Editorial Roundup: Pennsylvania

Uniontown Herald Standard. June 25, 2024

In 1966, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miranda vs. Arizona that criminal defendants were entitled to say nothing so as to not incriminate themselves, and they were also entitled to an attorney.

Not too long after, television viewers became familiar with what came to be called the Miranda warning thanks to its recitation on popular series like “Dragnet” and “Adam-12.” Along with a right to silence and a right to attorney, it became widely understood by Americans in all walks of life that if a defendant could not afford an attorney “one will be provided for you.”

A question that has long lingered over that valuable right, though, is whether criminal defendants who are being represented by court-appointed attorneys are getting the best possible defense. Across the country, many public defenders are overworked and underpaid, working with caseloads that don’t allow them to spend much time on each case. In Pennsylvania, counties have been left to fund and oversee public defender offices, and it has resulted in many of them being starved of resources and manpower.

That’s the argument the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania puts forward in a lawsuit it recently filed in Commonwealth Court. It asserts that the current system leaves defendants without effective counsel and, according to an ACLU news release, “creates an inconsistent patchwork of counsel depending on the county in which a person is charged with a crime.”

Witold Walczak, the ACLU’s Pennsylvania legal director, explained, “Pennsylvania’s grossly underfunded system leads to overwhelming caseloads that make effective representation practically impossible even for the most dedicated lawyer.”

The suit, which names Gov. Josh Shapiro and members of the General Assembly as defendants, was filed just as Pennsylvania counties are being awarded state money to support indigent defense. Washington County, for instance, is going to use the $94,000 it is receiving to hire an additional full-time attorney, while Fayette County is using the money it requested – close to $98,000 – to make upgrades to its software and equipment. All told, Harrisburg is sending $7.5 million out to the commonwealth’s 67 counties to support their indigent defense offices, the first time it has ever done so. The Shapiro administration is requesting the amount be boosted to $10 million in the 2024-25 budget, and Lt. Gov. Austin Davis has said that getting the funds out to counties is “no small feat.”

But critics say even the $7.5 million in state funds is not sufficient. They point to the fact that states, on average, spend about $19.67 on a cost-per-capita basis for indigent defense, while Pennsylvania only spends $10.25, even when the new state funding is included. When you look across the 50 states, only Mississippi, Hawaii, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas spend less on indigent defense than Pennsylvania does.

When discussing the state money being put toward indigent defense, Shapiro said, “We need to do more to build equity in our criminal justice system, and a critical piece of that is sustained, dedicated funding for public defenders.” In the years ahead, Shapiro and his fellow lawmakers need to assure that funding actually meets the size of the need.

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Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. June 24, 2024

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has filed paperwork to appear on the Pennsylvania ballot as a presidential candidate.

The fourth Kennedy to run for president and the first to do so as an independent, he maintains that he will win. That’s the position of any presidential candidate, no matter how long the odds.

Make no mistake, Kennedy’s odds are indeed long. Composite polling numbers from The Hill, for example, place him a distant third in the Keystone State. While former President Donald Trump is at 43.9% and President Joe Biden a hair behind at 42.6%, Kennedy is at 5.5%. That’s barely over the margin of error.

Let’s be clear. If the election happened today, Kennedy could not become president.

He is on the ballot in just five states. Three went for Trump in 2020: Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah. The fourth, Michigan, was a swing state that went for Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2016. Delaware voted for Biden, its former longtime senator.

Kennedy has filed to get on the ballot in 11 more states: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Washington. The 12th, Pennsylvania, is the only reliable swing state.

The presidential election takes place in just over four months. Absentee and mail-in voting in various states starts earlier. In Pennsylvania, ballots can start to be mailed out 50 days before the election. That makes the question of whether Kennedy is on the ballot one that needs to be resolved within weeks.

It needs to be resolved nationally, too, not just in Pennsylvania. To do otherwise devalues the decisions of every Pennsylvania voter.

If Kennedy is not on every state’s ballot, his candidacy is an expensive practical joke on the electorate. It presents him as an option, persuading some to throw him support.

But if he is not on the ballot in all states or at least enough to get the required electoral votes, voting for Kennedy is no different than writing in a vote for the Pirate Parrot. Yes, you might prefer him to the other options, but the baseball mascot isn’t a viable option.

