Gov. Tom Wolf has $2.2M to help Democrats win seats
Gov. Tom Wolf will have at least a couple million dollars to spend in this year's legislative elections to help his fellow Democrats pick up seats and aid his push for priorities that stalled in Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled Legislature.
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Gov. Tom Wolf is renewing his push for his top priorities that have stalled in Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled Legislature, and the Democrat will have at least a couple million dollars to spend in this year’s legislative elections to try to improve his chances.
Wolf's campaign raised $2.8 million in 2019, the first year of his second term, and had $2.2 million left over heading into 2020 to help elect Democrats to the state Legislature, a campaign spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Wolf also was announcing Tuesday that he is renewing his push to raise the minimum wage and to win approval of a tax on Marcellus Shale natural gas production to underwrite a $4.5 billion "Restore Pennsylvania" infrastructure program.
Wolf, now in his sixth year in office, has seen the Republican-controlled House reject a minimum wage increase and a tax on Marcellus Shale each of the past five years. At the same time, Wolf has never been closer to winning a Democratic majority in one of the chambers after Democrats picked up 16 House and Senate seats in 2018's elections.
“There’s still a lot of things he wants to get done, and he’s going to keep fighting for those things,” Wolf campaign spokeswoman Beth Melena said. “He thinks more Democratic partners in Harrisburg will help him cross over the finish line on some of those items.”
Wolf will include his minimum wage pitch and the Restore Pennsylvania plan in the budget proposal he delivers to lawmakers next Tuesday for the 2020-21 fiscal year beginning July 1. Wolf first floated the Restore Pennsylvania infrastructure program in last year's budget, but it never received a vote in the Legislature.
Democrats still need to win four seats in the Senate or nine in the House in November's election if they are to control a chamber next year.
Wolf will keep fundraising in 2020, Melena said, and the $2.2 million he has now likely makes him one of the heaviest hitters, if not the heaviest, in the fight for legislative seats. The state's deadline to file campaign finance reports for 2019 is Friday.
Elected in 2014 and re-elected in 2018, Wolf's second term runs through 2022. Wolf gave a big chunk of cash, about $4 million, to the state Democratic Party in 2018 to help other Democrats when he spent $31 million in his re-election year.
Also on the line for Wolf is bringing Pennsylvania into a 10-state consortium of Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
Member states set a price and declining limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and, in Pennsylvania, winning legislative approval could mean raising hundreds of millions of dollars from polluting power plants to spend on clean-power projects or energy efficiency programs.
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