Dwight Evans

William Titelman, who is caught going a little crazy in a Kentucky US Senate web ad has doled out thousand in contributions over the three years including spreading the love to some Pennsylvania politicians.  Along with his maxing out to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Titelman has also made contribution in the last three years of $500 to Jason Altmire (PA-4) in January of 2007, then $500 each to Altmire, Joe Sestak (PA-7), Chris Carney (PA-10) and Lois Murphy (PA-6) in June of 2006.  Titelman had also contributed $2,100 to Bob Casey in both March and June of 2005 and another $1,000 contribution to Allyson Schwartz (PA-13) in May of 2005. 

Titelman also spread the love to some state candidates.  In 2008 he donated $500 to John Dougherty for Senate.  In 2006 he donated $1,000 to Dwight Evans, and $250 to Senator Chip Brightbill and a $25,000 gift for Ed Rendell.  In 2005 he donated another $5,478.39 to Rendell.    

DENVER--With longtime state Sen. Vince Fumo (D-Philadelphia) set to retire from Harrisburg to fight corruption charges, the Democrats need a new party chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Fumo brought billions in state funding to Philadelphia as the ranking Democrat on the committee, but chatter inside and outside the Capitol makes it seem like the position will go to someone from elsewhere in the state.

"I hope not," state Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Philadeplhia), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told PolitickerPa.com today.

Evans is not the first Philadelphia politician to lament the possibility that control over the money could leave the state's biggest city, nor will he be the last.

"Obvioulsy, I would love for it to be a Philadelphian," Evans said.

Still, he was hesitant to engage in speculation about who might take Fumo's place, for fear of angering his colleagues in the upper chamber.

"It's really an internal battle in the Senate," Evans said.

With embattled Majority Leader Bill DeWeese losing support among House Democrats seemingly by the day, one prominent and powerful Caucus member is sticking with him.

State Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Philadelphia), chairman of the House Appropriation Committee, said Monday that he was still standing with DeWeese, and that he even expected the longtime lawmaker to be re-elected as a leader for the next legislative session.

"This stuff shall pass and we'll move on as an institution," Evans told Daily News political columnist John Baer.

"This stuff" is the massive "Bonusgate" indictments that have imperiled the House Democratic Caucus and threatened its ability to expand its razor-thin majority in the chamber this fall.

Evans' comments came shortly after state Rep. Josh Shapiro (D-Abington) became the most high-profile lawmaker yet to call for DeWeese's resignation.

In supporting DeWeese, Evans cited important policy gains in education, community development and energy.

For almost two years, Gov. Ed Rendell has worked against staunch neighborhood resistance to proposed casinos in Philadelphia. Even as some residents who once revered him as the city's mayor grew to loath him for his acceptance of the slot parlors planned for the Delaware River waterfront, Rendell has always sided with the casino developers.

When neighborhood activists continued to push the casinos to consider other sites further from residential areas, Rendell wrote to one that "the issue of re-siting is over." When City Council continued to cause delays, he sharply criticized local lawmakers as having "no guts."

But now that some of his staunchest Harrisburg allies from Philadelphia are lining up against him, Rendell appears to be bending, if not breaking, on the casino issue. On Friday, the man who championed casinos in Pennsylvania said "the political landscape has changed" and that he would meet with the casino developers to discuss moving the projects elsewhere.

Still, even as he signaled his first significant shift on casinos after long lauding their potential for proving tax relief, Rendell, a Democrat, sounded a note of caution.

"I'll meet and make a good-faith effort to explore the potential benefits of re-siting," he said, "but nobody should get too excited. The only way these casinos can be legally re-sited is if the casinos voluntarily agree."

HARRISBURG -- The wee hours of early Monday morning yielded the first on-time budget agreement during Gov. Ed Rendell's six-year administration when he and legislative leaders announced a handshake deal they deemed fair and necessary during difficult economic times.

The budget proposal calls for a 3.8 percent spending increase -- 0.4 percentage points fewer than what Rendell called for in his original budget proposal. He said he cut a little more than $500 million from his proposal, reductions he said were unfortunately necessary while a struggling economy shrinks tax revenue.

The legislative leaders who spoke, Republicans and Democrats alike, echoed Rendell's remarks. Everyone had to accept displeasing parts of the budget to make sure an agreement was reached before state workers were furloughed, they said.

HARRISBURG -- With a June 30 deadline looming to resolve Pennsylvania's budget showdown, Republicans emerged from Friday night's negotiations at the Capitol saying they needed between $200 million to $250 million in cuts to agree to a deal.

Democrats emerged from the same meeting saying they've already cut $600 million and accused Republicans of shifting their demands.

The two sides agreed only that the night's talks were disappointing.

HARRISBURG -- The House Appropriations Committee added $147 million to Gov. Ed Rendell's budget proposal Wednesday, one of the beginnigl steps of what many observers expect to be another difficult budget season.

The bill is expected to be moved to the House for second consideration on June 23. 

The Republican-controlled Senate has already indicated the proposal asks for too much money.

House Bill 2380 would increase spending 4.8 percent, to $28.484 billion. That's 0.6 percent more than the amount Rendell asked for in his original proposal.

HARRISBURG -- Let the budget politics begin.

Republican leadership blasted House Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans (D-Philadelphia) for playing politics with people's lives after his committee Tuesday afternoon amended and then approved a bill that could prevent the state from furloughing nearly 25,000 "non-essential" state workers.

The committee unexpectedly considered the bill, Senate Bill 1122, hours before state Rep. Jerry Nailor (R-Cumberland County) was set to call for a discharge motion to bring it before the House.

But Evans and other Democrats on the committee amended it before approval. The changes would allow lawmakers to access nearly $750 million from the state's rainy day fund, a reserve designed to help during difficult economic times, to pay state employees if a budget isn't passed by July 1.

Gov. Ed Rendell today said he is optimistic after meeting with legislative leaders that the budget will be resolved before he will be forced to furlough state workers for the second year in a row.

But the governor said lawmakers must immediately form special task forces to scrutinize his budget proposals, which include health care and energy reform, the Jonas Salk Legacy Fund, an economic stimulus package and new education funding directed by the state's costing-out study.

"It's imperative that we start in those meetings this week," Rendell said at a press conference in the Capitol.

The ranking Republican on the state House Appropriations Committee and his Democratic counterpart are tussling over the state budget process, with the former taking the latter to task in an op-ed today in The Inquirer.

State Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Philadelphia) chairs the committee, but state Rep. Mario Civera (R-Delaware County) says that by keeping the state budget bill in committee for over two months, "Evans is effectively silencing every member of the state House ... and preventing them from offering any input on the budget."

"What he is doing is absolutely wrong, and he knows it," Civera writes.

Johnna Pro, a spokeswoman for Evans, struck back in an interview with PolitickerPA.com this afternoon.

"The process has been far more public this year than it has ever been, particularly during the 12 years that Republicans were in charge," Pro said.