Metropolis

Is DROP a Flop?

2010-07-30T15:54:03Z

That's the finding of a Boston consultant hired by the city to examine the pros and cons of the early retirement program. Oddly, the report from the consultant isn't due until later this month, but The Inquirer got a tip that one of the consultants made the DROP program the topic of a paper delivered at a symposium in Europe early this year. The paper ran the piece Friday (July 30) and appended all the usual caveats by (somewhat stunned) city officials saying it is too soon to make a final judgment on the program. That said, there has never been any proof that DROP is anything but a sweet deal for retiring city officials and previous studies have shown that whatever savings realized are minimal.

That Sinking Feeling

2010-07-28T11:01:01Z

When the legislature passed this year's state budget, they knew it had a huge hole. It depended on $850 million coming from the feds for Medicaid. At first, Gov. Rendell said he was optimistic Congress would pass the additional aid. Now, he is signing a different song. Rendell says the odds of Congress acting are diminishing. The $850 million may never arrive and he is going to have to develop a Plan B that will call for cutting hundreds of millions from the budget, along with laying off thousands of workers. A Harrisburg TV station has a report on Rendell's remarks.

The eHarmony Blues

2010-07-27T19:19:00Z

By Tara Jo Quinn

Three weeks before Dan and I got engaged we signed up for an online dating service.

It was a game, you see.

One afternoon, while we were watching baseball highlights, a commercial for eHarmony came on, and we cracked jokes as a series of presumably happy couples gazed into each other's eyes and snuggled while a voiceover offered some jargon about how, at eHarmony, potential matches are filtered for compatibility. And compatibility is a science, the ad implied, for eHarmony uniquely measures it according to 29 different "Dimensions."

Dan and I decided to be scientific, too. So after a few minutes of coming up with fake advertising campaigns of our own (like, "When your current relationship proves to be inharmonious..." or, "If you and your partner are no longer striking a chord..."), we decided to get empirical.

"Dan," I said. "Let's make eHarmony profiles and see if they match us with each other."

After all, reviewing your matches is free.

So later that night, we set to work. Sitting at opposite ends of my father's kitchen table, we filled out our questionnaires at the same time on separate laptops. We took turns reading the questions aloud. Only occasionally did we demand that the other answer in a specific way (i.e., Dan didn't allow for too much self-effacing on my part).

Completing the survey took over an hour; but once we were finished, there were instant results: each of us had seven matches.

Mine, unfortunately, were all from the United Kingdom as, at some point, I had accidentally indicated that I live in Langhorne, Afghanistan, instead of Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Tough break. We blamed Afghanistan, I changed my location, and we gave it another day. Seven new matches each. This time three of mine were from Pennsylvania--but none of them were named Dan, and none of Dan's were named Tara. This went on for a few more days; then Dan got tired of looking.

"A compatibility profile is never going to match us with each other," he said. "Think about how they go about determining things. The only way they measure intelligence is based on how much school you've completed. You finished college; I didn't--so they're going to assume you're too smart for me."

In reality, this is not so.

The fact that I'm not a single mother wasn't doing anything for us either. Dan's 17-year -old sister lives at home with him; so when the survey asked if anyone under the age of 18 lived in his house, Dan said yes. As a result, almost all of his matches had listed their sons as one of the three things they're most thankful for.

So Dan gave up, but I kept checking--partially because I wanted a story to tell and partially because I was rooting for eHarmony.

Surveys that qualify personalities fascinate me. During college, my roommate Alaina and I spent hours on end discussing Myers-Briggs typology, convinced that it could explain things about ourselves and the people we knew.

When I checked my eHarmony matches during those weeks, I was hoping, on one hand, for the same thing--a formula, a scientific indicator that Dan and I actually were meant to be. On the other hand, I was hoping for a loophole in chance-meeting.

What if we hadn't both gone to that art show on the same night? I thought. What if I'd decided not to go to the bar with our mutual friends afterwards? Couldn't eHarmony have helped? Couldn't it?

Apparently not. Apparently meeting a marriage-able other online leaves as much up to chance as any other means of meeting somebody. (Beg to differ? Just take a look at some online reviews: most people don't have anything magical to say about eHarmony.)

But it should be no surprise that the company's founder, Dr. Neil Clark Warren, thinks differently. In a 2005 interview with the National Review Online, he predicted that, "In five or ten years, there will be such an awareness of the massive challenge of finding someone with whom you have broad based compatibility that almost everyone will use the internet for this critical task."

To be honest, when I first read that, I felt a little spooked--"this critical task." Was it a bad omen that my soon-to-be-fiancé didn't bring me up as a result on Dr. Warren's patented romantic search engine?

...Probably not: I would venture to guess that matching personalities is a bit more complicated than matching key words and phrases. Besides, Dr. Warren, your five years have passed, and--at least in my experience--most people still consider online dating a last resort.

To eHarmony's credit, though, it may be a way to "get out" for the otherwise housebound. After checking his profile yesterday, neither of us was surprised to find that, in the last two months, Dan--the man for single mothers--had accrued about sixty more "matches" than I had.

Hey, if it wasn't marketable to some people, it wouldn't stay in business.

As for me and Dan, we're still glad to have found each other the old fashioned way--without a computer's approval.

Tara Jo Quinn lives and loves in Langhorne, Pa.

Strike One

2010-07-26T14:44:38Z

By Tom Ferrick Jr.

They say that baseball is the sport that most resembles life, but baseball also resembles political campaigns.

