Electoral College Rigging Scheme Could Spill Into PA Governor Race

[DonViejo]

BENJY SARLIN MAY 1, 2013, 10:12 AM

A GOP proposal to split up Pennsylvania’s electoral votes proportionally, effectively ending its status as a prize swing state, could spill over into the governor’s race next year.

State Senate President Dominic Pileggi (R) introduced the electoral vote legislation in February after an unsuccessful attempt, backed by Gov. Tom Corbett (R) and state Majority Leader Mike Turzai (R), to pass similar legislation in 2011. Pileggi’s office has said the bill is a low legislative priority and Corbett has kept quiet about his position on the latest version, but Democrats have been warning for months that the Republican legislature might suddenly bring it to the floor before the next election cycle order to boost the Republican presidential candidate in 2016. GOP lawmakers would likely have to push the bill through before the 2014 election to ensure Democrats don’t recapture either chamber or the governorship and block it.

Former Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), considered one of the leading potential Democratic candidates to run against Corbett for governor in 2014, decried the legislation at a press conference Monday organized by the progressive People For The American Way.

“This is one more step toward harming one man, one vote,” he said. “If you side with the party over the citizen, if you side with the party over the principle of one man, one vote, then side with Dominic Pileggi and his cohort, that Tammany Hall boss who said over a century ago that it doesn’t matter what a citizen does with his vote — if I can count it.”

full article
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/05/electoral-college-rigging-could-spill-into-pa-governor-race.php

[BlueDemKev]

1. We need to get Corbett out in 2014.

[ShadowLiberal]

2. While this'll hurt him, I think there's bigger issues to hurt Corbett with

I live in PA, and could never understand the love for Corbett, he's never seemed at all charismatic or smart to me (such as his comment during the last election that unemployed PA citizens are lazy, and in the last week his suggestion that PA isn't creating more jobs because the unemployed are drug addicts that businesses won't hire after they fail a drug test).

But I think there's other areas that are going to hurt Corbett more.

1) He's widely viewed as having taken way too long to bring charges in the Penn State case, and to caused more people to be victimized, and other victims to be victimized more times from his endless delays.

2) There's multiple new video clips from his reign as governor that haven't gotten much play across the state but would make Corbett look awful (the drug addict one, the close your eyes during the ultrasound before an abortion, etc).

3) He's had a few high profile failures that really don't make him look too good in anyone's eyes. The electoral college plan is one thing, but there's others like his plan to sell the state lottery to a foreign company that would cost PA jobs and hurt tax payers and the elderly that benefit from the lottery.

4) Corbett is just not that well liked by most PA republicans. Both in the legislature (PA republicans in the legislature hate Corbett's horrible communication with them and tendency to do things without thinking first and without discussing it with them first), and the base (the lottery scheme just screams corruption and political pay off to even many republicans, and then other areas like the Penn State case also don't make a lot of republicans happy either).