CNN is not allowing Kennedy to participate in Thursday’s debate between Biden and Trump, the first debate of the presidential race. The reason is the math. There is simply no way for Kennedy to get to the presidency at this point. Polls aside, he is not on enough ballots to make it happen.

The one value the Kennedy campaign really demonstrates to Pennsylvania voters is in the delineation of that averaged 5.5% block of his supporters in the various polls.

Those are the people the presidential race may boil down to in Pennsylvania — and if history tells us anything, that chunk of Pennsylvanians could decide the whole race.

In polling, those people are sticking by their independent candidate. His tiny chunk of polled voters is not enough for him to win, but it will make all the difference when only 1.3% separates Biden and Trump.

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. June 25, 2024

In his second budget as Pennsylvania’s chief executive, Gov. Josh Shapiro has a chance not just to boost funding in the short term for Pennsylvania’s intellectual disabilities and autism (ID/A) community, but to establish long-term stability for these essential services. As the state’s rarely-met June 30 budget deadline approaches, and as the General Assembly already has an important bill before it, it’s time for Harrisburg to follow through on Mr. Shapiro’s promises.

There’s hardly a better, more humane use for the state’s billions of dollars in reserve funds.

Caring effectively for people with ID/A in Pennsylvania is a struggle because of absurdly low reimbursement rates — below $17 an hour — for direct support professionals (DSPs), who compassionately administer care that is often physically and emotionally exhausting. This has led to a massive staffing shortage, and a waitlist of over 13,200 people across the state. This includes 6,000 patients in the “emergency” category. They need help now — without it, families are desperately treading water to keep their loved ones safe and healthy.

Mr. Shapiro has promoted a plan to end this emergency waitlist within five years — and that is still a very long time for families to wait. This goal is only achievable with serious state investment to fulfill its legal duty to provide this care. Last year looked promising, until the General Assembly slashed a total of $370 million from the governor’s appropriation for the ID/A community.

This year’s budget is back to big promises, including $217 million in state funds to raise DSP reimbursement rates closer to competitive wages and $34 million to specifically cut down on the emergency waitlist. Another $266 million in federal matching funds will bolster these efforts. Support from key Senate Republicans is encouraging: This may finally be the year the ID/A community gets the support it’s been waiting for.

But long-term commitment to keeping reimbursement rates fair is the only way to achieve a truly sustainable solution. Mr. Shapiro has done well by embarking, last September, on the process of reevaluating DSP wages before the typical three-year cycle had completed. This demonstrated Mr. Shapiro’s understanding of the seriousness of the crisis, and provided important information for this year’s budget process.

However, the state’s methods for evaluating reimbursement increases remain vague and ill-suited to current labor market conditions. HB661, introduced by disability advocate and House Majority Whip Dan Miller, D-Mt. Lebanon, would index these pay scales to inflation. adjusting them every year. The bill has been idling in the Human Services subcommittee since March of last year. Full passage should accompany passage of Mr. Shapiro’s funding request, so that the ID/A community will not have to beg for Harrisburg’s care and attention every year.

Last year, the debate on private school vouchers for low-income families caused months of delays and budget compromises, leaving Pennsylvanians with ID/A behind. By passing new funding and long-term support for the ID/A community, the legislature can ensure that Mr. Shapiro’s commitment to vulnerable Pennsylvanians will outlast his time in office — and doesn’t become another unfulfilled promise.

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LNP/LancasterOnline. June 23, 2024

THE ISSUE: State Sen. Ryan Aument, a Republican from West Hempfield Township and the Senate Republican majority whip, said he believes that cellphones are a classroom distraction and possible source of decline in student mental health and academic performance. To that end, he’s working on two proposals that he believes would help address the issue. Aument “plans to introduce legislation to create a state-funded voluntary pilot program for public schools to purchase lockable cellphone bags where students will be required to store their phones during the entire school day,” LNP ‘ LancasterOnline’s Ashley Stalnecker reported earlier this month. “As part of the pilot program, these schools would track data that would assess impact on mental health and academic performance. He also wants to draft a separate bill that would mandate the use of lockable cellphone bags at all kindergarten through grade 12 public schools statewide.”

The prevalence of smartphone usage in schools — and in the daily lives of young people in general — is a legitimate concern.

But don’t take our word for it.

Listen to the students, too.

