Week 7

February 23- February 26

I’ve spent most of my life wanting to “stick it to the man.” This, as a middle-class WASP (or even yuppie) is a little bit of a contradiction, but it’s still true of my view of our world. It may explain why I’m a bit of a ‘bleeding heart’ and why I spent the first part of my adult life teaching in places I clearly did not belong. Such is life. However, what I have realized is that if you want to stick to the man, become the man. What better way to create change than to do it from the top. So, as I vainly attempt to infiltrate the ranks of “the man,” here is this week’s Legislative Update. I told you I like to go down rabbit trails.

As most of us sit around and waste time, ink, breath and cyberspace talking about gambling the Senate is actually passing other bills for the second week in a row. I’m proud of the good Senators for not bringing up the BINGO bill without having enough votes, even if they still aren’t disclosing the day’s Special Order Calendar before that day. Baby steps, right? I feel like there are times in the past when controversial legislation would have been brought to the floor and clogged the whole session just for the sake of bringing it up. I could be wrong, it’s happened before.

The House spent some time on important legislation this week. Especially Thursday, when they unanimously (104-0) passed the PACT bill that will transfer $236 million from the Education Trust Fund to cover the program. The bill will also set a tuition cap on the Universities regarding students in the PACT Program. In other words, tuition can only be raised 2.5% each year on PACT students, but can be raised more than that on other students. Other bills relating to PACT also passed yesterday that will reorganize the PACT board and more strictly monitor their investment practices. Not everyone is happy with every aspect of these bills, but given the votes they received, there were certainly a good number of folks from all ends of the spectrum working together to resolve this issue. Both Houses must now concur on their respective bills.

Since a Constitutional Convention is brought up every year, why should this year be any different? The first attempt of the week would have allowed for the people to vote on calling a Constitutional Convention, but it suffered the same fate that it always does and will most likely be dead for the remainder of the session. Later in the week, Representative Paul DeMarco made an attempt at making Constitutional change in what would appear to be an article by article strategy to change things that may have been relevant in 1901, but not in 2010. The last of these bills to be brought up on Thursday was carried over to be brought up next week.

The Shelby Delegation was a somewhat quiet during the week, but Greg Canfield’s Education Trust Rolling Reserve Act was in committee on Wednesday.

I’m going to promptly end this without mentioning the Phillies…oh wait, I just did. Anyway, the U.S. is about to play Finland in the Olympic Semifinals. Hopefully I can see it on my computer; otherwise I might be doing my best to stick to the man. Everyone have a wonderful week and Go USA!

Stephen Frey
Legislative Director