By PA Independent Staff
HARRISBURG — Redistricting continued to be the hot topic, as politicians and political watchers have scrambled to respond to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s unprecedented rejection of the state House and Senate district maps.
In the official decision handed down on Friday afternoon, the state Supreme Court explained its 4-3 decision against the newly proposed maps last week and detailed what changes should be made in order for the maps to meet constitutional muster.
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice Ron Castille said the proposal developed by the state Legislative Reapportionment Commission, which drew the new districts, overstepped the law by unnecessarily dividing counties and municipalities across the state.
Castille pointed to the work of Amanda Holt, a resident of Lehigh County, who offered an alternative statewide plan with fewer municipal and county splits.
“The Holt plan is powerful evidence indeed,” wrote Castille. “This powerful evidence, challenging the Final Plan as a whole, suffices to show that the Final Plan is contrary to law."
Education was also a prime topic this week as a new report card showed that Pennsylvania students were faring well in the classroom, while teachers struggled to make the grade.
While a small group of parents and a child from the Chester Upland School District presented a petition to Gov. Tom Corbett's office, asking the governor to keep district schools open, state Rep. Eugene DePasquale, D-York, proposed a new program that would spend $30 million on the state’s 18 most financially struggling school districts.
The Keystone State also could realize about $380 million in tax revenue from Internet purchases at some point, but out-of-state retailers will not collect the sales tax on goods they sell online to Pennsylvania residents until Sept. 1, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue.
In a clarification of the state tax law, which spooked several advertisers into terminating their agreements with Pennsylvania publishers in December, those who sell goods or advertise locally must collect the state's 6 percent sales tax, a burden that historically in the commonwealth had been left to buyers.
Redistricting decision leaves local political committees scrambling to keep up
The state Supreme Court explained its 4-3 decision against the newly proposed maps last week and detailed what changes should be made in order for the maps to meet constitutional muster.
In Monroe County, the court ruling has state Rep. Mario Scavello, R-Monroe, pulling double duty.
Scavello was gearing up for a campaign to win the county’s new state Senate seat, which the redistricting commission had moved to Monroe from Allegheny County due to population shifts.
Now, he’s still running that campaign and circulating petitions to get on the ballot for the Senate seat, should it become a reality. But the court’s decision means the election will take place on the 2001 district lines, and he will remain in his old state House district.
“We’re running petitions in both the old districts and the new ones. Right now we’re in limbo, until they make this decision and give some clarity,” Scavello told PA Independent on Thursday. “In this situation, this county is really the biggest loser.”
On the now-rejected state Senate plan, Monroe County was supposed to be represented by a single district.
Democrats in the county also are upset that the Monroe Senate district is in jeopardy.
"We're really not happy about this, and it turned our whole Senate race upside-down," said Anne Tiracchia, chairwoman of the Monroe County Democratic Committee. "We had three people who were going to run for the (new) Senate seat, and now they are in limbo."
PA fifth in school performance, though teachers fare badly
Pennsylvania’s students’ performance is improving, but the state needs to do much better with school choice initiatives, according to a national report card.
The state also failed to deliver well-prepared teachers and remove ineffective ones, according to the report issued by the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a conservative public policy organization that advocates school choice.
"There is certainly more Pennsylvania can do as far as school choice and, with teachers, we have to improve. We have to raise the bar," said David Myslinski, director of the education task force for ALEC.
However, "given the limited (financial and technological) resources we have, we have to figure out how to maximize them, so that we can give young people a quality education," said House Minority Education Committee Chairman James Roebuck. "We have to do better. We should be graduating kids from high school who can compete on an international level."
PA Dems, union back $30M grant program for failing schools
In discussions of how to best spend taxpayer dollars, this argument is repeated frequently: It costs less to educate a child today than to imprison him or her tomorrow.
And the facts and numbers back up that statement.
Studies have equated fewer years of childhood education with an increased likelihood of adult imprisonment. Each public school student in Pennsylvania costs taxpayers about $13,000 annually, while each inmate costs about $35,000 annually.
But DePasquale turned that policy question on its side Wednesday morning, when he proposed a program that would spend $30 million on the state’s 18 most financially struggling school districts. It would be funded through the state Department of Corrections.
“We need to look at some savings in the Department of Corrections,” DePasquale said.
Steve Miskin, spokesman for House Republican Leader Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, said House Republicans were waiting to hear Corbett's plan to address the struggling school districts in his budget address next week.
“No one is going to let any district fail, but unfortunately some of these districts have failed the kids year after year,” Miskin said. “More money is not necessarily the answer. We’ve had years of overspending, and this is where it got us.”
Chester Upland parents deliver petition to Corbett urging him to keep schools open
A small group of Chester Upland School District parents and a child came to the Capitol on Thursday to deliver a big message toCorbett.
"We want to tell Corbett to keep our schools open," said Danyel Jennings, who not only has two children in the fiscally distressed district but was herself educated there.
At issue is $20 million in state aid district officials are seeking so the school district can pay its bills and remain operating through the end of the school year.
Jennings and four others brought a petition signed by more than 2,400 people in support of the funding.
State Department of Education Secretary Ron Tomalis and Corbett last month said the school board in charge of running the district has badly mismanaged the district’s funds.
Online retailers hoping Congress acts as PA delays enforcement of sales tax law
Out-of-state retailers will not collect sales tax on goods they sell online to Pennsylvania residents until Sept. 1, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue.
The clarification in the Pennsylvania tax law has spooked several advertisers into terminating their agreements with Pennsylvania publishers in December.
As retailers adjust to the newly interpreted tax law, state residents must track the 6 percent sales tax on the goods they purchase and declare that amount on their 2011 tax return forms, according to the state tax code.
Opponents of the new law, which originally was expected to go into effect Wednesday, said the state will lose more than $22 million in revenue, because Internet companies won't do business here.
Proponents said the law in the long term will allow Pennsylvania to collect an estimated $380 million.
The delayed enforcement of the new tax law was timed to allow Congress to pass national legislation on collecting sales tax on online purchases.
About 1,000 of Pennsylvania's 9,000 affiliate marketers terminated agreements because of the law, according to California-based Performance Marketing Association, or PMA, a nonprofit that advocates for affiliate marketers around the country.
"Affiliate marketers in Pennsylvania earned more than $700 million in 2010, and paid about $22 million in state income tax," said Rebecca Madigan, PMA executive director.