In a Generation Z(eal) column for this newspaper in March, Maggie Poole, then an 11th grader at Solanco High School, wrote about the irritability, anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia that can afflict kids who spend significant time on social media (generally accessed by smartphone). Poole cited research that showed kids using social media experience “decreased, disrupted and delayed sleep” and are subjected to “unrealistic beauty standards” that can lead to disordered eating.

On the flip side, Janae Riehl, then a 12th grader at Manheim Township High School, wrote a Generation Z(eal) column in April 2022 about the bliss of being without her smartphone for a week she spent at summer camp.

“I got the best sleep of my life. I had so much peace, and I was connected to people on a personal level,” Riehl wrote. “That week was one of the best weeks of my life. We were forced to have face-to-face interactions with one another. We were forced to get out of our comfort zones, to meet new people, to find things to entertain us, to focus on the here and now and to enjoy life without constant electronic stimulation.”

Devices such as smartphones, she concluded, “are stealing our lives from us.”

Aument would agree. And so would we.

“We are expecting children to have the discipline to disconnect from social media and their phones, but most adults can’t even do that,” Aument noted on his website. “Instead of putting an adult responsibility on their shoulders, my bill would give them a break during school hours and the opportunity they deserve to learn without a constant distraction in their pockets.”

According to Stalnecker’s article, Aument’s inspiration for the legislation was a meeting with Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist who wrote “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” which was published in March. (We might add that to our summer reading pile, alongside some of the other compelling books mentioned by members of the Lancaster County community in today’s Perspective section.)

Haidt’s book posits “that a decline in academic achievement and mental health correlates with an increase in time U.S. teens spend on smartphones and online,” Stalnecker wrote. “(He) favors restricting access to cellphones during school time by storing them in a phone locker or lockable pouch.”

That’s Aument’s stance, too.

Aument’s communications director, Stephanie Applegate, told Stalnecker that, for now, Aument is focusing on passing the pilot program bill, which has better odds of getting through the General Assembly than a bill mandating the statewide use of lockable cellphone bags in public schools.

“Aument wants to pass the pilot program legislation as a budget item by the end of June, when the Pennsylvania budget is due,” Stalnecker wrote. “If it passes then, he said he’d look to implement cellphone restrictions in pilot schools by the start of the 2024-25 school year in August.”

The bigger picture for this month’s budget deadline, of course, is public school funding. We strongly believe the budget should incorporate passage of state House Bill 2370, which, as we noted last Sunday, would provide a “transformative” boost in funding of public schools over the next seven years.

Adequate funding for public schools — a state constitutional requirement that lawmakers have long failed to uphold — goes hand in hand with addressing students’ mental health and academic performance. So we see school funding and legislation to address smartphone usage to be of the same cloth.

“While it’s great that the commonwealth dedicated an additional $100 million last year to schools to care for students’ mental health, that money won’t go very far unless we get at the root cause of the problem,” Aument noted on his website. “Because we know widespread access to smartphones and social media apps increases depression, anxiety, feelings of isolation, and even suicidal thoughts in teens and children, my bill is a commonsense approach to improve student mental health and academic performance alike.”

Aument’s sentiment is starting to be shared by many across the nation.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, plans to introduce a bill banning smartphones in schools, The Guardian newspaper reported May 30.

“I have seen these addictive algorithms pull in young people, literally capture them and make them prisoners in a space where they are cut off from human connection, social interaction and normal classroom activity,” Hochul said.

Under Hochul’s proposal, schoolchildren in New York state could still have simple phones that cannot access the internet but can send texts. This seems like a wise compromise to allay the concerns of parents worried about having no contact with their kids during the school day.

In Florida, a law took effect last July that requires public school districts to prohibit student cellphone use during instructional time and block access to social media on district Wi-Fi.

As The Associated Press reported earlier this year, Oklahoma, Vermont and Kansas have introduced what is becoming known as “phone-free schools” legislation. “And two U.S. senators — Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, and Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat — introduced legislation in December that would require a federal study on the effects of cellphone use in schools on students’ mental health and academic performance,” the AP noted.

As lawmakers seek to restrict cellphone access and usage when school is in session, we want to hear from parents and educators — and especially students — on this topic in letters to the editor. Parents: Please encourage your kids to weigh in. We look forward to reading everyone’s thoughts on this important issue.