They are both games played over long seasons; both involve big plays and big money; in each errors can be costly. There are other ways the two are alike.

Take the Phillies as an example.

Before the season began, the consensus was that the Phils were a lock to win their third division championship. Their pitching had improved. Their hitting remained formidable. They were the odds-on favorite to go deep into the post-season.

Well, here it is in late July and the Phillies are five games out of first place in their division. Their pitching is suspect and, most surprisingly, their offense has been erratic, to put it nicely. Now, the conventional wisdom is that they will be lucky if they get a wild card spot.

Now take Tom Corbett as an example.

Pennsylvania's attorney general, the Republican candidate for governor, is considered an odds-on favorite to win the November election. He has scads of money, lots of name recognition and the advantage of being the guy who prosecuted bad boy legislators as part of the Bonusgate investigation.

The line on Corbett is that the race is his to lose. (Parenthetically, if I were a candidate, it would make me wince to hear that the race is mine to lose. It means that victory would be the result of inevitable forces, while a defeat would be all my fault.)

Of course, in politics, as in baseball, speculation about how you should do or could do - even if accompanied by detailed statistics - means nothing. You have to actually play. You have to win games. You have to show consistency throughout the long season.

So far this season, the scouting reports on Corbett have been mixed.

He's made one gaff so far -- his remarks that the unemployed reject job offers to stay on unemployment - and his Democratic opponent, Dan Onarato, has made merry with it, making a media feast out criticizing his opponent as clueless, out of touch and insensitive. If you want to see an example, take a look at this posting on Onorato's web site:http://www.cluelesstom.com/

So, this game goes to Onorato. But, it is just one game. Corbett has several months to make up this loss.

What's more important is the insider scuttlebutt within Republican circles where people are criticizing the Corbett campaign operation.

As Dan Hirschhorn reported on his political website pa2010.com, party insiders are lamenting how the Corbett campaign handled the incident. Hirschhorn quotes one insider as saying: "I hear a significant number of major Republican players openly concerned about the direction, management and style of the Corbett campaign I don't know that it's reached the stage of buyer's remorse yet, but there's buyer's concern, and that's at the highest level of the Republican Party apparatus in the state."

All of this is, if you'll excuse the expression, inside baseball, but it is not insignificant.

Corbett did not handle the incident right. His initial comments, uttered during a radio interview, indicated he was, in fact, clueless about the facts on employment. His sole sources were conversations he had with employers, saying they were having a hard time finding help.

That statement is out of sync with the experience of most people, who are either out of work or know someone who is unemployed. There is a lot of pain involved in loss of a job and in Pennsylvania the unemployment rate is at 9.2 percent.

Strike two is how Corbett handled the aftermath. He issued a clarifying statement saying his had spoke imprecisely and then went silent. It is, in interviews with him, now a taboo topic. He wants to move on.

Frankly, I don't blame him. And at some point, you have to close the lid on a topic, lest you end up talking about it the rest of your life (See: Woods, Tiger and 'Marital Infidelity.')

But, that can happen if you fail to deliver a true act of contrition and admit you made a stupid mistake. In America, it is also mandatory that you learn a lesson from that mistake - that it has made you a better person.

Corbett did not follow this path, so he raises the suspicion among voters that he may be an unfeeling dolt and among political insiders that he could be a mediocre candidate.

Mediocre candidates have been elected to public office before, especially if the times and the tide are right.

It may be the Republican time in Pennsylvania, but I don't think a mediocre candidate can win. There are too many Democrats and swing voters for that.

So, the incident is fading and Corbett has time to recoup. The Republicans had better hope this is just one bad game, not the beginning of a bad season.

Tom Ferrick Jr. is senior editor of Metropolis.

Worries Over Gas Drilling

2010-07-25T12:26:24Z

The rapid expansion of gas exploration in Pennsylvania has triggered a demand for more federal oversight over drilling. The New York Times reported Sunday (July 25) that the EPA is considering looking into issues involving drilling, particularly the practice called fracking, which involves shooting a compound of water, sand and chemicals into the ground to create a gas well. Residents are concerned about the effect of fracking on water supplies and several have complained of contamination. Concerns -- and fear -- is rising in the areas of Pennsylvania where drilling is about to get underway.

How the Money Game is Changing Harrisburg

2010-07-25T12:08:33Z

By Tom Ferrick Jr.

State Rep. Dwight Evans raised nearly $1.7 million for his campaign fund during the two-year cycle that ended with the 2008 election. But the most amazing part isn't the amount of money he amassed; it is the fact that Evans had no opposition in either the primary or general election.

His re-election was preordained, due to a lack of competition.

Why would a legislator expend so much time and energy raising so much money for a non-contest?

The answer to that question has a lot to do with the new reality in Harrisburg. The amount raised by legislative candidates has more than doubled in this decade, with most of it going to incumbents. Political action committees are proliferating. The average size of donations is rising. The handful of legislative races that are truly competitive can now cost in the millions. Big money rules the day.

The National Institute of State Money in politics, which traces political giving in the 50 states, has charted the change. According to its analysis, posted at followthemoney.org, legislative candidates raised $34 million for their campaign in 2000. By 2008, it had risen to $70.3 million. This year, it is on a pace to go even higher. (See details here.)

But, that is only part of the story.

