Voters may never again get to choose Pa.’s lieutenant governor candidates
HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Senate is advancing a measure that would give the state’s political parties final say over candidates for lieutenant governor, taking power away from voters.
It’s a necessary change to a process that has not always resulted in the best partnerships, Democratic and Republican lawmakers say.
The proposed constitutional amendment, introduced by Sen. Dave Argall, R-Schuylkill, would allow a gubernatorial candidate to choose their running mate after the spring primary, subject to approval from their party’s state committee.
At the moment, voters choose candidates for lieutenant governor during closed, statewide primaries. The winner appears with the pick for governor on the general election ballot as a packaged deal.
“In the past, we have seen a leadership team separate into two warring factions that spent weeks not even talking to one another,” Argall said in 2019, after his measure passed for the first time. “If we want to succeed in Pennsylvania, then our top two executive officials need to see eye to eye on the issues and not get distracted by petty rivalries.”
The statement was a not-so-subtle reference to the tumultuous relationship between Gov. Tom Wolf and former Lt. Gov. Mike Stack.
After complaints emerged that Stack and his wife were verbally abusive to their security detail and household staff, Wolf stripped the well-connected Philadelphia politician of his police protection. The “painfully distant, arranged marriage,” as The Philadelphia Inquirer described it, formally dissolved the following year when Stack lost during the primary to John Fetterman, who currently holds the position.
All but one member of the Senate Appropriations Committee voted to advance the measure Tuesday, setting it up for a full vote in the chamber as soon as Wednesday.
Because the change would require a constitutional amendment, it must pass both chambers of the legislature twice in consecutive sessions before it can go to the voters. Should the House approve the resolution this year, it could be before voters by November.
Argall said this week the change would be “a step forward in providing better teamwork between governors and lieutenant governors.” While the latter position has been criticized as being somewhat ceremonial, the officeholder presides over the Senate and chairs the Board of Pardons.
“Essentially, it would follow the federal model,” Argall said, referencing the way presidential hopefuls select their vice presidents.
Argall’s proposal won bipartisan support last session and is expected to have similar backing this time. Sen. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, who co-sponsored the measure, said the change will allow governors and their deputies to have functional relationships.
“We could have five people running for governor and three people running for lieutenant governor or vice versa,” Street told Spotlight PA on Tuesday. “Then they get to the general election and they are forced to run together, even though they may have very different ideologies about how to run the commonwealth, which could cause some awkwardness.”
The measure also has the backing of The Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia good-government group.
“As with the president and vice president nomination at the national level, voters deserve a chance to consider an integrated team of governor and lieutenant governor candidates, not an accidental pairing,” said David Thornburgh, president of the organization.
But support for the proposal isn’t unanimous. In the state House, one GOP lawmaker joined more than 60 Democrats to vote “no” in 2019.
“Most lawmakers considered this question with a long lens and their position on it tends to reflect how they view the concept of the office rather than views of any specific people who have been lieutenant governor,” Bill Patton, a spokesperson for House Democrats, said.
Three state senators, including a Republican, similarly voted against it in January 2020.
Sen. Katie Muth, D-Montgomery, was among the nays. She said Tuesday she believes governors and their lieutenants should both be chosen by voters, not by political parties.
“Leave it in the hands of the voters,” she said. “I want the people of Pennsylvania to decide because as a member of the Senate, they [lieutenant governors] play an integral role, including the ability to have a healthy debate, to have the democratic processes followed.”
She is also opposed to the change because she believes it could amplify “political behindthe-scenes maneuvering.”
“I’m very much against appointments because of the pay-to-play system in Pennsylvania with state-level politics,” she said.
But Argall defended his proposal Tuesday, noting its bipartisan support and the fact that voters will ultimately get to decide whether to make the change.
“Please be understanding that very few people — very few people — go to the polls in November and base their vote on who the lieutenant governor candidate is,” he said. “They’re voting for the top of the ticket.”
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters.
The state Health Department reported 2,830 additional coronavirus cases on Tuesday. The seven-day moving average of newly reported cases was 2,659, down 17% from 3,189 a week ago.
To date, there have been 917,848 infections statewide since the start of the pandemic.
Northampton County remains first of the 67 counties for its population-adjusted rate of new cases averaged over seven days. Tuesday’s rate was 37.9 cases each day per 100,000 residents. Its numbers are bloated by an outbreak of student cases at Lehigh University, which contributed almost one-third of the county’s cases at its peak.
There were 309 student cases reported on the university’s dashboard for the week beginning Feb. 8, 191 in off-campus students, and 118 on campus. The number declined to 161 cases last week, with two-thirds of the cases in students living off-campus. Without the university’s cases, Northampton would rank fifth out of 67 counties Tuesday instead of first.
Northampton is followed by Centre County at 34.2. Lehigh County’s rate is 21 new cases per day for each 100,000 residents.
There were 97 new deaths reported in Pennsylvania Tuesday. The seven-day moving average is 84 deaths per day, up slightly from 72 last week, but less than half the 186 deaths per day the state experienced a month ago.
Pennsylvania has recorded the fifth-highest number of deaths of the 50 states after California (49,105), New York (46,600), Texas (41,343) and Florida (29,906), according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But when adjusted for population, the state ranks 12th, according to Becker’s Hospital Review, with 185 COVID-related deaths per 100,000 residents. New Jersey tops the list at 258 deaths per 100,000 residents, followed by New York at 239 per 100,000.
Combined data from the Pennsylvania and Philadelphia health departments, which are two separate jurisdictions for CDC vaccination programs, show that close to 2.3 million vaccinations have been administered to 1.63 million people so far in the state.
The data show that 629,972 people, or 6% of the age 16-and-over population which is eligible to be vaccinated, is fully immunized, and about 1 million people, or 9.6%, have gotten their first of the two required shots.
Lehigh Valley residents are faring better, with 50,057 people — 9.1% of the eligible population — fully vaccinated, and another 58,155 people, or 10.6% having received their first dose.
There were 1,985 people hospitalized as of midday Tuesday compared with 1,963 Monday. Of those, 230 were on ventilators, and 415 were in intensive care beds. There have been fewer than 2,000 hospitalized COVID19 patients for three days in a row. That hasn’t happened since the second week in November. Yet there are still five times as many people hospitalized today as there were at the end of September.
Hospitals in the Lehigh Valley reported 165 COVID-19 patients Tuesday, with 29 occupying intensive care beds, and 15 people on ventilators.
In the Lehigh Valley, there were 85 additional cases reported in Lehigh County, and 148 in Northampton County. That brings the total to 56,671. Three new deaths (two in Lehigh County, and one in Northampton County) bring the total to 1,380.
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