State House Sound Bites Podcast

State House Sound Bites Podcast


Latest Episodes

Episode 47: Dang property taxes!
March 24, 2018

  The Morning Call’s Steve Esack recently co-authored a series investigating Pennsylvania’s little-discussed Clean and Green program, which essentially shifts property tax burdens off large landowners and onto regular homeowners—particularly in rural a...

Episode 46: Small races writ large
March 16, 2018

Pennsylvania had an election this week. Though it was only a special election to replace a resigned congressman in a single district, it received wall-to-wall national coverage. Like several other small or special contests this year and last,

Episode 45: Guns, guns, guns
March 05, 2018

In the wake of the Florida shooting that killed 17 people, lawmakers around the country have been grappling with how—or if—to reform gun laws. Pennsylvania’s own US Senator Pat Toomey found himself in the thick of the conversation this week as he propo...

Episode 44: Let’s sue the court
February 23, 2018

In a little bit of a departure, this show was recorded live as an episode of Smart Talk, WITF’s morning radio show, on Thursday, February 23. We’re cross-posting because it covers all the important redistricting news we would have discussed on the podc...

Episode 43: What does ‘fair’ even mean?
February 16, 2018

It’s been almost a month since the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declared the commonwealth’s 2011 congressional map an unconstitutional Republican gerrymander and ordered lawmakers to redraw it in time for the 2018 election.

Episode 42: Making it up as they go along
February 09, 2018

By the time you listen to this podcast, there’s a good chance that things will look a bit different. All week, we’ve been waiting to see what the state legislature will do to respond to the state Supreme Court’s declaration that Pennsylvania’s congress...

Episode 41: More fights about redistricting
February 02, 2018

Yes, this is the third podcast in a row that has focused on the fallout from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declaring the state’s congressional maps unconstitutional. And yes, we still have a lot more to say about it.

Episode 40: Unconstitutional maps, uncertain future
January 26, 2018

Today’s podcast was recorded live as an episode of Smart Talk, WITF’s morning show. That means it’s twice as long, and features listener calls and emails. It features Keystone Crossroads’ Emily Previti and Marc Levy of the Associated Press,

Episode 39: Redistricting, races, and the return of the legislature
January 19, 2018

Lawmakers have been on vacation from Harrisburg for over a month, but next week they’ll return to start off their 2018 session. Jason Gottesman of the PLS Reporter and City and State PA joins us to run down a list of their top priorities—from overhauli...

Episode 38: Farm Show fever
January 12, 2018

The Pennsylvania Farm Show is in full swing, and we had planned to do a very Farm Show-centric episode. But as someone probably once said, state politics operates on its own mystical schedule, so lots of other unexpected stuff happened this week as wel...