News & Brews September 4, 2024
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Pa. voter registration gap continues to narrow
CNHI News reports that as of Monday, Pennsylvania “Democrats had 350,341 more registered voters compared to Republicans … according to this week’s data update from the Department of State.” This gap has narrowed from 395,699 in April—and from more than a 1.2 million in 2008. “Republicans had a 6-to-2 advantage over Democrats in new registrations following the spring primary this year, the data show. The party’s momentum slowed to 3-to-2, however, when the window is narrowed to the date when Biden dropped out of the race … and was replaced by the eventual Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.”
Pa. counties see ‘shrinking workforce’
The Bucks County Courier Times reports, “While unemployment rates in Pennsylvania have bounced back from the record highs at the start of the coronavirus pandemic — and then some — the commonwealth’s labor force is down in most counties.” Indeed, “Only 22 of 67 counties had more people over the age of 16 that are employed or looking for work in 2023 than in 2017, according to a review of annual unemployment estimates from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.”
Pa. county & attorney ordered to pay $1M in election case
Last year, Republican commissioners in Fulton County were held in contempt in relation to allowing outside inspectors to examine voting machines during the post-2020 presidential election brouhaha. Now, the county has “been ordered to pay the state and the machines’ owners more than $1 million in related legal costs and attorneys’ fees.” PennLive reports that a judge was tasked with calculating the amount spent by the Pa. Department of State and the voting machine company (Dominion) “to protect the machines from further interference since December 2021.” The judge’s tabulation, “which still needs final adoption by the Supreme Court — calls for an award of $1.036 million, breaking down as follows: $711,252 to the Pennsylvania Department of State; and $324,673 to Dominion.”
Philly, ad agency seek answers on fake Harris ads
The Inquirer reports that the city of Philadelphia, as well as the agency responsible for advertising space in SEPTA bus shelters, is seeking answers surrounding the fake ads that were illegally placed and suggested the Eagles had endorsed VP Kamala Harris. The ad company—Intersection—”said that it had removed the ads as of Tuesday afternoon, and that its staff was searching for others. The agency considers the stunt an act of vandalism as well as theft, according to an Intersection spokesperson, because the ads’ creator removed existing advertising and took up ad space. The agency is considering filing a police report.”
Gov’t unions are ‘down but not out’
The Commonwealth Foundation’s Andrew Holman and David Osborne evaluate the state of public sector unions following the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Janus v. AFSCME that freed public employees from being forced to pay a union they neither needed nor wanted as a condition of employment. Since the Janusruling, “the four largest government unions — the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the National Education Association (NEA), and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — have lost more than 380,000 fee payers and 320,000 members.”