Gov. Ed Rendell was not aware the Pennsylvania Housing Finance Agency awarded a no-bid contract in 2003 to a California company headed by a member of his transition team for the Department of Revenue, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Since then, CDR Financial Products has collected nearly $600,000 as a financial adviser to the housing agency, according to figures provided by Brian Hudson, the agency’s executive director. Its current contract is for $45,000, Hudson said.

CDR’s president, David Rubin, donated $35,000 to Rendell’s campaigns — $20,000 of it in 2002, state records show.

The prominent businessman is caught up in a grand jury investigation that ended any role for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson in President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.  read more »

Two hundred and fifty-two men and women, from Erie to Easton and points in between, will gather here today, take the oath of office as legislators, and immediately confront the reality that the state is sinking deeper into a fiscal quagmire.

So bad is the economic outlook that many believe the 2009-10 legislative session, which starts today, will for months be dominated by delicate decisions over how best to cut programs and raise taxes to make ends meet.  read more »

Pennsylvania Chief Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille said he wants to impose standards after a number of constables have been charged with crimes ranging from homicide to sexual assault to theft during the past decade.

Mamaux’s civil suit over his shooting is pending, and several constables in the region face lawsuits or criminal charges for incidents related to their duties:

• In November, Fayette County constable Albert Troyan was arrested by state police in Uniontown after he fired five shots at an occupied car while trying to serve warrants for unpaid traffic violations. He faces trial on charges of reckless endangerment and firing a weapon into a structure.  read more »

The Pennsylvania’s Legislature’s ongoing failure to fund the courts in Pennsylvania’s 67 counties has come to a head in Luzerne County.

This story pinpoints the need to make the judicial system of Pennsylvania truly unified, rather than unified in name only. In return for creating a designated source of funding, the Legislature can demand that the county courts become more streamlined, efficient and yes, unified. Let’s start with eliminating all local rules.

A pitched battle has erupted in Luzerne County between members of the judiciary and the county commissioners, who adopted a budget last month that eliminates funding for an estimated 56 court-related employees.  read more »

Attack someone because of their skin color, religion or national origin and it’s considered a hate crime, which can warrant additional charges in Pennsylvania.

Attack the same person because of ancestry, disability, sexual orientation or gender and it isn’t.

State Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, wants to change that by increasing the list of protected classes. Now.

He’s asking fellow lawmakers in both chambers to make that their first order of business in the legislative session, which begins Jan. 6.  read more »

The director of Gov. Ed Rendell’s efforts to expand health insurance to low-income children and adults, help doctors pay their malpractice bills and modernize Pennsylvania’s health care system is stepping down.

Rendell said Tuesday that Rosemarie B. Greco will leave her post as director of the Office of Health Care Reform on Dec. 31, but will remain as an adviser to the governor as he continues to press a plan to expand state-subsidized health insurance for low-income adults.  read more »

No more taxpayer money to defend crooks who misused taxpayer money… makes sense to me.

The new state House majority leader says he’ll stop paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for the former legislators and staff members charged in an ongoing probe into whether taxpayer money was used illegally for political campaign work.

Rep. Todd Eachus, D-Luzerne, elected as the new House Democratic leader a month ago, said this includes a halt to legal fees for former Rep. Mike Veon of Beaver, who was the second-ranking House Democrat until he lost re-election in November 2006.  read more »

The talk in the Capitol these days is how to close a yawning budget deficit with cash reserves and cutbacks, but decisions yet to be made could have tremendous impact on Pennsylvania’s public schools, highways and residents seeking health coverage.

Debate on those issues has been put on hold while Gov. Ed Rendell’s administration assembles a new spending plan and until the new two-year session of the Legislature gets under way next month.

The next direction is likely to arrive Feb. 3 when Rendell hands his 2009-10 budget proposal to the Legislature, and the Rendell press secretary Chuck Ardo said the key decisions are being made right now.  read more »