Pennsylvania in Focus

(The Center Square) - Since the advent of DNA testing, law enforcement agencies have been able to prosecute crimes - and exonerate the wrongly convicted - with greater certainty than ever before. Though not perfect, genetic technology has brought justice to scores of violent crime victims and their families, and with them has come what the American Civil Liberties Union called a “Pandora’s box” of constitutional privacy issues. In the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case Maryland v. King, justices narrowly ruled that it was not a violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights to collect a DNA sample upon their arrest. In keeping with that ruling, 34 states and the federal government now have laws on the books authorizing DNA collection upon arrest for certain crimes. 

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(The Center Square) – A suspected terrorist arrested in Kansas earlier this month is a licensed truck driver in Pennsylvania, according to federal authorities. Akhror Bozorov fled his native Uzbekistan after law enforcement there issued an arrest warrant in late 2022. The 31-year-old, not an American citizen, is accused of recruiting on behalf of an unnamed jihadist terrorist group and distributing its propaganda online. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Bozorov crossed the southern border in February 2023, where he was apprehended, released and given work authorization before receiving a commercial truck driver’s license in Pennsylvania in July. 

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(The Center Square) – After six long years, the fate of Pennsylvania’s entry into a multi-state emissions curbing program is settled. And much to legislative Republicans' joy, there will be no Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the commonwealth. Nor will the uncertainty of it spike utility bills for customers already feeling the financial strain from an unpredictable economy. 

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(The Center Square) – After a 135-day wait and $12 billion in taxpayer money collected, the state cemented a spending plan for all of it, and more. Pennsylvania's final budget came in at $50.1 billion, less than what Gov. Josh Shapiro initially asked for but well north of what Republican leadership had been looking to spend. The legislation includes much of what Democrats had asked for in budgets passed by the House over the course of the last several months, like a new formula for cyber charter schools, a nearly $1 billion infusion into public schools for educational programs, building remediation and student services, and support for food banks and health care providers. 

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(The Center Square) – While many may think of the state’s highest court as an arbiter of the intersection between law and culture, taxpayers often take a more direct hit from the judges’ decisions. That is, right in the wallet. On Tuesday, voters across Pennsylvania overwhelmingly chose to retain David Wecht, Christine Donohue and Kevin Dougherty for another 10 years, preserving the state Supreme Court’s 5-2 liberal majority.

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(The Center Square) - Attempts to turn a run-of-the-mill judicial retention choice on Pennsylvania ballots into a political battleground proved unsuccessful Tuesday. Just after 9 p.m., multiple media outlets declared that voters had elected David Wecht, Christine Donohue and Kevin Dougherty to maintain their seats for another 10 years, maintaining the court’s 5-2 liberal majority. Conservative political groups had hoped to persuade voters to side against retaining the justices, casting them as left-leaning activists who have used their power to influence the state.

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(The Center Square) - A coalition of lawmakers from both chambers of the Pennsylvania General Assembly joined activists at the Capitol Wednesday to demand billionaires pay more taxes. With the slogan, “Tax billionaires, fund PA,” the group spoke in support of a package of bills that would generate more revenue for the state by closing loopholes and eliminating tax breaks for corporations and the rich. “The scales in Pennsylvania are broken,” said Sen. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia. “While billionaires go unimpeded and score record profits, working people are forced to subsidize their wealth and bear the brunt of budget shortfalls.”

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(The Center Square) - While visiting Harrisburg on Monday, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick took questions on several issues, including the federal shutdown and its impact on Pennsylvanians. McCormick was touring a facility that offers cutting-edge treatment programs to veterans suffering from neurological and psychiatric issues, just one of many groups feeling the effects of the government shutdown. They’re also a group that has been singled out during political sparring between some of Pennsylvania’s congressional representatives.

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(The Center Square) - School cell phone bans are sweeping the nation, and with a Senate bill waiting for a vote, Pennsylvania may be the next state to act. The Senate Education Committee convened Tuesday for a hearing with educators, policymakers, and even students to discuss the practicality and wisdom of taking tech out of kids’ hands throughout the school day. With a mental health crisis among children and widespread reports from teachers exhausted by the task of policing students distracted by phones in the classroom, the question of “why” the state should ban phones in school needed little elaboration. There was strong consensus about the negative impacts of phones in schools. 

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(The Center Square) – Since July 1, taxpayers have given the state roughly $89 million each day, even as months have passed without any of it going into the programs it's meant to support. It’s a crude figure calculated by dividing the state’s $10.1 billion in revenue collected since the official start of the commonwealth’s “new” fiscal year by 113 – the exact number of days Pennsylvania has operated without any spending plan for all of that money in its checking account. It’s not for lack of trying. Both chambers of the General Assembly have repeatedly approved budgets that have appealed only to their partisan interests, with narratives on negotiation differing wildly. 

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