Governor

HARRISBURG - A state agency for drug and alcohol issues has been put on hold by the Corbett administration, which cited unexpectedly high costs to set it up. Gov. Corbett has not announced his choice for secretary of the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, which was created by a law passed last year and took effect July 1. It would be the first new Cabinet-level department in Pennsylvania since 1995. The Health Department, which performs many of the department's projected functions, has been making plans to get the new department up and running.

If a Mount Rushmore for actors were erected, you'd expect to see the legends etched in stone, right?? Bogart, Tracy, DeNiro,?Brando, Streep. But wait. Don't put that chisel away just yet. DiFrancesco is feverishly working his way toward being included in that exclusive group. DiFrancesco? Sure, you know him - Donald T., the acting governor of New Jersey. Got the gig when the real governor, Christie Whitman, bolted to Washington for a Bush job. He's taking the acting part seriously, too. The acting governor is inescapable, flexing his acting chops by touting the Garden State's attractions in commercials.

CHICAGO - Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan was released from prison before dawn Wednesday, stopping only briefly at a halfway house before he was allowed to travel home to serve the rest of his sentence for corruption. By midday, Ryan was sitting in the living room of his spacious home in a leafy northern Illinois neighborhood in Kankakee, beaming and surrounded by his children and grandchildren, said Jim Thompson, his attorney and also a former governor. Ryan's discharge to home confinement just hours after arriving at the halfway house seemed to surprise even Thompson, who insisted Ryan got no special treatment.

SANTA FE, N.M. - New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez has dug into her family's ancestry and uncovered immigration documents she says suggest her paternal grandparents followed common practices in coming to the United States from Mexico in the early 1900s, contradicting earlier indications they were illegal immigrants. Martinez, a Republican and the nation's only female Hispanic governor, this year acknowledged that her grandparents came to the United States without immigration documents.

Being governor of New Jersey means you have $30 billion or so to spend each year. It means the Lincoln Tunnel closes when you need to get to New York, a mansion in Princeton is open for parties, and a Shore house at Island Beach State Park is free for your swimming pleasure. And then there's this: You get to appoint six people to the Perfusionists Advisory Committee and nine to the Noise Control Council. The perfusionists (heart-lung machine operators) and the noise-control people (it's an environmental thing)

Are you in the governor's crosshairs? Does he want to enact policies that you object to? Care to respond? No problem. It'll cost you just $10,875,011. That's what Gov. Christie's chief nemesis, the New Jersey Education Association teachers union, spent last year for "communications" lobbying: an anti-Christie campaign that featured TV ads, radio spots, and a plane that flew up and down the Jersey Shore proclaiming Christie's love for millionaires. The ads are needed, the NJEA says, to counter Christie's free arsenal (his regular national TV interviews, 45-minute news conferences and near-weekly town hall meetings)

DOVER, Del. - The state Senate gave final approval Wednesday to a bill that would legalize medical marijuana. The legislation cleared the House last week after having passed the Senate, but House lawmakers added two minor changes that required Senate approval. The Senate voted, 17-4, to approve the revised bill, which now goes to Gov. Jack Markell for his signature. - AP

Lynn C. Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star receiver, is considering a Republican bid for Pennsylvania governor in 2006, his office confirmed yesterday. Swann, who has never held elected office, has been reaching out to top GOP officials in recent days to discuss a possible candidacy. He also has talked with one of his potential Republican opponents, state Sen. Jeffrey E. Piccola of Dauphin County. "It was a courtesy call," said Piccola, who also is considering a run for governor.

Guam Gov. Carl Gutierrez yesterday told how he helped save an 11-year-old boy and several others from the Korean Air jumbo jet that crashed on the Pacific island with 254 people on board. "We have got hundreds of people combing the hillside and under the debris. I found an 11-year-old boy after the fire. He was burned, but he was still conscious," the governor told Sky News television in a telephone interview. He also told of an 11-year-old Japanese girl he found trying to tend to a critically injured flight attendant.

Booth Gardner, 76, a two-term Democratic governor who later in life spearheaded a campaign that made Washington the second state in the country to legalize assisted suicide for the terminally ill, died Friday at his Tacoma home after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. "We're very sad to lose my father, who had been struggling with a difficult disease for many years, but we are relieved to know that he's at rest now and his fight is done," said Gail Gant, Gov. Gardner's daughter, in a statement.