It is the Pennsylvania equivalent of being vice president.
Here’s a quiz. Anybody know who is the current lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania?
Thought so. Actually it’s Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati. He took the post of runner-up in state government after the death of Catherine Baker Knoll. Scarnati will serve out the remainder of her term, which runs until January 2011.
The anonymity of the position does not seem to stop people from seeking it.
The lieutenant governor’s job is a little odd, in that the candidates run on their own, as opposed to a ticket with the governor. We vote on them separately, and elect a person to the post every four years.
There’s no shortage of people seeking the job.
So far I have met two of them, both Republicans.
First it was Dauphin County Commissioner Nick DeFrancesco. He’s a Republican who immediately impressed me with his idea of visiting all 67 counties in the Commonwealth – on his Harley.
He also seemed like a good guy, and a good candidate.
The same goes for another Republican who stopped by the office yesterday. Steve Johnson is a York County businessman and son of a senior Naval officer from Carlisle. He followed in his dad’s footsteps in the military, joining the Army Reserve, and serving in Operation Desert Shield/Storm in Iraq.
He founded his own building inspection company, where he’s CEO.
It’s that business background that is at the heart of Johnson’s campaign. He thinks the state’s problems – and there are lots of them – will be solved by business and the people, not government.
If elected he would push for the government to “stand down,” in military parlance.
He wants to see more leadership in Harrisburg, something he says he is not seeing in the final years of Gov. Ed Rendell’s reign.
And Johnson has a specific warning for residents and taxpayers. It comes in the form of the ticking time bomb that is the public employees pension crisis that is looming.
Johnson has some bad news for those teachers and government employees whose retirements are tied up in these plans.
They likely will not be getting what they expect in their retirement plans.
It’s either that or a 30 percent tax hike to cover the shortfalls in the plans.
Johnson is correct in saying that’s not likely to fly.
No doubt we’ll be hearing a lot more from guys like Johnson and DeFrancesco next spring.
The job may be fairly anonymous. But they’re not. And that’s not a bad thing.
Here’s a quiz. Anybody know who is the current lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania?
Thought so. Actually it’s Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati. He took the post of runner-up in state government after the death of Catherine Baker Knoll. Scarnati will serve out the remainder of her term, which runs until January 2011.
The anonymity of the position does not seem to stop people from seeking it.
The lieutenant governor’s job is a little odd, in that the candidates run on their own, as opposed to a ticket with the governor. We vote on them separately, and elect a person to the post every four years.
There’s no shortage of people seeking the job.
So far I have met two of them, both Republicans.
First it was Dauphin County Commissioner Nick DeFrancesco. He’s a Republican who immediately impressed me with his idea of visiting all 67 counties in the Commonwealth – on his Harley.
He also seemed like a good guy, and a good candidate.
The same goes for another Republican who stopped by the office yesterday. Steve Johnson is a York County businessman and son of a senior Naval officer from Carlisle. He followed in his dad’s footsteps in the military, joining the Army Reserve, and serving in Operation Desert Shield/Storm in Iraq.
He founded his own building inspection company, where he’s CEO.
It’s that business background that is at the heart of Johnson’s campaign. He thinks the state’s problems – and there are lots of them – will be solved by business and the people, not government.
If elected he would push for the government to “stand down,” in military parlance.
He wants to see more leadership in Harrisburg, something he says he is not seeing in the final years of Gov. Ed Rendell’s reign.
And Johnson has a specific warning for residents and taxpayers. It comes in the form of the ticking time bomb that is the public employees pension crisis that is looming.
Johnson has some bad news for those teachers and government employees whose retirements are tied up in these plans.
They likely will not be getting what they expect in their retirement plans.
It’s either that or a 30 percent tax hike to cover the shortfalls in the plans.
Johnson is correct in saying that’s not likely to fly.
No doubt we’ll be hearing a lot more from guys like Johnson and DeFrancesco next spring.
The job may be fairly anonymous. But they’re not. And that’s not a bad thing.
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