Politics as Usual: What to watch as Legislature returns - The ... - Allentown Morning Call

Full Legislature is back

The House and Senate return this week to the state Capitol for three session days: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It's the first time both chambers will be in at the same time since Gov. Tom Wolf presented his 2017-18 budget proposal in early February.

Here's a list of items to watch.

• Police-involved shootings: The House will vote on a bill that would put statewide restrictions on when police departments can release the names of officers involved in shootings or other uses of force that cause injury. The bill is meant to create a 30-day window for police departments and prosecutors to conduct investigations without bending to the will of public pressure. But the bill also carries a clause that would let authorities keep officers' names secret forever unless they are charged with a crime. Wolf vetoed a similar bill last year.

• Self-driving cars: The House and Senate Transportation committees will hold a joint hearing Tuesday on a bill that would regulate the testing of self-driving vehicles. The hearing will be held 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Tuesday. Lawmakers will hear testimony from the National Conference of State Legislatures, PennDOT, state police, Carnegie Mellon, Uber, General Motors, the Global Automakers, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania. (David Hasselhoff, who drove a self-driving car in the '80s-era TV show "Knight Rider" is not expected to testify.)

• Medical marijuana: The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a pro-medical marijuana resolution introduced by Sen. Mike Folmer, R-Lebanon, one of the driving forces behind Pennsylvania's fledgling law that legalizes cannabis for certain ailments and medical conditions. The resolution will call on Congress to renew an annual federal amendment, Rohrabacher-Farr, that prevents the Justice Department from spending money on prosecuting states' medical marijuana operations. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is not a fan of medical marijuana laws, but President Donald Trump's spokesman has said the president supports the state laws.

• Child sex abuse: The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote Tuesday on a Senate bill that would lift time limits and give some child sex-abuse victims more time to sue their alleged abusers and any employers who protected them. It's unclear what the committee will do with the bill. Last year, the House passed a stronger bill only to see the Senate gut a provision that would grant past victims the right to sue up until they turn 50. Two powerful lobbying groups — the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference and the Insurance Federation of Pennsylvania — favored the Senate's bill and opposed the House's.

• Public pensions: Senate Republicans have announced they are teeing up another bill to change public pension benefits of most new state workers and all new public school teachers. The bill, which is very similar to one that failed last year, would create a two-tiered system where new employees get a traditional guaranteed pension for a portion of their paychecks and another portion goes into a corporate-like 401(k) that changes with the stock market. The Legislature would exempt from mandatory enrollment lawmakers, state state troopers and corrections officers. The bill, which Wolf has said he'd sign, would not reduce existing pension debt, but it would cut taxpayer risk and payments because benefits would be reduced.

— Steve Esack

Just how central was Pa. to the 2016 election?

If it seemed as if Pennsylvania got a disproportional share of the focus in last year's presidential election, a new report says there's data to back that up.

Pennsylvania and three other battleground states — Florida, North Carolina and Ohio — were the target of the bulk of the presidential campaigns' ad spending (71 percent) and candidate appearances (57 percent), according to a report released Thursday from Nonprofit VOTE and the U.S. Elections Project.

While only 35 percent of voters live in the 14 states identified in the report as battlegrounds, 99 percent of the ad spending and 95 percent of the presidential candidates' appearances took place in those states.

Those battleground states also showed a higher turnout rate, hitting an average turnout of 65 percent, compared with 60 percent among non-battlegrounds.

Pennsylvania ranked 21st nationally in voter turnout, with 64 percent of eligible voters casting a ballot. That's up from 28th in the 2012 election.

States with the highest voter turnout also allow for same-day voter registration. Pennsylvania is not among the 15 states that allow voters to register or correct their registration on Election Day.

— Laura Olson