The political world of Harrisburg consists of two countries. In the largest, all is peaceful. Most incumbents - insulated by money and representing districts where the lines are drawn to favor their re-election - face only token or weak opposition. In fact, many have no opponents at all. This year, there is no general election contest in 70 of the 203 House seats and 11 of the 25 Senate seats. - about the norm in any given election cycle.(See details here.)

In the smaller country, there is no peace. Intensive and expensive warfare wages between the two political parties over a relative handful of contested seats -- they sometimes number fewer than a dozen -- usually centered in districts suddenly made competitive because of the retirement or death of an incumbent.

Years ago, the local parties would pick the candidates to run for these vacant seats, support them with organizational and financial support, and send them to Harrisburg.

That is no longer the case. The locus of power has shifted to Harrisburg. Today, more often than not, legislative leaders recruit the candidates, finance their campaigns, handle their polling, media and direct mail and provide them with campaign workers and consultants.

Most of the money, staff and expertise for these functions are handled by the campaign committees, set up by each of the four caucuses, for the sole purpose of running this election machinery.

This is the activity that landed state Rep. Mike Veon in jail, convicted of using legislative employees to work on his and other campaigns and then giving them bonuses - paid for by the taxpayers. Veon was convicted this year for actions that took place in the 2005-2006 election cycle.

It also has landed former House Speaker John Perzel in trouble with the law. Perzel was indicted earlier this year for purchasing a multi-million dollar computer system with taxpayers' funds to provide detailed information on voters. Perzel has said it was used for legitimate legislative purposes - so lawmakers could better stay in touch with constituents. The state grand jury said it was, in reality, part of the House Republican election apparatus, designed to yield voter data that would help the GOP win contested seats. Perzel is due to stand trial later this year.

Both these activities are sideshows compared to the main action: a sophisticated, expensive election effort run by the caucuses and fueled with campaign donations from political action committees, lobbyists and big individual givers.

These are legal, aboveground activities that the public and the media rarely pay much attention to, but they are extensive and expensive.

During the last election cycle, the four caucuses - House and Senate, Republican and Democrat - raised and spent $20 million on a relative handful of election campaigns - again, usually for open seats.(See details here.)

As head of the House Appropriations Committee and a ranking Democrat, Evans is expected to feed the kitty. Out of the $1.7 million he raised in the last election cycle about $600,000 was sent to the House Democratic Campaign Committee, He sent another $245,000 to individual candidates, usually incumbents.

Other legislative leaders make similar, large donations. For instance, Perzel, while he was still House Speaker, gave $1.4 million to the House Republican Campaign Committee from his campaign fund. House Republican Whip Mike Turzai gave $670,000 to the HRCC in the 2007-2008-election cycle. Joe Scarlatti, Republican leader in the state Senate gave $1.4 million to the SRCC. The list could go on.

These contributions are not done out of the kindness of the leaders' hearts. The leaders supply money to win friends and influence rank-and-file legislators. Most leadership positions in the House and Senate are filled by votes of legislators in the caucus. In Harrisburg as elsewhere, money is power and the money they give to help elect new caucus members and assist existing ones solidifies their power over the caucus and the legislative process.

In short, it gives the leaders more power.

The process, as one lobbyist put it, results in an "obscene, never ending" search for campaign contributions that can swell a legislative leader's campaign fund into the multi-million-dollar range.

It also has the effect of masking the true source of money for a campaign. For example, in a contested Senate election in Westmoreland County in 2008, the Republican and Democratic candidates spent nearly $2.5 million, with about 80 percent of it being listed as coming from caucus committees or individual senators.

In reality, the money came from the usual array of special interests - trial lawyers, business interests, labor unions, lobbyists, law firms, etc. It was simply funneled through the leaders.

The caucuses and leaders have long played a role in election campaigns. It is in their best interests to get a sufficient number of new members elected to tilt control of the legislative chamber to their party.

It is the extent of that effort - and its sheer size in terms of money - that has changed in recent years. The result is a legislative leadership with more power, rank-and-file with less; more influence for the biggest of givers, especially the million-dollar political action committees.

Partisanship is often blamed for the paralysis in the state legislature, but that is just one factor. In Harrisburg, the money culture rules - and it is tightening its gripe on the legislative process.

In the next two parts of this Metropolis special report, we will reveal the biggest players in the money game. And we will show how quickly a new player in town - the gas companies interested in exploiting the Marcellus Shale - have entered the game.

Flag Photo: The Pennsylvania State House Chamber

The Money Game: Pennsylvania as PAC Land

2010-07-23T21:33:29Z

By William Ecenbarger

Money not only talks in Pennsylvania politics-it's keeping up a running conversation.

Between 1999 and 2008, total money raised for state political campaigns nearly doubled, from $74.4 million to $133 million.

Who gives all this money to candidates for governor, auditor general, treasurer, attorney general and legislator?

Almost anyone with an axe to grind, or a cross to bear, in Harrisburg.

Some of it comes from individuals, some of it from corporations and unions and most of it comes from "political action committees," ranging from ABC PAC (Pennsylvania Associated Builders & Contractors) to Z-PAC (Pennsylvania Society of Anesthesiologists).

In recent years, the number of PACs has grown and the amount of money they give out each year has gone up as the state legislature grapples with complex issues - with strong, often competing, interests. "Eighty percent of the fights in the legislature are really turf wars," said one lobbyist. And these interests are ready to throw money into the process via their PACs.

