Month: February 2019

The commonwealth’s prison system just settled a federal lawsuit over mail policies in its prisons. It’s a big win for public defenders and nonprofit groups that represent inmates, and it’s a milestone after months of controversy and speculation about a raft of new security measures the Department of Corrections put in place last fall.

To understand exactly what happened and what it means, we’ll bring you back to late August, when the DOC suddenly locked down all its prisons for almost two weeks after a spike in reports of staff falling ill from exposure to smuggled drugs.

We’ll explain the legal complexities that surround incarcerated people’s legal correspondences, and we’ll hear from an ACLU lawyer and the state corrections secretary—two people with very different perspectives on what exactly is happening in the prisons.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

This week, we go deep on the start of Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman’s marijuana legalization listening tour.

Fetterman is a week into his trip, and plans to eventually visit all 67 counties to hear how they feel about recreational pot.

His first stop was Harrisburg.

The crowd of a few hundred was more amenable to legalization than not, but as you’ll hear in this episode, their reasons for supporting (and opposing) the drug were wide-ranging—and sometimes, people in different sides of the issue had more in common than you might think.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Governor Tom Wolf gave his annual budget address Tuesday, officially kicking off the next several months of negotiations between himself and the Republican-controlled legislature.

This is the governor’s fifth year in office, and his fifth budget. In the past, his initial proposals have gotten reactions ranging from derision to outrage from the House and Senate.

Last year Wolf tried a more modest budget plan to avoid an election-year impasse—an approach he seems to be renewing this time around.

Republicans, for the most part, were pretty pleased. But there is still a lot of room for disagreement, and a lot of tricky little provisions in Wolf’s proposal to explore. So public radio reporters Brett Sholtis, Emily Previti, and Avi Wolfman-Arent join us this week to explain it all.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

The legislative session is finally kicking off in earnest, and lawmakers seem to be taking that as a cue to launch as many initiatives as they can, as fast as they can.

This week, we’ll explain three divisive (and perennial) causes Governor Tom Wolf is throwing his weight behind: gun control, a minimum wage hike, and a severance tax on natural gas drillers.

Plus, we’ll recap two burgeoning efforts on election overhauls and probation and parole reform that are getting an unusual (for Harrisburg) amount of bipartisan support.

And finally, we’ll go behind the scenes on reporter Emily Previti’s excavation of data from the 2018 election, and the surprising insight she got into the impact congressional redistricting had on the result.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS