1st ballot test of governor’s pandemic powers starts in Pennsylvania
Updated May 13, 2021;
Pennsylvania’s Legislature is now taking its case to the ballot.
In the first vote of its kind since the coronavirus outbreak, voters statewide will decide twin constitutional amendments that would give lawmakers much more power over disaster declarations, to apply whether the emergency is another pandemic or natural disaster.
The questions were placed on Tuesday’s primary ballot by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which has had a long-running feud with the state’s Democratic governor over his emergency actions during the pandemic.
“This is the first opportunity we actually have something tangible, where more than just a handful of sampled people will be able to have an input,” said Jonathon Hauenschild, an attorney at the American Legislative Exchange Council, an association of conservative lawmakers and businesses.
Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward has been battling breast cancer since December and will undergo surgery, she said on a Pittsburgh radio show Tuesday.
Ward, a 64-year-old Westmoreland County Republican, told KDKA-AM s Marty Griffin that she was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer in early December, shortly after becoming the first woman to serve as Senate majority leader.
She kept her situation quiet, though, until she was ready to go public.
“I didn’t want to be statewide news right after I won majority leader,” Ward said. We re doing fine
The mass in her breast was “very small,” Ward told Griffin.
Child sex abuse survivors and advocates to push for bill that would allow more time to sue abusers
A constitutional amendment regarding the issue failed to appear on May 18th primary after mistake by Dept. of State. Author: Chelsea Koerbler (FOX43) Updated: 10:51 AM EDT May 10, 2021
HARRISBURG, Pa. Monday morning, child sex abuse survivors and advocates will gather at the State Capitol to urge the Senate Majority Leader to bring statute of limitations legislation to a vote on the senate floor.
The legislation would give child sex abuse survivors more time to sue their abusers is currently facing an uphill battle following a mistake by the PA Dept. of State. Earlier this year, it was discovered the amendment was never advertised in newspapers across the state after passing both the PA House and Senate in two consecutive sessions in 2019, as required.