Donate
Action Center
Register To Vote
Find your
Representatives
and Candidates
Polling Places
Eye on the Media
Get the Whole Story
|
Senate awaits House action on bills
I share the Daily Local News' frustration that work on Pennsylvania's 2009-10 state budget remains unfinished. However, your Nov. 5 editorial ignored several essential facts.
The editorial correctly pointed out that three budget-related issues remain unfinished: gaming law reforms, authorizing table games at casinos and funding for a number of institutions, including numerous hospitals and the four state-related universities: Temple, Lincoln, Penn State and Pitt.
However, it wrongly state that legislative leaders "apparently don't care to respond" to an Oct. 29 letter from Gov. Rendell regarding those issues. In fact, I responded promptly ... and released my response to the public and the press on my Web site, www.senatorpileggi.com.
The simple fact is that the Senate has passed all of the bills necessary to complete the budget. We have approved bills to provide state funding for hospitals and the state-related universities, two comprehensive gaming-reform bills (one of which was passed four months ago), and a bill to authorize table games at casinos ... all with bipartisan support.
Unfortunately, the leaders of the House of Representatives have not permitted the members of the House to vote on these bills and send them to the governor or to return them to the Senate with amendments.
If the House amends some or all of the remaining budget-related bills and returns them to the Senate, we will quickly reconvene to consider the legislation. In the meantime, I will continue to do everything in my power to expedite this process.
DOMINIC PILEGGI
Senate Majority Leader
|