Welcome to Common Sense Weekly! This is the Commonwealth Foundation's weekly news roundup of policy issues being debated in Harrisburg and across Pennsylvania.
Lowering the Cost of Living Key To Winning Keystone State
What will it take for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris to win Pennsylvania—arguably the most important state in the 2024 election?
The answer is simple. They must address the worries that I've heard from Pennsylvanians every day for the past few years. For most of that time, I worked in home construction, and virtually everyone I talked to about this told me the same thing: The cost of living is out of control.
Different people expressed this fear in different ways. Our potential homebuyers told us they couldn't afford the homes they wanted, because prices were soaring. Our workers were affected too, because even after big pay raises, the cost of groceries and everyday goods rose even faster. Our suppliers and small business partners told us that materials were getting more expensive, so they had to pass the costs to us. No matter where I went or who I talked to, the message was (and still is) the same: Life is unaffordable—and getting worse by the day.
Kamala Harris’s Empty Promise on Fracking
My family, my 55 employees and most of the 38,000 residents of my county are asking the same question: When it comes to fracking, which we all need, which Kamala Harris should we believe?
We have three options. The first Kamala Harris is the one who promised to ban fracking outright when she ran for president in 2019. The second is the one who’s running for president now and says she opposes a fracking ban.
The third Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s vice president. She’s spent four years being cheerleader-in-chief for an administration that has tried to regulate oil and gas extraction to death, moving toward a fracking ban in everything but name. That’s the Kamala Harris we’re most worried about, because she’s half of a White House with a record of attacking American energy from every angle.
State High Court Warns PennDOT of Overreaching on Voter Registration
For at least a year or more, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has been changing people’s voter registration information whenever someone registers a vehicle, according to a recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on election issues. In most cases, the address for voter registration information is the same as the vehicle registration, so no changes are necessary. But in that small percentage of cases in which a person might have multiple domiciles or might be moving, the change could cause havoc for some voters.
Last week the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a ruling on election law that made headlines because it dealt with the much debated signature requirement for mail-in ballots, a decision that could impact some races this November.
But an underreported element of the Supreme Court’s ruling also detailed how PennDOT automatically changed a Butler Township citizen’s voter registration when he registered a vehicle using an address that was his second residence in a different county, but still not his primary residence.
State Supreme Court Says Toss Misdated Ballots
Misdated ballots shouldn’t count in Pennsylvania, according to a ruling from the state Supreme Court.
The 4-3 ruling reverses a lower court decision that deemed the mandate unconstitutional. In the opinion, the majority rejected weighing in because it was only filed against two of the state’s 67 counties, Allegheny and Philadelphia.
Since the case’s merits were not litigated, the plaintiffs – including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Interest Law Center – are free to refile the complaint.
New Commonwealth Study Shows Benefits of State Scholarship Programs
A new study from the Commonwealth Foundation reports the 77,000 students who receive Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) and Opportunity Scholarship Tax Credit (OSTC) funding to attend the school of their choice are outperforming their peers.
That includes their peers at private schools as well. They also have a higher graduation rate than their public school counterparts.
The scholarships serve low-income to middle-class students and most of the private or parochial schools involved charge $10,000 or less in tuition.