Sometimes it is not easy to sort out who is who. Some of the PACs try to cloak their identities in altruism. The "Committee for a Better Tomorrow," is actually the Philadelphia Trial Lawyers Association, whose vision of an improved future has something to do with fewer restrictions on lawsuits. The "People for Good Government" PAC consists of executives of the electric company, PPL Corp. The Pennsylvania Committee for Affordable Housing PAC is the Pennsylvania Builders Association.

Pennsylvania law currently forbids political corporations to make campaign contributions, but this is easily circumvented by creating a PAC a company's employees can give to. And thus we have SUN PAC (Sunoco Inc.), HIPAC (Harleysville Insurance), PECO PAC (PECO Energy), GEPAC (General Electric) and WAL PAC (Wal-Mart).

During the 2007-08 election cycle, labor organizations were the biggest special interest contributors with $11.5 million, followed closely by lawyers at $10.5 million. Among business interests, realtors gave $2.8 million; insurers, $2.4 million; electric utilities, $1.8 million; builders, $1.4 million, and bankers, $1 million. Politically conservative organizations and individuals kicked in $3.4 million, and health professionals like doctors and hospitals, gave $1.9 million. (See details on the top PACS.)

As one lobbyist explained, the demand for more money has been met by an expansion in the number of PACs and the size of contributions. "There are," he said, "a lot more players."

The information in this article comes from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, a nonpartisan research group based in Helena, Montana, whose website is followthemoney.org.

The most remarkable statistic is this: During the 10-year period beginning with the 1999-2000 election cycle, contributions to finance elections for the 203 state House seats and the 50 Senate seats more than doubled - from $34 million to $70.3 million.

Why is this remarkable? Because few of the elections were really competitive.

For example, during the 2007-08 cycle, when there were 228 legislative seats at stake (all House seats and half the Senate seats), contributions came to $69 million - despite the fact that, according to the NIMSP, only 130 of them were even contested; and only 36 of the 228 elections were truly competitive (meaning both candidates raised similar amounts of money).

In that same election, the 200 incumbent legislators on the ballot raised three times as much money as their opponents (if they had one).

And the money-saturated incumbents did well--195 of the 200 won. (For a detailed discussion of legislative races see Part One.)

Despite the lack of competitiveness, the average amount of money raised for a House seat was $168,000; the Senate figure was $606,000 in the last election cycle. It probably will rise once again this year.

Indeed, Pennsylvania legislators have elevated fund-raising to an art form. Freshmen legislators elected in November often start filling their campaign coffers even before they are sworn in for the first time in January. In 2007-08, the even 25 senators who were not up for election raised about $8 million. When it comes to raising money, there is no off-season.

The largest single group of special interest contributors were organizations representing teachers, electrical workers, carpenters, steam-fitters, painters, ironworkers, plumbers, masons, boiler-makers, bricklayers, plasterers and dozens of other labor groups. About 75 per cent of this money went to Democrats.

Lawyers, and especially trial lawyers, were the second big contribution group, and again about 75 per cent of this money went to Democrats.

Health professionals were led by the Pennsylvania Medical Society, which gave 72 per cent of its $275,000 total to Republicans. Other health industry givers were chiropractors, dentists, orthopedists, optometrists, ophthalmologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, radiologists, pharmacists, physical therapists, nurses, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners, dental hygienists, podiatrists, and audiologists. Overall, Republicans received about two thirds of this money, though there were exceptions: dentists split their money evenly while psychologists favored Democrats.

Business interests patronized Republicans by a 2-to-1 ratio, while conservative policy organizations gave nearly every penny to the GOP.

Little of this money is spent foolishly. For example, NIMSB calculates that the tobacco industry donated $415,950 to Pennsylvania candidates or their committees in 2007-08. Most generous were the Pennsylvania RJR PAC (aka R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.) at $50,150, and the US TEAM PAC (aka U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co.) gave $36,200

It's not just a coincidence that Pennsylvania, despite being strapped for cash, is the last state in the nation that does not tax smokeless tobacco and cigars.

Most political patrons - teachers unions, auto dealers, doctors - have been at it for years. But hot issues can bring newcomers to the forefront. There are massive amounts of money to be made by drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus shale regions of Pennsylvania, and this has brought infusions of campaign cash from the drilling companies.

In recent years the Legislature has authorized slot machines and casino gambling; Common Cause, the public interest group, estimates that from 2001 to 2008, the gambling industry gave $4.4 million to state candidates, and another $12.3 million came from lawyers and lobbyists who represent gambling interests.

This year we can expect increased contributions from hospitals, insurers and other medical interests as they seek to impose their will on state laws and regulations to implement the new federal health care program.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Pennsylvania has one of the weakest campaign finance laws and allows virtually unlimited political money into its election system.

No one in power in Harrisburg seems interested in changing the rules of the money game. They like it just the way it is.

Tomorrow: Oil and gas interests were never big givers in Pennsylvania - until a vast deposit of natural gas was discovered lying under the state. Then things changed.

The Money Game: Marcellus Shale Cash

2010-07-22T20:20:31Z

By William Ecenbarger

It might seem odd that Kim Pegula, a self-described "homemaker" from Boca Raton, Florida, would donate $180,000 to help state Attorney General Tom Corbett become the next governor of Pennsylvania.

To be sure, Ms. Pegula is no ordinary homemaker, but is responsible for an 8,000-square-foot, Tuscan-style estate in the exclusive St. Andrews Country Club that is currently on the market for $5.4 million.

But $180,000 is a lot of money, even in Pennsylvania politics, and it's a large gift, even if it did come two days before Christmas.

