[ Because In Politics Everything Is Connected To Everything Else ] The 2020 election gave Republicans a new two-year lease on leading the House and Senate guaranteeing continued conflict on key issues with Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.

Of course, this isn’t a surprise because of the gerrymandering done to draw voting district lines to favor Republicans over the last two decades.

Although Democratic Attorney General Josh Shapiro has won reelection, Republicans so far won one of the two other statewide row offices-- Auditor General by electing Timothy DeFoor-- and are leading in a second-- State Treasurer --where Republican Stacy Garrity leads incumbent Joe Torsella by nearly 86,000 votes.

There seems to be no doubt the Republican initiative to eliminate straight party voting in 2019 bore political fruit for them with the row offices this cycle.  The fact that many voters appear to have gone to the polls intent on only voting for Biden didn’t hurt either.

More than 6.29 million Pennsylvanians voted in the presidential contest, shattering the state’s previous record of 6.1 million in the 2016 presidential race.  Read more here.

For all the money spent by Democrats on legislative races, it appears they lost two incumbent Senators-- Pam Iovino conceded to her Republican opponent Pam Iovino and Jim Brewster is losing to Republican Nicole Ziccarelli, but only by 410 votes.  Both Senate seats are in Allegheny County.

On Saturday Republican incumbent Tom Killion in Delaware County conceded his race to Democrat John Kane, so there was a change there.

Democrats did retain their seats in Chester County with a win by Carolyn Comitta and Montgomery County where Amanda Cappelletti appears to have won.

In the House, House Democratic leader Frank Dermody in Allegheny County is losing to his Republican opponent Carrie Delrosso by 923 votes, while Joe Petrarca in Westmoreland County lost to his Republican opponent Jason Silvis.

House Republican Aaron Bernstine in Lawrence County won a three-way race in spite of his video showing him egging on his five year old son to smoke a cigar.

100,000 Provisional Votes To Count

There are still an estimated 100,000 provisional ballots yet to count in Pennsylvania, so results in close races could change.  Read more here.

Of course, none of the results are final until they are officially certified by the Department of State by November 20.

Click Here for continuously updated state election results.  Click Here for a supplemental data dashboard.

Lame Duck Issues

When Senate and House members return to session Monday, they will be staring at a mountain of issues they left on the table, but are only scheduled to hold leadership elections in each of the four caucuses-- more on that later.

The lame duck issues include--

-- Lame Duck Budget - do something so the state runs after November 30 when the temporary budget runs out and to fill a $5 billion FY 2020-21 budget deficit;

-- Allocating the remaining $1.3 billion (or so) in federal COVID relief money to help small businesses, front line works and more;

-- Helping renters avoid evictions and mortgage holders foreclosures;

-- Paid parental leave to deal with family and health care issues;

-- Reforming the way House and Senate voting districts are drawn-- needed now more than ever;

-- Recommendations from the Grand Jury Report on clergy child sexual abuse [2018];

-- Banning all gifts to public officials;

-- Campaign finance reform;

-- Complete disclosure of outside income by Senate and House members; and

-- Increasing the minimum wage.

How many, if any, they will address is still up in the air.

State Revenue Up

On November 2, the Department of Revenue collected $2.6 billion in General Fund revenue in October, which was $365.6 million, or 16.4 percent, more than anticipated.  

Fiscal year-to-date General Fund collections total $12.5 billion, which is $824.5 million, or 7.1 percent, above estimate. Read more here.

The Independent Fiscal Office released its own report on October state revenues saying they were $275.2 million or 11.9 percent higher than their projections.  Read more here.

Obviously, won’t be enough to fill a $5 billion hole in the FY 2020-21 budget.

Liquor Profits Up

Apparently, the COVID pandemic gave a big boost to liquor sales, according to the 2019-20 annual report released by the Liquor Control Board on Thursday.  Read more here.

Although retail sales from July 2019 to June 2020 were down by $110 million, net income for the LCB hit an all-time record-- $208.7 million-- 9 percent higher than 2018-19.  Read more here.

Sales during the pandemic were just like the typical big sales days before Thanksgiving and Christmas, an LCB spokesperson said.

Statewide Percent Positivity 6.9%

The statewide percent-positivity went up to 6.9 percent from 5 percent last week. Anything above 5 percent is bad. Read more here.

