Rendell

Gov. Rendell yesterday nominated a 30-year veteran of the Pennsylvania State Police to head the 6,400-member force. The governor tapped Lt. Col. Frank Pawlowski, who has been acting commissioner since July, to succeed former Col. Jeffrey B. Miller. Miller retired this summer to take a job as the NFL's director of strategic security. "Lt. Col. Pawlowski has demonstrated a level of management experience and leadership that will serve him well as he guides one of the nation's largest state police organizations," Rendell said in a statement.

Iam writing to clarify some recent remarks made by the Director of the Office of Health Care Reform regarding Gov. Rendell's lack of leadership for Pennsylvania's medical malpractice crisis. From the very beginning, I have pledged to work with Gov. Rendell to analyze and support short-term relief measures that have merit to solving the malpractice liability crisis in Pennsylvania. I have been advocating and working to achieve reform for Pennsylvania's physicians and hospital executives, who continue to assume the burden of paying exorbitant malpractice premiums yet can no longer afford to make these payments.

If Pennsylvania's budget were a buffet, Gov. Rendell's eyes would be bigger than his stomach. And that's not a knock against Rendell's fondness for cheesesteaks. There is much to like about the governor's spending plan for fiscal 2009. He wants to boost spending for health care, education and public safety, which sounds great and should be applauded. The concern is that Rendell's proposed $28.3 billion budget is too ambitious. Given the real estate slowdown and likely recession, this isn't the time to reach for that extra helping of $1 billion more in spending.

Gov. Rendell yesterday abruptly withdrew the nominations of two cabinet secretaries after an eleventh-hour showdown with Senate Republicans who threatened not to confirm them amid concerns about possible ethics violations. At issue was $4.4 million in grants that went to groups that employ the spouses of the secretaries, Michael DiBerardinis of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Kathleen McGinty of the Department of Environmental Protection, since Rendell and the cabinet secretaries took office in 2003.

It was just an office toy: a solar-powered windmill that turned in Dan Desmond's Harrisburg windowsill till it stopped one day this spring. But the reason it quit may help illustrate the future of energy in Pennsylvania - especially if Desmond's boss, Gov. Rendell, persuades the legislature to enact his ambitious Energy Independence Plan before it starts its summer recess. The windmill quit because of $10.5 million in energy savings being realized at the 16-story Rachel Carson State Office Building, where Desmond works as deputy secretary of environmental protection.

HARRISBURG - For four years, Gov. Rendell pushed the Republican-controlled legislature to the brink of a government shutdown over the state budget, but in the end always emerged with a deal that averted it. This year, Rendell may have misjudged his opposition, and his political hardball tactics did not work as well. With no agreement reached on Sunday night, many state government operations were halted and, for the first time ever, tens of thousands of employees were furloughed. Late last night, after hours of bitter public rhetoric and private negotiations, Rendell and legislative leaders made a deal that includes no new taxes, sends employees back to work, and reopens government operations.

The state budget impasse has dragged the approval ratings of Gov. Rendell and the legislature to dismal depths, according to a statewide poll released yesterday. Fewer than three out of 10 Pennsylvanians polled believe the Democratic governor is doing an excellent or good job, the lowest marks for Rendell since he took office in 2003, according to the survey conducted by Franklin and Marshall College. The legislature fared even worse. Only 18 percent of respondents said lawmakers were doing a good job, fewer even than after the legislative pay-raise debacle of 2005.

HARRISBURG - In the wake of revelations that the state Office of Homeland Security was monitoring peaceful citizen activist groups, the Rendell administration announced plans Wednesday to overhaul its noncriminal intelligence-gathering operations. Gov. Rendell's chief of staff, Steven Crawford, told a Senate committee that the administration was no longer outsourcing its intelligence gathering. Instead, he said, it would lift a government hiring freeze and bring in five new employees to track threats to the state's infrastructure.

He has tried to lay low in the governor's race, steadfastly refusing to endorse a candidate in the primary and generally watching quietly from sidelines. But on Wednesday, Gov. Rendell could be muzzled no longer. He called a news conference to vent, among other things, about remarks made by some of the candidates seeking to replace him, and to defend his own record. Rendell accused them of making hypocritical, misleading, or downright false statements in their campaign ads. He leveled criticism at all the candidates, but he singled out only two - Democratic Auditor General Jack Wagner and Republican Attorney General Tom Corbett - as wrongly accusing the state government of overspending.