Megan McCarthy King, Republican for PA Superior Court

Pennsylvania’s Superior Court hears cases that involve children and families.  As an appellate court, it overrules a  decision only if an important legal error was made in the trial court.  Superior Court is often the final arbiter of a legal dispute. Megan McCarthy King is a Deputy District Attorney in Chester County, and a former […]

Opioid Addiction Legislation with Sen. Gene Yaw

As Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, Senator Gene Yaw presided over public hearings on the subject of addiction to opioids.   The testimony he and his colleagues heard helped shape legislation that has been enacted by the governor.   However, the senator says it took years to get into the […]

Opioid Prescriptions with Jonathan Marks, Penn State University

Jonathan Marks, Director of the Bioethics Program at Penn State University, says a recent study concluded that the marketing of opioids was connected to writing more prescriptions for the drug, and causing more deaths from overdose.  He says that court records suggest that doctors who met with opioid sales reps were ten times more likely […]

Opioid Addiction Treatment with Rep. Doyle Heffley

The concept of a “warm hand-off” means making sure a person who has been rescued from a drug overdose gets into a recovery program.  Rep. Doyle Heffley, Republican from Carbon County, wants emergency professionals to share their rescue information so a qualified person can visit the patient, after they get home, to discuss treatment options.  […]

PA Nuclear Power Plants with Rep. Tom Mehaffie, Monday at 8pm

Times are tough for some nuclear power plants in Pennsylvania.  After five years of no profits at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, the owner, Exelon Corporation, announced plans to shut down TMI this year.  The Beaver Valley nuclear plant near Pittsburgh faces a similar fate in 2021.  But Rep. Tom Mehaffie, a co-chairman of the […]

Transportation Funding with PennDOT, Tuesday at 8pm

Anyone with a history of having driven on the Pennsylvania Turnpike knows tolls have gone up several times in the last ten years.   But according to PennDOT Secretary Leslie Richards, the turnpike has so much debt, that tolls will continue to rise – every year – until 2044, in order to pay it off.   Another […]

Replacing Voting Machines with PA Dept. of State, Monday at 8pm

Counties have been ordered by the governor to buy new voting machines that create a verifiable paper trail in order to ensure the integrity of elections.  Each machine could cost $25,000, and the deadline for their being in service is 2020.  During her recent state budget hearing, Kathy Boockvar, Secretary of the Commonwealth, told senators […]

Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, Tuesday at 8pm

Governor Tom Wolf wants to raise the state’s minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $12 an hour by July.  By 2025, he wants the figure to be at $15 an hour.  Up until recently, the charge to raise the minimum wage had been led by the governor and other Democrats.  But Senate Majority Leader […]

Prison Security with PA Corrections Officers Assoc., Wednesday at 8pm

Pennsylvania’s Corrections Department wanted to figure out why their prison officers were getting sick.  They decided the reason was a certain contraband getting into their institutions.   A form of synthetic marijuana known as K2 had been found on the flaps of envelopes and even in crayon drawings that had been mailed to inmates.  These incidents […]

Felons Collecting PA Pensions with Sen. John DiSanto, Monday at 8pm

“At a time when public pensions are wreaking havoc on state and school district budgets, it’s especially egregious that taxpayers are continuing to fund the pensions of public employees who commit felonies on the job,” says Senator John DiSanto.  The problem, he says, is a “loophole” in the Pension Forfeiture Act of 1978;  it doesn’t […]