Posted on 09/23/2020 4:22:59 PM PDT by lightman
After Wednesday’s failed House attempt to override Gov. Tom Wolf’s veto of a bipartisan-backed bill designed to give local school officials the final say on holding sports and setting crowd limits, some were left scratching their heads.
How could a bill that passed the House by a 155-47 fall short of the 135 votes needed to override the governor’s veto?
The answer: 24 of the Democratic legislators who voted “yes” on the bill originally apparently had a change of heart. One of the bill’s original supporters, Rep Mark Rozzi, D-Berks County, was absent on Wednesday.
House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre County, boasted that all House Republicans stood united in their support of the bill and for overriding the veto. But the effort failed because some Democrats decided to “cave to political pressure.”
“Until more Democrats are willing to stand up for the people of Pennsylvania instead of standing with their political party or their governor, the commonwealth will remain mired in the governor’s emergency rule,” Benninghoff said.
The bill, which also passed the Senate with a veto-proof majority, would have invalidated the governor’s order on attendance at school sports and extracurricular activities. The Wolf administration had limited schools to 25 people at indoor events and 250 at outdoor contests to control the spread of the coronavirus. Even with those limits, attendance was limited to no more than 50% of the maximum capacity.
Wolf issued a statement Wednesday afternoon thanking Democrats for standing with him and “showing a commitment to working collaboratively to protect the people of Pennsylvania during this ongoing public health crisis. Pennsylvanians should be thankful as well.”
He referred to the veto override attempt as “a superfluous bill" that was unnecessary since schools already have the authority to decide whether to hold sports and his administration has no intention to change that.
U.S. Western District Judge William Stickman IV last week declared the governor’s limits on social gatherings to be unconstitutional. This week, the judge denied the Wolf Administration’s to stay that ruling pending appeal.
Until there’s a ruling on the appeal, the governor and his team are urging schools to voluntarily comply with those limits and issued guidance last Friday indicating as much.
Democrats explained their change of heart about supporting the high school sports bill.
House Democratic Leader Frank Dermody of Allegheny County, fell into that category. He told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, Wolf is "our governor. He vetoed it, and I’m the Democratic leader, ... I am not going to override the governor’s veto.”
Rep. Michael Schlossberg, D-Lehigh County, told the Morning Call the bill “did more than was originally advertised” as his reason for flipping his vote.
State Rep. Patty Kim, D-Dauphin County, declined comment on her rationale for changing her mind on the bill Wednesday.
But those who like to venture a guess on why Kim and Schlossberg had a change of heart pointed to the fact that they were among the 14 Democrats who flipped are politically safe because they happen to be uncontested in their re-election bid this November.
They others are: Reps. Austin Davis of Allegheny County, Dan Deasy of Allegheny County, Michael Driscoll of Philadelphia, Robert Freeman of Northampton County, Patrick Harkins of Erie County, Robert Merski of Erie County, Dan Miller of Allegheny County, Ed Neilson of Philadelphia, Eddie Day Pashinski of Luzerne County, Adam Ravenstahl of Allegheny County, Peter Schweyer of Lehigh County, and Melissa Shusterman of Chester County.
The other so-called flippers aside from Dermody were: Tina Davis of Bucks County, Carol Hill-Evans of York County, John Galloway of Bucks County, Neal Goodman of Schuylkill County, Jeanne McNeill of Lehigh County, Steve Samuelson of Northampton County, Wendy Ullman of Philadelphia, Dan Williams of Chester County and Michael Zabel of Delaware County.
Rep. Barb Gleim, R-Cumberland County, issued a statement saying Wednesday’s vote may not be the final word on this bill.
“To school parents and student athletes who had hoped for a different outcome, a reconsideration motion was filed," which allows for a future override attempt to occur, Gleim said. "We intend to bring this up again. There will be continued pressure on this matter, so that the majority of constituents can be heard.”
Even amidst the failure of the veto override and the federal judge denying a stay of his ruling, confusion exists over the limits of school sports and extracurricular activities.
The Pennsylvania School Boards Association said its review of the federal court ruling leads to one conclusion: schools still have no choice but to adhere to Wolf’s limits on the size of gatherings.
“Judge Stickman’s ruling does not have any effect on gathering size limits for high school athletic events, one way of the other, whether or not the ruling is stayed pending appeal, overturned or upheld,” according to a statement issued on Wednesday from PSBA’s legal team. “The judge’s ruling about the constitutionality of the governor’s gathering size limits is limited to political or other expressive activities protected by the First Amendment. There is really not a plausible case to be made that there is a First Amendment right to attend a high school football game or to have as many people attend as the team or school may want."
The statement goes on: “Thus, no matter what happens in that court case, it will have no effect on the governor’s gathering limits as they affect spectators at high school athletic events.”
It was unclear late Wednesday afternoon whether the school boards organization is distributing that guidance to school officials. However, it goes against House Republican lawyers’ interpretation of the federal judge’s ruling.
Just for giggles, I looked up the state legislature sizes in New England. The smallest general assembly is Rhode Island’s with 75 members. Every other New England state has 150 or more. Makes Pennsylvania look downright economical by comparison.