What could she have had in mind? Along with her husband, Terry Pegula, she is a founder of the Black River Music Group, an independent country music recording label that is home to such artists such as Jeff Bates and Sarah Darling.
But that doesn't seem like a good enough reason....

Oh wait! Terry Pegula is Terrance M. Pegula, the president, CEO and sole shareholder of East Resources, Inc., Warrendale, Pa., which owns about 900,000 acres and operates some 2,500 natural gas wells in the Marcellus Shale areas of Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia.

Some of the richest natural gas reserves in the world are here, and exploration companies like East Resources have been drilling ever more wells in northern and southwestern Pennsylvania. So far this year, new wells are being opened at three times the rate as last year.

And just as surely as the drilling is rising, so are industry contributions to Pennsylvania legislators and gubernatorial candidates.

A few years ago, oil and gas interests were negligible givers to Harrisburg politicians. Then, the Marcellus Shale was discovered and drillers are descending upon the state and oil and gas interests are opening their checkbooks to give to politicians.

No surprise here. The drillers are betting that their political bounty will influence the executive and legislative branches on issues like taxation, environmental regulations and a moratorium on drilling on state-owned land.

Studies upon studies have show that public office-holders tend to make decisions that favor those who have helped finance their elections to office. In politics, money not only talks - it practically shouts if given in large amounts.

A study of reports filed with the Pennsylvania Department of State shows that in the 18-month period between January 1, 2009, and last June 30, drillers gave at least $751,762 to candidates-nearly triple their total of $276,802 for 2008.

One thing is very clear: the gas companies believe that their interests will best be served through the election of Republicans. Of the grand total of $1,028,564 contributed in 2008, 2009 and the first half of 2010, fully 82 per cent, or $843,884, went to Republican candidates.

Corbett accepted $311,803 in natural gas money while his Democratic opponent in the Nov. 2 gubernatorial election, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, took $94,000. State Auditor General Jack Wagner, who lost to Onorato in the Democratic primary, received $26,250.

For the record, Corbett opposes taxing natural gas, saying it would hurt a fledgling industry.

Onorato has not taken a position on the issue.

The party disparity was more pronounced at the legislative level. House and Senate Republican campaign organizations received $66,600, while Democrats got only $2,000, and far more individual Republican candidates were favored than Democrats.

Legislative leaders from both parties drew gas money, but again most of it went to Republicans. Tops in this class was Sen. Joseph B. Scarnati III (R., Warren), the Senate president pro tem, who got $42,250. By contrast, his leadership equivalent in the House, Speaker Keith R. McCall (D., Carbon), was given only $4,500.

The chairmen, and subcommittee chairmen and members of the key Environmental Resources and Energy Committees in both chambers also were targeted: Rep. Jeffrey P. Pyle (R., Armstrong ), $9,800; Rep. Dave Reed (R., Indiana), $7,250; Sen. Donald R. White, (R., Indiana), $6,000; Rep. Ted Harhai (D., Westmoreland), $4,750, and Rep. Michael Gerber (D., Montgomery), $3,500. (See more details here.)

The Pegulas' East Resources was the largest contributor among natural gas interests, with a total of $276,525 over the 2-1/2-year period, including $205,000 to Corbett.

Other big industry contributions:

--$116,600 from CNX Gas Corp., Canonsburg, Pa., which is producing gas on land in Greene County that is owned by Consol Energy Inc., a huge coal company.

-$68,640 from Chesapeake Energy Corp., Oklahoma City, a Fortune 500 company that is the largest single Marcellus stakeholder with 1.6 million acres.

-$61,600 from Range Resources Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, which has leased more than 1.1 million Pennsylvania acres.

-$58,307 from S. W. Jack Drilling, Indiana, PA., one of the largest land-based drillers in the U.S. (See more details here.)

Common Cause, the nonprofit that advocates for campaign reform, recently estimated that the Marcellus shale drillers have contributed $2.8 million to Pennsylvania candidates and political groups since 2001. The largest single contributor was S.W. Jack, which gave $990,000, or more than one third of the total. The chief executive officer of the company is Christine Toretti, who is also the Republican National Committeewoman from Pennsylvania.

Toretti announced in May that she was liquidating S.W. Drilling to invest in other, unspecified energy projects. But, as recent campaign reports filed in Harrisburg show, other companies are stepping up their generosity. What's in it for them?

There are many issues critically important to the industry that will be decided by the Legislature and the next Pennsylvania governor. Foremost is taxation-Pennsylvania is the only major gas-producing state that does not levy a severance tax on natural gas.

The industry has blocked a severance tax since early 2009, but the recently approved state budget commits the state to enact the levy to take effect on Jan. 1, 2011. The details of the severance tax, including the rate and distribution ratio between state and local governments, are supposed to be determined by the lawmakers this fall. So, it would not be a surprise if the campaign money keeps flowing.

There are also environmental concerns that must be addressed by the Legislature and the executive branch, especially the state Department of Environmental Protection, which issues drilling permits. Perhaps most troublesome is the impact of the drilling on drinking water.

The gas is a mile or more beneath the surface, and it can only be tapped by breaking up the shale rock with a high-pressure liquid spray that is a mix of water, sand and chemicals, some of which are toxic. This extraction process is known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," and it has been implicated in polluting drinking water in other states

The other side of the coin is that the Marcellus Shale formation is estimated to hold as much as 50 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas under Pennsylvania, New York and West Virginia. The drilling could bring about an economic boom in some of Pennsylvania's most troubled areas. In addition, natural gas is vital to the nation's energy needs.

