RealClearPennsylvania Articles

After a four-month impasse, Pennsylvania lawmakers finally delivered the 2025–26 state budget. The newly minted spending plan offers some meaningful policy victories, such as affordable energy, regulatory reform, and educational choice. This monthslong debacle all started with Gov. Josh Shapiro. The governor launched the commonwealth into a 135-day-long impasse when he proposed a budget with almost $7 billion in deficit spending. His proposal vastly expanded the size and scope of the state government, unlawfully dipped into state reserves, and threatened Pennsylvanians with a statewide...

Integrity is doing the right thing — even if nobody is watching. However, after this month's election, it’s clear that Pennsylvanians are watching. Our recently retained justices — Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht — must honor their oaths and do the right thing because the good people of our great commonwealth have their eyes on them. Let’s travel back in time for some context. Believe it or not, there was a time not too long ago in Pennsylvania when we didn’t think of judges as partisan or political. Our judges upheld the...

Ronald Reagan once joked, “A Republican candidate was out giving a speech to a group of farmers. He was standing on the bed of a manure spreader, and he gave a great speech about the virtues of the Republican Party. When he was done, one of the farmers yelled out, ‘That’s the first time I ever heard a Republican speech from a Democratic platform!’”  Reagan’s joke accentuates a political truth that much of the 20th century displayed: rural America voted blue. Whether a lifelong Democrat in the South or a resident of a city like Johnstown or Beaver in...

Numerous Democrats have been outraged by the end of the government shutdown as agreed to by eight Democratic senators. Veteran political observers observed, even as the shutdown started, that past shutdowns have ended with the minority party getting nothing. Minority parties possess less leverage than party stalwarts believe.  That did not keep Pennsylvania Democrats in the House from slamming the deal as capitulation and a betrayal of voters. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently reported that, “Rep. Dwight Evans, a Philadelphia Democrat who is retiring at the end of this term,...

Last month in California, an illegal immigrant driving a truck was charged in the deaths of three people after a fiery crash. Another illegal immigrant driving a tractor-trailer is accused of causing a crash that killed three people in Florida in August. Now the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 31-year-old Akhror Bozorov, an illegal alien from Uzbekistan. Authorities in his home country are seeking him on charges that he belongs to a terrorist organization. Uzbekistan authorities issued an arrest warrant for...

Hulking Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s memoir is equal parts confession, campaign text, and brand maintenance. It beefs up the public story that has carried this biggest of big boys through a string of against-all-odds wins, while also revealing a fragile private narrative about shame, size, and survival. Read skeptically, Unfettered clarifies why his pro wrestling sideshow act plays in a purple state. He remains a Democrat who breaks with the tribe when it suits him, a politician who dresses like a trucker and talks like a union steward one day only to vote like a centrist the...

Hulking Pennsylvania U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s memoir is equal parts confession, campaign text, and brand maintenance. It beefs up the public story that has carried this biggest of big boys through a string of against-all-odds wins, while also revealing a fragile private narrative about shame, size, and survival. Read skeptically, Unfettered clarifies why his pro wrestling sideshow act plays in a purple state. He remains a Democrat who breaks with the tribe when it suits him, a politician who dresses like a trucker and talks like a union steward one day only to vote like a centrist the...

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is pretty evenly divided, so why did voters send such a lopsided signal? In terms of voter registration, Pennsylvanians divide their loyalty between the Republican and Democratic parties.  Yet more than 60% of voters supported the retention of Democratic Supreme Court justices.  Decennial off-year elections for judges are notoriously quirky things, and only one justice has lost a retention election since 1968.  And as the GOP’s base has become less country club and more country, Democrats hold an edge in more educated voters, who reliably...

WalletHub recently published what far too many of us knew to be true: Pennsylvania is the 44th “best” state. Persistent negative trends led to the low ranking. Isn’t it about time that we do something about this distinction? Tell our elected officials in Harrisburg that we expect more? This is especially the case when considering all of our resources: energy, universities, agriculture, life sciences, technology, and finance, among other sectors. This wouldn’t be merely to secure some favorable review or ranking, but instead because it’s our home – and...

The 2025 Pittsburgh mayoral election delivered a resounding message that most progressive activists would prefer to ignore. Corey O’Connor, who defeated incumbent Ed Gainey in the Democratic primary, achieved high levels of off-year turnout and secured more than 80% of the vote against fedora-wearing perennial Republican candidate Tony Moreno. The margin represented a mandate for the moderate alternative to Gainey’s gaffe-filled progressive tenure. O’Connor’s campaign centered on competence and pragmatism rather than transformative policy proposals. With many details...

