn State has released financial information).
If they want to punish the football program, fine, shut it down.
That would be ideal. However, shutting the program down for two years would cost the University well over $100 million in revenue it would otherwise receive from the football program - not to mention the revenue lost in the community if no home games are played.
The Athletic department will “borrow” the money from the University. The first $12 million payment is set aside in some sort of escrow. Those profits fund all the other sports. The athletic department as a whole operates at a profit, but they don’t have that kind of money laying around.
That said, if Judge Kane in Harrisburg (first level of Federal Judges) gives the state standing and issues an injunction, then all the sanctions are basically going away.
At least until the ncaa would go to court. The state didn’t ask for an immediate injunction, so it’s unknown if one were to be requested, whether it would be before discovery or after.
Given that the penalties are very time sensitive, the state should have demanded an immediate injunction (imo).
This filing is beyond strange:
Corbett’s AG office has its hands full with indictments against Penn State officials and in the midst of that action the Governor files a lawsuit against the NCAA for what they did to Penn State because of those officials.
Is there some reason that he doesn’t trust the new incoming Attorney General to handle this???
Is he afraid of what she may uncover if she follows through with her campaign promise to investigate Corbett’s flubbing of the Sandusky investigation???
Do you really think those trials are ever going to happen Chip? I don’t.
Corbett is arguing along a few lines:
1. The commonwealth is bringing suit on behalf of its taxpayers, who are a third-party economically harmed by the NCAA's sanctions.
2. The consent decree was signed under duress and is thus unenforceable (i.e. the NCAA gave an ultimatum that it's either the consent decree or the death penalty).
3. The NCAA did not follow its own established processes for issuing punishment (it bypassed its enforcement committee). It purposefully acted in this way to create an anticompetitive environment, which violates antitrust considerations.
If the judge agrees with Point #1 and finds that the commonwealth has standing to bring this suit, I think it's very likely Corbett will win.
After paying for those other athletic programs, the PSU athletic department had a surplus of $31.6 million in 2010-2011, exceeding the previous year's surplus by more than $5 million. Who knows how much the football program/athletic department made in 2011-2012, or 2012-2013; Penn State hasn't disclosed that yet and the records aren't subject to Pennsylvania's open records act.
If we're going to punish the football program, the $60 million represents approximately one year's profit of the football program, or two years' profit of the entire Athletic Department.
That's peanuts.
Since their only witness is McQueary whose statements have been all over the place, I think the AG’s case is in trouble and Corbett knows it.
That may be why he did a 180 and filed this.
Agreed. Wholeheartedly.
Pension reforem will come. We’ve been waiting to get rid of state stores for 50 years.
I do NOT want Bruce Castor...Eric is right, he’d be Arlen Specter II.
AP link only: story here
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