The 10 counties with the highest percent-positivity include-- Bedford (17.5 percent), Indiana (14 percent), Armstrong (13.1 percent), Franklin (12.3 percent), Lawrence (12.2 percent), Bradford (12.1 percent), Wyoming (12 percent), Venango (11.8 percent), Juniata (9.7 percent), and Huntington (9.5 percent). 

See your county’s percent-positivity here.

The Department of Health added Colorado, Louisiana, Michigan, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Texas to the list of 31 states they recommend travelers self-quarantine when they return.

COVID-19 Death Toll, Record New Cases

The number of new COVID cases in Pennsylvania again set records one day after the next last week with the highest single day total of 4,035.

The number of deaths from COVID-19 increased from 8,812 on October 31 to 9,015 on November 7. The number of people testing positive for the virus went from 208,027 on October 31 to 227,985 cases on November 7.

The PA Gaming Control Board Friday reported there were 108 COVID cases among the more than 16,000 casino workers statewide in their June reopening, less than 1 percent.  Read more here.

The Board reported 28 cases at Rivers Pittsburgh casino, 25 cases at Parx casino in Bucks County and 11 in Rivers Philadelphia casino.

Control COVID First

Former Gov. Tom Ridge and other Pennsylvania leaders said President-elect Joe Biden’s first order of business should be to control COVID, because without doing that he can’t rebuild the economy.  Read more here.

Unemployment

For the week October 25 to 31, there were 23,742 unemployment claims, up from 19,233 the week before. The highest weekly total came March 22 to 28-- 374,056.  Read more here.

Rent Relief Goes Unused

A federally-funded program designed to help renters-- and landlords-- by helping to pay rent has left millions of dollars of assistance on the table because the General Assembly failed to pass changes to the program. 

As of September, over $102 million of the total $150 million had been requested statewide by renters, but only about $10 million in assistance had been disbursed.

The program ended November 4.  Read more here.

Utility Shut Off Moratorium Ends

The utility shut off moratorium imposed by the Public Utility Commission at the beginning of the pandemic will end Monday, November 20. 

In its place, the PUC put in place a series of consumer protections designed to ease customers through a transition.  Read more here.

The PUC says utility customers own an estimated $721 million as of September, up from $432 million last year.  Read more here.

In Western Pennsylvania alone, there are more than 200,000 utility customers behind in their utility bills.  Read more here.

Carbon Pollution Reduction

On November 7, the Environmental Quality Board published a formal notice in the PA Bulletin inviting public comments on a proposed regulation establishing a Carbon Pollution Reduction Program covering power plants that is consistent with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) covering mid-atlantic and northeast states. (formal notice)

The proposal has generated intense interest in the Senate and House, among stakeholders, environmental groups and many others about the potential impact of the proposal on the environment, energy prices and Pennsylvania’s economy.  Read more here.

Wolf Signs 7 Bills, Vetoes 1

On November 3, Gov. Wolf signed seven bills into law on a variety of subjects, including to student sexual assault, establishing commerce and veterans’ courts, establishing a PA Housing Tax Credit and more.

Wolf vetoed a bill requiring the certification of a natural death which he said would delay reporting and access to public health information during a public health emergency.  Read more here.

What’s Next?

The Senate and House will not be back in Harrisburg until November 10, which as of now is the only voting day they have scheduled before the 2019-20 session officially ends and all bills die November 30. 

So what will they do with that time?

All four caucuses will be electing members to leadership positions.

The Senate Republicans and the House Democrats appear to have the most “reorganization” to do because of retirements and in one case an apparent defeat.

With President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati retiring, that spot and the Senate Republican leader spot will be open along with all the other officers and the Chair of the Appropriations Committee.

With the reelection of Frank Dermody still in doubt, what House Democrats will do with leadership elections is not known.

Of course there will be lots of other Capitol intrigue on whether Senate Democrats will keep the same leadership team after their defeats and non-wins at the polls, etc. etc.

The House Republicans look, at this point, like the most stable of the caucus leadership teams, having just gone through that exercise when Speaker Turzai abruptly left earlier this year.

So, we will all find out together.

NewsClips:

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[Posted: November 8, 2020]

11/9/2020