Sounds like some certain politicians respond differently and suffer more serious complications mental-wise when it comes to COVID.. like forgetting how they voted earlier.
When the God fearing founders of this nation came up with the Republican vs democratic form of governmental representation. They considered that groups we call political partys once elected to a given political office. Could place their groups control and interest above the common good and benefit of the nation once elected to a legislative, executive or judicial office. But would work together for the common interest and that would happen by taking the oath of office.
In an era when a man’s word was considered sacred They truly believed that upon election. requiring taking the oath of office which swears loyalty to abide and support the constitution would take precedence and avert any fractious direction super ceding any political position taken by the group that the office holder associated with before entering .It took the democrat convention of 2012 when they attempted to remove any reference to God, “Our Creator,” to clearly demonstrate that belief no longer applied and when one takes that oath today it means nothing.
Dems are going to be slaughtered in Pa.. and they don’t see it coming
With only 80 House members and 40 Senators, the California Legisl00ture is a leftist oligarchy.
I was born and raised in PA. I see how easy it is to simply turn/destroy a state politically. As a result,PA may actually be the key to destroying the nation.
I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad thing having such large legislatures. In the case of NH, you can have a personal relationship with your state legislator, as they will only represent a few thousand people.
In CA, with just 80 assemblymembers, each represents a half million people (until fairly recently, that’s what the average U.S. Congressman had as a constituency). That’s so ludicrously out of whack, it’s no wonder the only people most of them (and most are Dems) pay attention to is big labor (big gubmint unions, that is).
You can’t have a personal relationship with a legislator having such a massive constituency. The number of legislators in CA probably should be increased tenfold. Even 800 assemblymembers would be too few (having 50k constituents). Most of these numbers of legislators were set when they had much, much smaller populations. In CA, they’ve had the same 40 Senators since 1863 (when it had just above 400k population) and the same 80 Assemblymembers since 1854 (when it had only 200-250k). So when that number went into effect for the Assembly, each member would’ve ideally had just 2,500 or so constituents (although they were more based on county, so that number could obviously vary). California would need an Assembly of sixteen THOUSAND members (and a Senate of 4,000 (!)) in order to equal that same number of constituents today.
Goes to show you how massively unrepresented most of the country is and far removed from their so-called “elected officials.”
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Florida is going in to week 4 of local football. No problems. Let them play!! Let this be remembered in November!
Yup, they will lose seats in the House and probably the Senate as well. But first House Republicans need to run the override vote again, so the dems can shoot themselves in the other foot.
I agree with you. Even our US House should have far more members.
At the founding, one representative for 30,000 citizens was established.
If we kept that mandate, the US House would have nearly 11,000 representatives.
I would hope that the high salaries, pensions and healthcare given to elected representatives would not exist under such a system. It would be truly a citizen legislature.
It would probably spawn more political parties and create the need for coalitions.
Legislation would move more slowly (a good thing).
The bill is moot at the moment anyway as the courts struck down the limiting of how many people may assemble...
But I can’t see the lower and middle class parents not exacting revenge on Wolf’s party Nov 3
If you have too many representatives, you effectively have the equivalent of the Athenian Agora, where everyone was a legislator. It was a mess. But too few is an oligarchy, where the oligarchs are all whores to some special interest or other, and are completely out of touch. Some happy balance must be found. But try telling that to an oligarch, who is perfectly happy being bitch to a union or an industry.
It's easier to hide in a crowd?
Yeah, the question is what is the proper number ? From a practical standpoint, I don’t know how Senators or Congressmembers can remotely be expected to handle constituents’ issues without an army of employees. It may simply be that the country itself has become far too populous and should be subdivided into manageable areas.
In my city of Nashville, which is about 700,000, one gentleman proposed subdividing the city into separate cities of 50,000 residents each. We’re already being terribly mismanaged with an execrable Mayor and he and the Metro Council are demanding a 1/3rd increase in property taxes in the midst of the present economic situation, which is deranged.
We need to clone Rudy Giuliani and make his duplicates Mayor of every major metro area. He didn’t need no subdividing, but there’s only one of him, and he’s gotten old.
The media and left has vilified him, calling him a criminal now because of his associations with our fearless President. It’s disgusting. He proved that good and excellent management IS possible in Demonrat-ruined areas. But as we know, the Demonrats don’t want safe and successful cities, they want chaos and decay. They prefer to be in control and rule hell than be on the sidelines while in heaven.
1. He proved that good and excellent management IS possible in Demonrat-ruined areas.
2. He has the goods on Quid Pro Joe Biden and his rotten son.
3. His associations with our fearless President.
Strike three! Yer on our sh!t list!
It’s easier to hide in a crowd?
IMO that’s exactly it. Intentional chaos, voters tune out and don’t know who voted for what, and Assemblypeople get paid and re-elected and have budgets to spend on staff and programming. Though to be fair, the number may have been established 200+ years ago.
I was just shocked because the US House of Representatives “only” has 435 voting members, so why should a single statehouse have half as many?
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