The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
Camson challenges incumbent Toepel in 147th
The race for the 147th Pennsylvania House District pits three-term incumbent Republican Marcy Toepel against first-time Democratic candidate Josh Camson.
On the issues, Camson and Topel have several areas of relative agreement.
One major area of disagreement is property taxes.
Camson does not support their elimination, calling it “bad public policy wrapped in an idea that sounds good,” in his response to a Digital First Media questionnaire.
“Abolishing property taxes will result in higher income and sales taxes and lower home resale values,” Camson wrote. “A better solution is property tax relief. To provide that, the state must fund public schools appropriately so the local districts are not forced to raise taxes.”
He added, “in addition to proper school funding, we need to create a property relief system for seniors to make sure people can stay in their homes once they retire.”
By contrast, Toepel responded to the question on a Digital First Media questionnaire by saying she does support eliminating property taxes and shifting “to a combination of sales and income taxes to fund our schools.”
“The fact that you own property is not indicative of your ability to pay a tax, therefore seniors on fixed incomes are most impact by this tax,” Toepel wrote. “Since we passed a Constitutional amendment last year to allow for a 100 percent homestead exclusion for property taxes, the time is now to discuss a resolution to this issue.”
Staying with school funding issues, both candidates support the Fair Funding formula for public schools adopted in 2016 that takes into account the school district’s local tax effort, poverty rate and other factors to level the playing field for resources between wealthier and low-income districts.
Despite the adoption of the formula, it is used for only new education funding, leaving school districts like Pottstown underfunded by more than $13 million every year.
Camson said if elected he would support the use of a larger portion of education funding being distributed through the formula.
“This will help close the funding inequities in Pennsylvania and allow for schools which are currently overfunded to plan for the future,” Camson wrote in his response to a Digital First Media candidate questionnaire.
Toepel agrees that pushing more education funding through the formula is needed, but also proposes the elimination of a legislative remnant called “hold harmless,” which protects districts with decreasing student populations from having their state funding decreased.
“Clearly, we cannot push all funding through the formula, but there must be a concrete date for full implementation,” Toepel wrote in her response to a Digital First Media candidate questionnaire.
Both candidates support the elimination of passing Keystone exams as a requirement for graduating high school as well as opening a window to allow victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by Catholic priests to sue for damages.
Toepel and Camson both support making Pennsylvania’s General Assembly smaller. Toepel voted twice for the bill that would have done so. “i think voters should decided what form of government they want,” she wrote.
Saying the legislature now has “too many cooks in the kitchen,” Camson wrote “with fewer legislators, the General Assembly can get more done while still providing the same level of constituent services.”
And both Toepel and Camson support, with some caveats, requiring municipalities that rely solely on state police to pay some fee for those services.
The only other area of disagreement between the two candidates has to do a severance tax on drilling in Pennsylvania’s natural gas reserves.
Camson said he supports a 5 percent tax “which would match the neighboring West Virginia rate,” and said the revenues should be used for education funding.
Toepel replied that gas drillers “already pay an impact fee on top of all other taxes that every business pays.” She wrote that the fee has fluctuated between 2.3 percent and 6.3 percent and “this is in addition to one of the highest corporate tax rates in the country,” adding that she is open to substituting a severance tax for the current impact fee.
Camson, 34, has never held elected office. An attorney with his own practice in Collegeville, he lives in Lower Salford Township.
Toepel, 60, was first elected in 2010 to fill the seat left vacancy by Bob Mensch, who resigned after winning a special election for the 24th district seat in the state Senate.
Prior to being elected to the House of Representatives, Toepel served as first deputy to the Montgomery County Clerk of Courts and more recently to the Montgomery County Recorder of Deeds. She has also served on the Boyertown School Board and lives in Gilbertsville.
The 147th District in Montgomery County includes the townships of Douglass, Lower Frederick, Lower Salford, Marlborough, New Hanover, Upper Frederick, Upper Pottsgrove, Upper Salford and West Pottsgrove. The district also includes the boroughs of Green Lane and Schwenksville.