A cautionary note: Because Pennsylvania's online campaign contribution database is cumbersome, tracing Marcellus Shale donors is an uncertain and difficult procedure. These totals are almost certainly incomplete.

Moreover, companies make contribution from multiple sources. For example, Pittsburgh-based Equitable Production Co. gave $53,550 in the names of five executives and one political action committee-EQT Corp PAC. And Toretti gave money both in her current name and in her former married name-Christine Olson.

William Ecenbarger is a reporter and a regular contributor to Metropolis.

My Entry-Level Trap

2010-07-22T10:42:00Z

By Zach Sinemus

I entered my freshman year at Swarthmore College in the fall of 2006 with wide eyes and high hopes. My goal was to receive a liberal arts education that would prepare me for anything; I'd major in philosophy and become an excellent thinker, a blank slate that a company would be eager to write on. What's not to like about someone who has spent four years learning how to think critically?

Fast-forward four years. I've recently graduated, having accomplished my goal of learning how to really think about pretty much anything. Towards the end of those four years, I spent a lot of that time not only thinking about Wittgenstein or Zizek and the like, but also about where I wanted my career to go.

I figured that, being trained at thinking about things, I'd be a natural teacher. I applied for Teach for America but unfortunately ran into lower acceptance rates than almost any college in America -- less than 10 percent of all applicants were accepted. I followed that up by applying to Philly Teaching Fellows and ran into a hiring freeze. Since I hadn't gone to school for a teaching certificate or education degree, with those two rejections went my teaching aspirations.

Abandoning the idea of teaching for the time being, I did what any media-saturated twenty-something has been "sold" on doing -- I turned to job web sites like CareerBuilder.com and Monster.com to help me land a job. I created my profiles, uploaded my resume and listed my supposed strengths in April -- plenty of time, I thought, to secure some job before graduation.

After following the required steps, I was ready to finally browse the web sites for jobs. I naively believed that not only would I be able to find a good amount of jobs for which I was suited, but also that employers would be searching these job sites for resumes and profiles like mine. And so I browsed. At first I searched through all local jobs in industries I liked - I held up hopes for education still, so I kept that box checked and I included others, such as legal and banking. My first search yielded a decent number of results but quickly I realized the search left me looking at jobs I wasn't quite qualified for.

My next search would be a bit more advanced, as I added additional criteria such as "Bachelors Degree" and "Full Time." Further down the list came the critical criteria. There I revealed my lack of experience by checking the boxes that read "Less than 1 year" of experience and "entry level."

At this point I noticed an interesting discrepancy; there were more "entry-level" jobs than jobs that required less than one year of experience, about two-fold in fact. How does that work? What sort of entry-level job requires years of experience? They are, after all, entry level. I soon realized that my hopes for quick employment had died.

Monster informed me that there were only 26 jobs entry-level jobs requiring less than a year of experience in every industry in Philadelphia. That wasn't enough even to employ the 29 students in my Theory of Knowledge class. The nation's largest job search engine wasn't capable of finding enough jobs to employ a single class at a small liberal arts college.

Since that fateful April search, I have done countless more - all with similar results. What I have learned is that while there are 1,500 jobs in the Philadelphia area for the college educated, almost none of those potential employers are actually willing to train. They all require experience.

I spent four years in a top school learning to think critically only to discover that nearly every employer would rather I have spent those four years in the mailroom. The same is true for any number of my fellow recent graduates. While we spent four years pursuing the degree that everyone advised us we'd need, we apparently failed to get the 3-5 years of experience that 98% of jobs require. Except for sales jobs that offer no salary (but ever-reliable commission!), the prospects of finding an entry-level job in Philadelphia are slim to none.

With that I issue a simple question to employers: how does one propose a recent college graduate go about attaining the initial years of experience that none of you are willing to provide?

Zach Sinemus is still unemployed, wondering exactly how to get enough experience to qualify for an entry-level job.

253 Yellow Feathers

2010-07-21T11:23:38Z

Gov. Rendell is trying to lure the legislature back to Harrisburg for a late August session to deal with the $400-million plus hole in the PennDOT budget due to the fed refusing to allow I80 to become a toll road. WIthout additional revenue, Rendell said Tuesday, hundreds of scheduled road and bridge projects will have to be cancelled. "We've got to act," he added. "This is the time for political courage." Well, actually it is not. The problem is that in order to fill the hole, the legislature will have to increase either the gas tax or PennDOT fees. And they are not willing to even mention the "T" word before the November election. Odds are Rendell will not get his special session. Maybe he should mail yellow feathers to each of the legislators.

The Van Seat

2010-07-20T11:54:56Z

By Christine Fisher

Whenever company asks how to get to my apartment in South Philadelphia, I tell them I live in the apartment between the flower shop and the van seat chained to an alley. These are the landmarks that define my corner of the world and while the flower shop is nice, it is the van seat that is the most popular feature in my neighborhood.

The grey seat, taken from your average soccer-mom van, hosts a rotating cast of characters. By day men who work and live in the neighborhood take breaks on the seat. They fan themselves in the heat and smile when my roommates and I come home.

In the evening the family who owns the flower shop gathers around the seat. One of the women bounces her adorable, chubby toddler on it. The toddler clambers around learning to walk and taking some of her first steps on the soft, grey fabric.