If Pennsylvania held a vote for our state slogan, unfortunately, I’d have to nominate: “If you have low expectations, you’ll never be disappointed.” Our population has been stagnant for decades. When I was born, we were the third-largest state. We fell to sixth after the 2010 census, only slouching back to fifth in 2020 because Illinois is falling behind faster. According to U.S. News, our economy ranks 38th, and the 41st “best overall.” It gets worse: WalletHub just ranked Pennsylvania 44th in the nation. “There’s a lot going on in...

Starting November 1, 2 million Pennsylvanians will lose $366 million in monthly SNAP benefits. The federal government shutdown that began October 1 means food stamps stop flowing. The Trump administration claims it cannot legally tap the $5 billion SNAP contingency fund because appropriations for regular benefits lapsed. Twenty-five states have sued, including Pennsylvania, arguing USDA has both authority and obligation to use emergency funds. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley's Keep SNAP Funded Act sits in committee while House Speaker Mike Johnson dismisses standalone bills as a waste of...

Three years ago, Josh Shapiro delivered a decisive victory in his gubernatorial race against Doug Mastriano, a state Senator with a strong base of support and a career of questionable opinions and actions.  Mastriano was not the Republican establishment's candidate. He defeated a large field, including a former member of Congress and the state Senate Majority Leader.  Normally, after a contested primary, the party coalesces around the victorious candidate, but in the general election, Mastriano struggled to raise money and attract support from mainstream...

Pennsylvania, the perennial Rust Belt battleground, appears to be doing something few of its neighbors can claim: growing. A recent analysis by Moody’s economist Mark Zandi shows that while blue states like New York and New Jersey tread water, and others like Massachusetts and New Hampshire teeter near recession, purple Pennsylvania stands alone in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic in an active expansion phase. The question is why. Could President Trump’s populist economic agenda be the force behind this surprising outlier? The evidence makes a compelling...

In an era when the energy industry faces growing workforce challenges, nearly 80 educators from five states – Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, and California – traveled to Midland and Odessa, Texas, this fall to see the industry up close. The fourth annual Energy Educator Retreat, hosted by Coterra Energy, brought together high school and college instructors, industry partners, and workforce advocates with one shared purpose: connecting classrooms to the real-world careers that power America’s economy. The retreat began in 2022 as a small, informal gathering of...

In 2015, Democratic judges toppled the conservative dominance of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Before this, Republicans controlled Pennsylvania’s top court 4-3. Ever since, Pennsylvanians have witnessed a complete restructuring of the balance of powers in the Keystone State. The Covid lockdowns, the controversial 2018 congressional reapportionment, and the transient mail-in ballot rules of 2020, such as the postmark controversy, remain tantamount to the charge of an activist court. While more than the Supreme Court will appear to voters this fall, the Commonwealth’s top court...

Josh Shapiro wants to stand tall on the national stage. The Pennsylvania governor is building his presidential resume one line item at a time. His forthcoming memoir that addresses political extremism and the arson attack on the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence. His campaign stops for rising star gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger in Virginia this past weekend. His nationally televised condemnations of political violence. But if Shapiro wants to actually stand tall, he needs to stop acting small when it comes to partisan politics. When news broke about Virginia Democratic...

Josh Shapiro wants to stand tall on the national stage. The Pennsylvania governor is building his presidential resume one line item at a time. His forthcoming memoir that addresses political extremism and the arson attack on the Pennsylvania Governor’s Residence. His campaign stops for rising star gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger in Virginia this past weekend. His nationally televised condemnations of political violence. But if Shapiro wants to actually stand tall, he needs to stop acting small when it comes to partisan politics. When news broke about Virginia Democratic...

A recent Politico article highlights a New Jersey candidate touting Pennsylvania as a better model for the Garden State. Meanwhile, a left-leaning economist’s tweet ranks Pennsylvania as the most recession-proof economy in the Northeast. Of course, Gov. Josh Shapiro leveraged his $3 million PR team to try to take credit for a great economy. But how strong is Pennsylvania’s economy really? Pennsylvania’s outlook is improving and is far better than that of neighboring New Jersey. Yet, the data shows a middling economy, and the Keystone...