In Gov. Tom Wolf’s three-and-a-half years as governor, he has expanded Medicaid throughout the state, giving an additional 720,000 Pennsylvanians access to healthcare. He also restored the $1-billion cut to education made under the previous Corbett administration and also signed legislation that established the state’s medical-marijuana program. In July, he established a statewide LGBTQ Commission, the only one of its kind in the country.
Wolf’s Republican challenger in the Nov. 6 general election, Scott Wagner, is a former senator in the 28th District, which covers the boroughs and townships of York County. Polling website Real Clear Politics reported earlier this week that Wagner was trailing by double digits — roughly 16 points — in the race for the governor’s seat.
PGN talked with incumbent Wolf about his priorities for Pennsylvanians if he’s elected for a second term.
If you are reelected, what will you focus on or continue to build on?
One of the key things is that we not discriminate and focus on the Fairness Act. Nondiscrimination statutes exist in some municipalities around Pennsylvania, but we need it at the state level, so I will continue to work for that. Pennsylvania needs to do more at the state level to support education and so I’ll continue to do that.
I will continue to look for ways to expand access to healthcare. The expansion of Medicaid actually reduced the number of uninsured populations to the lowest in history, but there are still 5 percent of Pennsylvanians who don’t have health insurance. There are a lot of people who are underinsured. We need to make sure that seniors have the ability to age with dignity. Fifty-thousand seniors are able to make choices whether they stay longer at home or go into institutionalized care. I want to continue with that.
I want to continue to work on jobs like investing in the port of Philadelphia, the Cracker plant out west, the steel mill in Johnstown and creating new jobs. I want to continue to work on the opioid epidemic and do all of these things in a fiscally responsible way and with some integrity.
How will you continue that push for LGBTQ equality past the election season? How will you help with Harrisburg getting it together with passing the Fairness Act?
One of the ways we can do that is getting out to vote on Nov. 6. We do need The Fairness Act. I created the first LGBTQ Affairs Commission in the nation. The commission will be a good source as to what we can do to make Pennsylvania a better place.
I have two executive orders that prohibit any agency or entity that receives grants or contracts through the commonwealth from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, gender expression and identity. That would be nice to have extended to the entire commonwealth, but right now I’ve been able to do it through executive order. I will continue to do that.
One of the things that has been really helpful for me on the transgender front is Dr. Rachel Levine, who started out as Physician General and is now Secretary of Health. She has been a great source of information, suggestions, recommendations and will continue to do everything we can to make Pennsylvania the fair place we need it to be. We’re on solid ground here because all of the publicity about trying to attract companies to the state. When PayPal decided they weren’t going to go into North Carolina because of the bathroom rule there, I was one of the first ones to call the CEO of PayPal and say “We’re open for business here” and he actually liked the idea because he spent a lot of time in Philadelphia when he was growing up in northern Jersey. He liked the idea that Pennsylvania was making strides towards being a fair state. He liked the idea that I was supporting that. All businesses need that. They need a place where all of their employees are treated fairly. This is something that transcends one interest or one group of people. It’s something that everybody should be for.
Has there been any movement with the LGBTQ Commission since it was established?
We established the commission in the summer and I think they’ve only had one or two meetings, so I think they’re really still getting organized. That will be something that will be happening if I get reelected for the next term.
Do you have any key or specific ways we’re going to turn around some of our issues that we’re facing with the public-school system here in the city?
The first thing is, we can’t keep taking money out of our system. The four budgets that have been done under my governorship have invested historic amounts in education. We’ve made some progress there. I’m working on things to let teachers do what they do best so there’s less of a focus on the standardized tests and more on actual teaching in the classroom. We have a long way to go. The new money has all been distributed according to our new fair-funding formula, but there’s still a lot that is going out according to the old politicized system and I want to work as quickly as I can to fairly fund schools.
Your proposed tax on natural-gas extraction — elaborate on that and why that is a priority moving forward.
It’s a priority because we’re the only major natural-gas-producing state that doesn’t have one. Eighty percent of this would be paid for by non-Pennsylvanians. How this works is the severance tax — like in Texas, Alaska, Louisiana, Oklahoma — these are not lefty states. They’ve put that tax on it, the wellhead, and whoever’s drilling the gas or petroleum product embeds that tax in the cost of that product. When that goes out in whatever form — as gasoline, as diesel fuel, plastic — it’s embedded in that product. So let’s just say the barrel of the petroleum that is extracted from the north slope in Alaska goes to a refinery and goes out to all the places including Pennsylvania. You’re paying Alaska’s tax.
I think this would be the obvious thing to do and it’s not even going to be paid mostly by Pennsylvanians. It would give us some money to put into schools or roads or bridges. I’m going to continue to push it. It just doesn’t make any sense that we don’t have one here.
Have Scott Wagner’s campaign efforts slowed down what you’ve been doing? He’s been asking for public debates and you’ve been declining his requests. Do you have any comments on your opponent as we head into the final weeks before midterms?
Both of us are running ads and I think the voters have a right to stand and see the candidates, hear their presentations and make an informed decision on what they’re seeing. I’m pretty sure that everybody has a pretty clear idea as to the contrast in Scott Wagner and me, and that’s what I think in a democracy you want. We should be sort of indifferent to the forms that our conversation or our presentation to the voters take as long as the voters understand the differences between us so they can go to the polls and make an informed decision. I think we’ve done that. I think there’s a clear contrast between us and I think the voters have seen that and the voters will vote according to whether we want to go back to where we were three years and eight months ago, or continue the journey with me moving forward.
The magic is getting the message out, the magic is telling the story in as robust a way as possible, and I’m very proud of the way that my team has gotten that message out for me.