HARRISBURG – Governor Tom Wolf is calling the state GOP’s latest efforts to pass legislation against his COVID-19 mitigation efforts as ‘irresponsible behavior.’
Governor Wolf voiced plenty of frustrations during a news conference Thursday, “Rather than bolstering the Commonwealth’s efforts to prepare for a possible resurgence, legislators have repeatedly tried to deny my administration the critical tools I need to try to continue to fight this effort. The constitution gives me some power to do that. They seem to have a problem with that.”
The governor says the bill that would’ve allowed school districts to determine high school sports, including crowd capacity was ‘meaningless.’ He then said the bill looking to loosen current restrictions on bars and restaurants is dangerous, “The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington published a research tool that models projected cases of COVID-19. Their projections show that if we cease, if we ease mitigation efforts too far, we could see a doubling of our daily infection rate within one month.”
As a result, Governor Wolf is now calling for government reform efforts, including banning gifts for all public officials, “The gift ban I put into place when I took office only applies again to executive branch employees and officials. It’s time that all elected officials in the state are held to the same standards, so I’m calling on the General Assembly, and there are bills out there, to ban gifts for all public officials. At best, they undercut public faith in government; at worst, they can be symptomatic of unacceptable corruption in the public sphere.”
The governor is also calling for campaign finance reform, which would include limiting campaign contributions. He’s also calling for outside income transparency, requiring public officials to disclose sources, types of work and among of outside income received. The governor also claimed he’s continuing to meet with GOP leaders- they say’ that’s not happening – to which Wolf called that a ‘lame excuse.’ More on both sides’ relationship on pandemic matters in a future story.
