The Thin Man

Gerrymandering forum set

The League of Women Voters of Centre County announced Thursday it will sponsor a public forum with state legislators and Pennsylvania’s top reform advocates to discuss what the Pennsylvania legislature should do in 2008 to reform gerrymandering — the practice of dividing legislative and congressional districts to give an unfair advantage to one party.

The forum, “Democracy Denied: Pennsylvania’s Gerrymandered Election Districts,” will take place 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 27, at the Mount Nittany Middle School, 656 Brandywine Drive, State College.

Panelists will include the state Senate Republican policy chairman, Jake Corman of Benner Township; a state House reform committee member, state Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte; and state Reps. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township and Mike Hanna, D-Lock Haven.

Also participating will be Common Cause of Pennsylvania executive director Barry Kauffman and Democracy Rising executive director Tim Potts.

The Pennsylvania League of Women Voters officially advocates legislative action this year to create an independent commission to redistrict after the 2010 census, rather than allowing legislators to redistrict their own districts.

Local League President Candace Dannaker calls safe districts — districts with an unfair advantage for one party — “the root cause of many of our problems with government today, including the polarization and paralysis of the legislature and disenfranchisement of a large percentage of registered voters.”

The forum will be televised by the Pennsylvania Cable Network and by local cable channel C-Net. The League encouraged the public to attend and participate in the discussion and to post comments on a blog  set up by the Centre Daily Times redistricting reform at http://www.centredaily.com/opinion/blogs.

For more information on the forum, contact forum moderator Christopher Lee at 814.466.9266 or chris@boalmuseum.com or the forum organizer Nancy Crane at 814.238.0647 or nlcrane@comcast.net <mailto:nlcrane@comcast.net.

5th Dems duel for backers

Fifth District Democratic rivals Bill Cahir and Mark McCracken showed the results of competition for endorsements Wednesday as first Cahir and then McCracken issued statements noting support from key Democrats.

Nicholas Gianvito, a Democratic State Committee member and Punxsutawney attorney, endorsed Cahir, according to a Cahir press release issued early in the day.

"As I listened to the candidates, I recognized that Bill has the right experience to represent us in Congress," Gainvito said in a prepared statement released by the Cahir campaign.

"With his two tours of duty in Iraq as a United States Marine," Gainvito said, "he is by far the most knowledgeable candidate on the Iraq War, Democratic or Republican. I believe that he understands the need for a real plan to ensure that our troops come home safely."

McCracken, a Clearfield County commissioner, followed with an e-mail that listed three backers: Jefferson County Commissioner Jeff Pisarcik, Rush Township supervisor Mike Savage and former Centre County Commissioner Keith Bierly.

Bierly said McCracken "is making decisions every day that affect the lives of our citizens," adding that he's  "a life-long resident of the district," alluding to Cahir's return to his native Centre County after working as the Washington correspondent for several Pennsylvania newspapers.

Pisarcik called McCracken "the only qualified person for this job" and said the Congress seat should not be "given to people because of their name or because they have money and buy their position," an allusion to Republican candidates.

Lock Haven Mayor Rick Vilello of Clinton County  is also competing for the Democratic nomination for the 5th congressional district seat.

With one candidate each from the three big counties of Centre Clearfield and Clinton, the Democratic rivals appear to be turning attention next to Jefferson County, which has a substantial population as well but is not home to any candidate.

Registered voters in Clearfield and Clinton counties are fairly evenly divided. Republicans outnumber Democrats and Centre and Jefferson counties, but not by so great a proportion of many of the other counties in the 17-county district.

District-wide, Republicans out-register Democrats 50 percent to 38 percent.

 

Banks, robbers, fast roads

The Associated Press quotes the FBI today as saying that bank robberies in south-central Pennsylvania are on the rise because of the ease of getting onto major highways for a getaway.

FBI agent Arturo Canedo says in the story that he’s concerned about the high-powered weapons used today. In some cases, robbers are taking hostages. Canedo says it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt.

Scary thought, of course, because the Centre County section of central Pennsylvania has been newly outfitted with a major highway — and the banks have landed already.

Walker to Peters: No tolls

Republican 5th District congressional candidate Derek Walker said Tuesday he sent a letter to U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters expressing his opposition to tolling on Interstate 80.

"As a small businessman in Clearfield County, I can assure you that it is universally agreed among the business leaders in this region that the proposal would be detrimental to our economy along the I-80 corridor," Walker said in a prepared statement, quoting from the letter.