Sometimes a couple from around the corner naps on the seat. I found them there when I left the house at 5:30 one morning. Occasionally, when I return from work, they are sitting straight up, heads tilted back, mouths agape, eyes closed.

I tiptoe around them assessing their worn clothes, their frail frames and the open sores on their skin. I wonder if they have fleas or some sort of substance abuse problem? I wonder if they realize that the van seat is chained to the alley and not actually going anywhere.

When my un-air conditioned apartment becomes too much to handle in the summer heat, friends and I sit on the seat in the cool of the night air. Other times the bench serves as a waiting place when friends arrive before I do, and on rare, scandalous occasions it is the site of late night make outs.

The South Philly Van Seat

One frightful day, I came home to find the seat unchained and lying in the pile of trash on the curb. I feared it would be gone forever and snapped a few pictures to remember the memories friends and I made on it. I felt I had developed a bond with the neighbors who shared it, and it upset me to see it in the trash.

Two days later, I came home wondering if I would be able to find my apartment. Now it was just "that apartment next to the flower shop." Without the van seat chained to the alley would I even recognize my front door? Just when I had nearly lost hope, I turned the corner to find a newer van seat chained to the alley.

This one was at least a foot wider. It had not yet lost the bounce in its cushion's springs, and there were no tears in the fabric. Within that week I noticed two more van seats along the street. Each offered a place for passerby to sit, relax and catch up with neighbors - a South Philly stoop, if you will.

In the weeks that followed, I grew more attached to my South Philly neighborhood and the van seat that served as my landmark. I lived in North Philly for two years before moving to South Philly, and while I appreciated the experiences I had in North Philly, I came to see the benefits of living in South Philly -- the diverse mix of people, the mixed uses that the neighborhood hosted and the sense of community. These things, I believe, are missing in North Philly. But something else is missing too. In North Philly there are no van seats chained to alleys or doorways. People have stoops, but they are not communal. They are not cushioned, and they are not cared for or replaced when they run down.

Maybe such shared spaces are what the rest of Philadelphia needs -- to build community and foster a sense of ownership and responsibility for your neighborhood and for the city. Maybe what we need are more ratty old van seats, strategically placed, to serve as a modern version of the stoop.

Christine Fisher can be found sitting on the van seat on South Ninth Street.

Mayor Muddle

2010-07-19T11:35:05Z

By Tom Ferrick Jr.

For any group willing to try it out, I think I have found a method to get money and support from the Nutter administration. Here is my plan: Arrange for a meeting with the mayor and his chamber of deputies, bring along a Powerpoint that outlines the goals and needs of your worthy project. At the end, say: Thank you for taking the time to hear us out today. In conclusion, I want to say that under no circumstances do we want you to support this project, financially or in any other way.

Then go home and wait for a big check from the city to arrive.

I know it sounds odd - maybe too obvious a use of reverse psychology. But, consider the alternative - to ask the mayor come out in support of your project and put money for it in the city budget. If that happens, you are screwed.

Let's look at the record:

Earlier this year, the mayor made much ado about Philadelphia becoming the greenest city in America and how important and vital it was to green up our landscape.. Then, in the most recent round of budget cuts, he eliminated $2.5 million set aside for tree planting and another $1 million for greening up vacant lots.

The mayor stood four-square for the city's arts and culture fund as essential. Then he cut $1 million from the arts and culture fund.

This is not new.

After all, the mayor was against tax increases as injurious to the city's long-term economic health.. Then he raised taxes.

He was a champion of public libraries. Then he tried to close them.

He was against any cuts in the police force. Then he cut it.

The city announced that henceforth the organizers of civic parades and ethnic celebrations were going to have to pay the bill for police overtime and other costs the city incurs. Then, the city paid the bill for the Welcome America celebration over July 4^th. Why? Because, as the mayor explained, Welcome American is different. Oh, okay.

Actually, the folks who were the first to figure out how to get what you want out of this administration were the organizers of one of these civic events. Remember when the Dad Vail Regatta decided to move to northern New Jersey, in part because of the increased costs of paying for police and city workers?

The mayor was shocked, angry and vowed to move heaven and earth to get Dad Vail to stay. The regatta did end up staying, in part because, upon reflection, the good folks in New Jersey decided they didn't want no stinkin' regatta in their town. But, Dad Vail sure got the mayor's attention.

Some people see this pattern and call it indecisiveness, but that's not the right word. The right word - albeit an old-fashioned one - is inconstancy, which my dictionary defines as "likely to change frequently without apparent or cogent reason; lacking firmness or steadiness."

The administration replies that these changes are necessary because of the city's budget woes. It's a phrase they usually precede with a string of adjectives that make it sound like someone introducing a circus act - the absolutely unprecedented, amazing, incredible budget woes.

Not to be a spoil sport, but I have to point out that virtually every state and local government entity has been going through the same budget traumas, courtesy of the recession. It's been a clarifying moment for most of them - a time when they had to firmly establish priorities and act accordingly.

Take the state of Pennsylvania, where Gov. Rendell is the decider. Rendell took the axe to government operations in a serious way, while also declaring as his No. 1 priority providing additional state support to the public schools. He's gotten the money he wants.

So why does it feel we are just muddling along in Philadelphia, without particular purpose or direction? Could it be because the administration, collectively, has no purpose or direction? That it consists internally of competing forces, all with equal access to the mayor, who push and pull him in one direction or another?

There's a striking image. If this administration were an animal, it would be a pushmi-pullyu, the mythical creature from the Dr. Doolittle books that consisted of two llama-like beasts, jointed at the waist, each pulling in opposite directions.

