GOP senators fail to override vetoes on state budget
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HARRISBURG -- Senate Republicans failed to override Gov. Ed Rendell's vetoes of expenditures for a dozen human services programs, but not before the GOP spent several hours berating the Democratic governor over his budget actions.
Twenty-nine Republicans, joined by one Democrat, Sen. Lisa Boscola of Northampton, voted yesterday to overturn the vetoes of a total of $2 billion for rape crisis centers, domestic violence services, child care and day care grants, assistance to veterans, mental retardation programs, drug and alcohol treatment services and grants to college students.
But Republicans fell three votes short of the 33 they needed to cancel the Rendell vetoes. The Senate's other 19 Democrats voted to uphold the governor.
Members of both parties insisted they want to address the needs of victims of sexual assault and domestic violence, children who need day care so their parents can go to work, money for students to go to college and the other programs. But they differed on how to provide such assistance.
Mr. Rendell said he vetoed some line items because Republicans -- in their budget bill, Senate Bill 850 -- didn't allocate as much money as he wanted for the important human service programs. He wants to increase those line items before a final budget is adopted.
Republicans said that with the 2009-10 budget already seven weeks late, day care programs, rape crisis centers and other services have begun to run out of money and many will soon have to shut their doors until a new state budget is enacted. And final enactment could still be weeks away, they said.
"The only reason the governor vetoed these line items was (to try to gain) leverage" in the budget battle, claimed Sen. Jake Corman, R-Centre. "These groups shouldn't be used as pawns, as the state employees were" until they were finally paid their July-August wages a week ago.
Sen. Kim Ward, R-Hempfield, said Mr. Rendell should "stop holding people hostage."
Sen. Jane Orie, R-McCandless, blasted Mr. Rendell for vetoing $7.1 million for rape crisis centers and $12.5 million for domestic violence programs. She said those amounts were the same in Senate Bill 850 and the governor's own budget proposal, so what was the point of vetoing them?
She said that she spent 10 years as a prosecutor in Allegheny County and saw many cases of sexual assault and domestic violence. "The governor's actions in vetoing these items are egregious, repugnant and deplorable," she said.
Senate Democrats said the veto override effort was just a Republican attempt to embarrass the governor. Democrats said the GOP was wasting valuable time that should be spent on working out a "balanced, responsible" budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.
The override effort "is a charade. How long will we go on with this nonsensical action?" said Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park.
What the Republicans are doing "is a sham and it needs to stop," added Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills.
If the spending cuts in the Republican budget plan are allowed to stand, he said, 8,000 families would lose child-care subsidies and 2,800 children would lose spaces this fall in Head Start, a federal nutritional and health program for lower-income children. Increasing spending for such programs is why Mr. Rendell vetoed those line items in the GOP budget, he said.
"You call it (trying to gain) political leverage," said Mr. Costa. "We (Democrats) call it fighting for the people of Pennsylvania."
First Published August 20, 2009 12:15 am
