News & Brews July 25, 2025
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Shapiro predicted budget ‘very soon’ — weeks ago
Remember back in late June, when Gov. Shapiro said he expected that budget negotiators would reach a budget deal “very soon.” Well, now Shapiro says he’s “frustrated” by the speed (or lack thereof) of negotiations, the Post-Gazette reports. Lawmakers attribute the delay at least in part to the “complexity” of negotiations this year. But Gov. Shapiro is the one who proposed a ridiculous spending increase, and he’s the figurehead-leader of the Pa. Democrat party that controls the state House. If he’s frustrated, maybe he should look in the mirror (for some reason other than making TikTok videos).
Shapiro (finally) condemns Mamdani
Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor but has been intensely criticized for refusing to condemn the antisemitic call to “globalize the intifada,” finally has another critic. Gov. Shapiro, after weeks of silence on the issue, this week “joined fellow Democrats in criticizing” Mamdani, POLITICO reports. But Shapiro also “had some faint words of praise for Mamdani: ‘He seemed to run a campaign that excited New Yorkers,’ the governor said… ‘He also seemed to run a campaign where he left open far too much space for extremists to either use his words or for him to not condemn the words of extremists that said some blatantly antisemitic things.’”
Report: Southeastern Pa. market assessment
For all of News & Brews’ smart readers who enjoy long white papers, you may like this one. The Brookings Institution has released a report titled, “Southeastern Pennsylvania Market Assessment for Growing Opportunity Industries and Economic Mobility.” Did I read the whole thing? Admittedly, no. But here’s one of the conclusions: “Southeastern Pennsylvania’s abundance of assets—from its world-class life sciences ecosystem to the market advantages of its location on the I-95 corridor—gives the region a strong hand to play in achieving economic growth and quality job creation. However, over recent decades, the region’s economic trajectory and outcomes haven’t reflected this potential. Lagging growth, particularly in innovative traded industries, is eroding the region’s ability to deliver family-sustaining jobs and upward mobility for residents.”
How party affiliation has shifted since 2020
“Americans are about evenly split between the two parties,” the Pew Research Center reports. “46% identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and 45% identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party. This balance of partisanship is similar to 2024, but the current near-even division marks a shift from the affiliation advantage the Democratic Party enjoyed a few years ago.” In 2020, 43% identified with or leaned toward Republican, and 49% identified with or leaned toward Democrat.
Op-Ed: ‘Closed primaries are constitutional’
Michael R. Dimino, a law professor at Widener University Commonwealth Law School, has an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer explaining the flaws in the argument that closed primaries—in which independent voters are not permitted to vote without first declaring a party affiliation—somehow violate the constitution. “[T]here is nothing unfree or unequal about a law that allows all registered voters to vote in elections to determine the nominees of their own parties,” he writes. “And, it almost goes without saying, Pennsylvanians have never had a constitutional right to elect the leaders or nominees of associations to which they do not belong.”