Solobay: Busy Fall Session Expected in Harrisburg

It’s been a busy time around the sprawling 46th district, but I’m ready for the Legislature to get back to work in Harrisburg because there’s a lot left to be done.

Last summer, I urged legislative leaders to add days to the Senate calendar to allow time for the long list that we have to consider, but we’re heading back with only 16 session days left and a lot of unanswered questions.

Senate Republicans and Gov. Tom Corbett seem to be at odds on several issues, making the next month pretty unpredictable. Among the tasks is the consideration of the various Marcellus Shale impact fee/severance tax approaches, including one recently proposed by the governor. 

The Corbett administration has also announced a new school voucher proposal, but Senate leaders haven’t seemed too impressed. And no one knows what’s going to happen when House Republicans make a push to sell off the state liquor stores.

At the same time, the Senate Republican leader has introduced legislation that would change Pennsylvania’s Electoral College voting from the 200-year-old winner-take-all system to one that would apportion the electoral votes by congressional district.

To me, some of that is eclipsing the much more important issues of jobs and infrastructure. It’s been months since the administration’s Transportation Funding Task Force issued its recommendations, but we’ve seen no transportation proposal.

And Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is on the rise again. Why can’t we put people back to work re-building what’s falling down?

I’ve been supporting an intricate and carefully produced jobs program that could leverage more than a billion dollars to put people back to work, but with all the distraction of cheaper liquor and the 2012 presidential race, I’m not confident it will be considered.

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