In the letter, Walker said the Interstate System Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Pilot (ISRRP) Program, under which Pennsylvania has applied to toll I-80, was not designed for the purpose envisioned by Act 44 of 2007. He said the legislation was designed to raise funds to reconstruct and rehabilitate the road for tolling, not to raise funds to be reallocated to different regions of the state.

"We must give businesses the resources necessary to create new jobs and opportunities in our region,". Placing tolls on I-80 would cripple our regions economy and make it more difficult for businesses to compete. As the next Congressman from Pennsylvania's 5th District, I pledge to work tirelessly with federal and state leaders to ensure tolls are not placed on I-80."

Fifth District Democratic candidate Mark McCracken, a Clearfield County commissioner, pointed out that the commissioner board in December wrote to Peters as well, urging her to to deny the turnpike Commission's application.

The commissioners' letter raised concerns that tolls would "cause a significant loss of jobs and will severely damage our local economy."
      

Luse backs Cahir

Centre County Jury Commissioner Ruth Luse on Tuesday endorsed Bellefonte resident Bill Cahir in the race for the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania's 5th congressional district race.

Luse, who serves in leadership of the Pennsylvania Federation of Democratic Women, said Cahir, a State College native and State High and Penn State grad, has the experience to make a big difference in changing the region for the better.

"Bill's work to push legislation on health care reform while working for Sen. Harris Wofford proves to me that he has the guts to take on the big issues facing Pennsylvanians and never back down from the special interests groups who want to keep affordable health care out of our reach," Luse said.

Cahir drew attention to Luse's role as a leader among Democratic women.

"Having the Luse stamp of approval sends a message to women across our district that I will always work for their best interests every day I am in Congress," Cahir said in a prepared statement. "I would be proud to do so."

12 Congress rivals stick to it

The deadline for objections to nomination petitions passed without any challenges arising among the 12 5th congressional district candidates, and none of the nine Republicans or three Democratic contenders has withdrawn yet, though there's still time.

Wednesday is the last day for candidates — who submitted enough signatures b Feb. 12 to get their names on the ballot — to withdraw from the race and take their names off the ballot. The deadline is necessary so ballots ca be prepared.

One thousand valid signatures were required on the nomination petitions. Many candidates filed petitions with 1,500 signatures or so to be safe. Keith Richardson, Baptist pastor from Clarion County, appears to have filed the most: 2,798.

In other races, only one candidate has so far withdrawn. State College Republican Charles Gable, a borough planning commission member, has withdrawn his name as a candidate for alternative delegate to the Republican National Convention from the 5th congressional district.

Silly, sillier and silliest

Question of the night: Who gave Sen. Hillary Clinton the following line and why didn't she credit him or her for it?

“I think that if your candidacy is going to be about words, then they should be your own words. Lifting whole passages from someone else’s speeches is not change you can believe in; it’s change you can Xerox.”

'So the last shall be first'

A former township supervisor in Clinton County, John Krupa, was the last candidate to file nomination petitions for the wide open 5th congressional district race.

But he captured the top ballot position on the April 22 primary election ballot.

The top ballot position could be unusually fruitful because nine Republicans are vying for the nomination. That means the voting will tend to be thinly split to begin with, and any votes that owe to  ballot position alone will have more proportional weight than usual.

Here's the complete ballot order for the Republican candidates, from top to bottom, as posted Thursday by the Pennsylvania Department of State:

John Krupa (Pine Creek Township, Clinton County)
John Stroup (mayor of Clarion Borough, Clarion County)
Lou Radkowski (Elk County coroner)
Matt Shaner (State College businessman)
Jeffrey Stroehmann (Woodward Township, Lycoming County)
Keith Richardson (Baptist pastor in Clarion County)
Chris Exarchos (former Centre County commissioner)
Derek Walker (Clearfield County financial consultant)
Glenn W. Thompson (Centre County Republican Party chair)

On the Democratic side, Clearfield County Commissioner Mark McCracken got the top ballot position, Bellefonte resident and Iraq War veteran Bill Cahir is second, and Lock Haven Mayor Rick Vilello is third.

In the Democratic race for the 171st state House nomination, Joanne Tosti-Vasey of Bellefonte got the top ballot position, and Tim Wilson of Spring Township is second.

And they're off ...