As a result, it expends a lot of energy with little result. It is motion, without forward movement.

This is what happens when the man in charge is inconstant. The sad thing about Michael Nutter is that once upon a time he did have constancy: a clear, well-articulated vision of ways to move this city forward through a series of specific actions and reforms.

Whatever happened to that guy? Oh, there he is: saddled up and sitting astride his pushmi-pullyu, happily waving to the crowd.

Tom Ferrick Jr. is senior editor of Metropolis.

Drill Our Way Out?

2010-07-16T12:39:31Z

At last, some realistic talk about the state of state government. Democratic Rep. Todd Eachus, the House majority leader, went before the editorial board of his hometown paper and laid out the difficult shape the state is in. The deficit is likely to total $5 billion next year, he told the Hazleton Standard Speaker, highway funding will essentially dry up because of the failure of the feds to approve making I80 a toll road. And citizens are in for a hellish year that it likely to include large tax increases and equally large cuts in state spending. While the state's casinos now have table games and there is talk taxing the gas being piped from the Marcellus Shale, Eachus warned: "We can't drill our way out of the problem, or gamble our way out."

Rent to Own

2010-07-14T19:30:46Z

By Lauren Hall

Last summer, my husband and I relocated to Philly from Boston. I gave myself a weekend to find an apartment in Center City, and lined up several appointments with local realtors well in advance. I figured it would take a couple of hours to find a decent place within walking distance to my office. And at these prices? Philly was looking like a rent controlled heaven.

That is, until I actually entered one of the rentals. Lurking inside the lovely brownstones of Society Hill and Rittenhouse Square were some of the most disgusting, uninhabitable hovels I'd ever seen in my adult life. (And I'm including grad school.) My mother, who bravely accompanied me on this adventure, ran out of Purell before lunch.

"Where are the good apartments?" I finally asked one flustered realtor. "You know: washer/dryer, hardwood floors, doors that actually remain on their hinges when closed..."

"Oh," she said, eyes lighting up in recognition. "You mean places for sale! I have some I can show you in the next block."

It turns out that Philadelphia loves a homeowner. And in stark contrast to most other East Coast cities, young professionals are lining up to grab a few thousand square feet of their very own. Low prices, gentrifying neighborhoods, and tax breaks are drawing more twenty-something attention these days than Center City Sips.

One young couple in my social circle, barely 30 and barely employed, just bought a townhouse. An even younger colleague just went in on a condo purchase with her boyfriend. And a 27-year-old recent grad I know is setting up house in West Philly...by himself. In the past year, I've attended more housewarming parties than I've attended in my entire life before moving to Philly..

"I think we're doing it wrong," I told my husband, perusing Craigslist from our rented living room in Rittenhouse. "We could buy an entire house in South Philly for what we're paying for this place."

"But then we'd be homeowners," he countered. "In South Philly."

He has a point. Part of the appeal of being young, urban and childless is the freedom to travel frequently, relocate on a whim, and throw all of our disposable income at shiny new consumables. Moreover, in every other city we've ever lived in or considered living in - Boston, New York, San Francisco - buying a home is so outrageously expensive that few of our peers even gave it a thought. Far better to live in the best neighborhoods, pay the inflated rent, and commiserate over potluck dinners in our miniscule eat-in kitchens.

Do I want the responsibility of owning a home? Not in the slightest. But do I want full control over my bathroom fixtures, pet policy, and overall building cleanliness? I'd be lying if I said there isn't a certain appeal. Oh, granite backsplash! Oh, non-neutral wall paint! Your siren song calls to me every time I open the front door to my building and am greeted by 1970's carpeting that smells of ancient cat urine and my neighbor's hiking boots.

But is it enough to pull me from the rental market?

Last month, a dear friend and new homeowner was robbed while on vacation. She and her husband returned home to find their TV missing and their indoor cats wandering the streets. There was no landlord to call. There was no renter's insurance to foot the bill. Instead, they called the police and researched better home security systems.

That scenario terrifies me. And more importantly, it tells me I'm not ready to buy. I'd rather face a thousand shocked expressions and baffled headshakes ("Really? You rent?") than one sleepless night Google stalking ADT Home Security.

Still, it's never easy to be an outsider. Lately, I've found myself collecting fellow renters as friends; it's like having my very own in-crowd. There's my girlfriend in Fitler who loves the solitude of having her own place, but has no interest in managing it. A fun, hip couple in Rittenhouse who are saving up for their wedding next year. And an attorney in Old City who just isn't sure what her next move will be. All of us taking our time, living our Center City lives, open to (but not waiting for) what comes next.

And if what comes next involves a mortgage and a granite backsplash? Well, so be it.

Until then, I'll be proudly writing my monthly rent checks...and checking Craigslist every now and then, just in case.

Lauren Hall writes and proudly rents on Lombard Street in Center City.

Open Mouth, Insert Foot

2010-07-14T10:47:25Z

Tom Corbett is lucky it is July and hardly anyone is paying attention to the race for governor. It gives him time to recover from kerfuffle over his remarks about the unemployed which implied -- stratch that -- said a lot of them won't take jobs because they want to keep getting unemployment checks. (A modern version of the infamous welfare queens.) Corbett's Democratic opponent, Dan Onorato, pounced on the remark and on Monday Corbett began making a round of mea culpas in various media appearances. "People are perceiving it as insensitive," Corbett told CapitolWire. That's probably because it was.