Pennsylvania in Focus

(The Center Square) - The most recent Pennsylvania budget was tight, but it did add a few new line items, including $5 million toward research for neurodegenerative diseases like ALS, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. On Friday, Gov. Josh Shapiro, Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen, and Rep. Kyle Mullins, D-Peckville, joined researchers at the University of Pittsburgh to mark the investment. Mullins lost his father to ALS and has spent his time in the legislature championing the cause alongside Rep. Bryan Cutler, R-Quarryville, who lost both parents to the disease.

(The Center Square) – Genetic testing has drastically changed what we’re able to know about ourselves and our families. It can inform individuals about their bodies and health and connect them to the past through ancestral lines. For the past two decades, consumers have been handing over their genetic information to private industry for the chance to make those connections. Throughout those two decades, both entrepreneurism and technological innovations have outpaced legislation, leading to a landscape in which companies have found lucrative ways to leverage genetic data with third parties. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania House voted unanimously to grant consumers privacy rights over their information.

(The Center Square) – Questions surrounding taxpayer money spent upgrading the governor's private residence were legally elevated Tuesday. Senate Republicans, eager to curb state spending — and to play the foil to Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro — have long had their eye on excessive spending from the executive office. Tuesday, the Senate Intergovernmental Operations committee announced that they’ve issued three subpoenas to get a better sense of the nature of a $1 million dollar expenditure on the governor’s private residence.

(The Center Square) - With budget season disappearing into the rearview, advocates for home health care services aren't wasting a minute. Though the programs saw a $21 million investment toward workers within the self-directed care model, those appropriations fell woefully short of the state’s own recommendations to stabilize the industry. On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Homecare Association said providers submitted formal Program Revision Request filings for the coming fiscal year demanding major investments to correct the deepening shortfalls in the industry.

(The Center Square) - Since the advent of DNA testing, law enforcement agencies have been able to prosecute crimes - and exonerate the wrongly convicted - with greater certainty than ever before. Though not perfect, genetic technology has brought justice to scores of violent crime victims and their families, and with them has come what the American Civil Liberties Union called a “Pandora’s box” of constitutional privacy issues. In the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case Maryland v. King, justices narrowly ruled that it was not a violation of a person’s Fourth Amendment rights to collect a DNA sample upon their arrest. In keeping with that ruling, 34 states and the federal government now have laws on the books authorizing DNA collection upon arrest for certain crimes.

(The Center Square) – After six long years, the fate of Pennsylvania’s entry into a multi-state emissions curbing program is settled. And much to legislative Republicans' joy, there will be no Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the commonwealth. Nor will the uncertainty of it spike utility bills for customers already feeling the financial strain from an unpredictable economy.

(The Center Square) – While many may think of the state’s highest court as an arbiter of the intersection between law and culture, taxpayers often take a more direct hit from the judges’ decisions. That is, right in the wallet. On Tuesday, voters across Pennsylvania overwhelmingly chose to retain David Wecht, Christine Donohue and Kevin Dougherty for another 10 years, preserving the state Supreme Court’s 5-2 liberal majority.

(The Center Square) - A coalition of lawmakers from both chambers of the Pennsylvania General Assembly joined activists at the Capitol Wednesday to demand billionaires pay more taxes. With the slogan, “Tax billionaires, fund PA,” the group spoke in support of a package of bills that would generate more revenue for the state by closing loopholes and eliminating tax breaks for corporations and the rich. “The scales in Pennsylvania are broken,” said Sen. Nikil Saval, D-Philadelphia. “While billionaires go unimpeded and score record profits, working people are forced to subsidize their wealth and bear the brunt of budget shortfalls.”

(The Center Square) - School cell phone bans are sweeping the nation, and with a Senate bill waiting for a vote, Pennsylvania may be the next state to act. The Senate Education Committee convened Tuesday for a hearing with educators, policymakers, and even students to discuss the practicality and wisdom of taking tech out of kids’ hands throughout the school day. With a mental health crisis among children and widespread reports from teachers exhausted by the task of policing students distracted by phones in the classroom, the question of “why” the state should ban phones in school needed little elaboration. There was strong consensus about the negative impacts of phones in schools.

(The Center Square) - For months, the looming threat of higher insurance premiums has hung over the commonwealth, while at the federal level, affordable health care access has been at the heart of the debate causing the government shutdown. Congress is rapidly running out of time to come to an agreement extending Affordable Care Act tax credits before the Nov. 1 open enrollment period begins. Tuesday, the Pennsylvania Insurance Department formally announced the 2026 rates for those who purchase insurance through the ACA from the state’s marketplace, Pennie, if nothing changes over the next two weeks.

(The Center Square) – The commonwealth’s divided government means “getting stuff done,” as Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro likes to say, doesn’t come easily. If it did, according to Republicans in the state, the commonwealth might become the “California of the East.” “If we weren’t here, knowing that he wants to be the Democratic nominee for president, just imagine the progressive policies he’d support,” said Kim Ward, the highest-ranking Republican in the state Senate, during an interview with The Center Square. “We are the stopgap.”

(The Center Square) – Domestic shale production in the Appalachian Basin may offer the easiest path toward protecting the nation’s energy supply and resisting reliance on geopolitical foes, says U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum. The Trump administration official was recently in Pennsylvania to deliver a keynote address emphasizing the critical role the domestic shale industry plays, both nationally and around the world. Speaking before energy executives and stakeholders, Burgum made the case that America’s energy policy is vital not only to the country’s prosperity but also to national security and global peace.