The 5th congressional district race has picked up speed on both the Republican and Democratic fronts as candidates who entered their campaign already well funded air TV commercials and other candidates try to raise money so they can get into the act.

Clearfield County Republican Derek Walker, 32, a financial consultant and scion of coal industry entrepreneurs, held a news conference 7:30 a.m. Tuesday at Toftrees, attracting more than 100 supporters and introducing retired state Sen. J. Doyle Corman of Bellefonte as his honorary campaign chair.

Clearfield County Commissioner Mark McCracken, 44, a Democrat, announced that State College attorney Jennifer Bierly will chair his campaign in the sprawling 17-county district. Bierly, niece of former Centre County commissioner Keith Bierly, helped Leslie Dutchcot win her Centre Region magisterial district judge seat last year.

Keith Bierly, by the way, who almost got into the 5th District contest himself, is also backing McCracken, even though the two other Democratic candidates, Iraq War veteran Bill Cahir of Bellefonte and Lock Haven Mayor Rick Vilello, also could have benefited from Bierly's endorsement.

It's not surprising that Clearfield County has both a Republican and Democratic candidate in the race. The county is one of the biggest in the district and is centrally positioned as well.

Centre County of course has more registered Republicans and Democrats than any other county, but many are Penn State students who'll still be on campus for the April 22 primary but may have final exams rather than congressional candidates on their minds.

On the Republican side, Centre County has three candidates destined to split the local vote: former county commissioner Chris Exarchos, State College businessman Matt Shaner and county Republican chair G.T. Thompson.

Shaner has begun airing TV commercials, calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration, an issue he spotlighted as well at the Clinton County Lincoln Day Dinner last Saturday night, telling 120 other Republicans that it's high time to act.

"It's time to stop talking about it and go down and do it," Shaner said. "We need to build the fence."

Nine Republicans in all filed enough nomination petition signatures to get their names on the April 22 primary election ballot, but some may withdraw by the Feb. 27 deadline to get their name taken off the ballot.

In that field of nine, Keith Richardson, a Baptist pastor from Clarion, stood out at last Saturday's Clinton County gathering. His presentation, highly critical of the caretakers of the nation's economy, was highly polished. It was evident he'd put a lot of work and thought into what he had to say.

Red-hot campaign

We couldn't help notice that the dinner table occupied Saturday night by 76th District state House candidate Bud Yost and 5th District congressional candidate Chris Exarchos caught fire.

It happened at the Clinton County Lincoln Day Dinner, on the second floor of the Sons of Italy club on Henderson Street in Lock Haven, when the eight people seated at the table got up to serve themselves buffet-style pasta and meatballs.

The tables had been set with small candles that were lit. Someone departing for the buffet put a paper napkin too close to one of the candles, and the fire began to spread, from candle to napkin to a woman's purse to the tablecloth.

Fortunately the table also bore glasses filled with water and other drinks, so the fire was extinguished in a few moments, though not before to spread smoke around the closed room, and not before it provided material for several jokes during after-dinner speech making.

Pennsylvania's primary numbers

Pennsylvania, increasingly likely to have a decisive role in the presidential nomination of either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, has 188 Democratic delegates to apportion between the two candidates through the April 22 primary.

A total of 103 of those delegates are elected from the 19 congressional districts. Five of those 103 delegates will be chosen by Democrats in the 5th congressional district on April 22. Both Obama and Clinton will have a slate of delegate candidates.

If either Obama or Clinton gets at least 15 percent of the 5th congressional district vote on April 22, as both will, he or she will get a share of district's delegates. A similar process in the state's 18 other congressional districts will apportion the rest of the 103 delegates.

Thirty-five other delegates are at-large; they are allocated in proportion to the vote for the presidential candidate herself or himself. The remaining 50 are super delegates, elected officeholders and so forth. They can support whomever they like.

Obama man looks to Pennsylvania

Substitute the word "Pennsylvania" for the word "April" in the following quotation and you'll have an idea of how Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe is anticipating a primary election campaign that matters in the Keystone State.

He's talking about campaign contributions from supporters and the Democratic campaign between Obama and Hillary Clinton. The campaign is referred to as "it."

“We think that the strength of our financial position and the number of donors does speak to financial sustainability if it ends up going through March and April,” Plouffe told an Associated Press reporter yesterday.

Pennsylvania's primary election on April 22 is the only primary in April. Nearly half of the others will take place Tuesday. Then it's on to a few other states, before it's on to Pennsylvania.