On Election Day 2011, when Mississippians voted down the “personhood” amendment that would have criminalized abortion and, potentially, common forms of birth control, the political arm of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) launched the Women Are Watching (WAW) campaign, a social-media project intended to educate and engage Planned Parenthood supporters throughout the country.

According to a press release, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund (PPAF) will run online banner ads highlighting “Champs” and “Chumps” of reproductive rights.

Current “Chumps” featured include GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, as well as U.S. Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa), Allen West (R-Fla.), Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and Todd Akin (R-Mo.). “Champs” include President Obama, U.S. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.); and U.S. Reps. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.); and former Iowa First Lady Christie Vilsack, who is running for Congress as a Democrat.

In an editorial for the Huffington Post published Tuesday, PPFA President Cecil Richards wrote:

Over the past year, we have witnessed the most aggressive legislative attacks on women’s health and rights in a generation. The 2010 elections dramatically changed the U.S. Congress and state legislatures nationwide, leading to a wave of efforts to restrict access to vital women’s health care, including lifesaving cancer screenings and birth control. … [M]ore than 1,000 reproductive health bills have been introduced in legislatures across the country, the majority of which seek to undermine women’s health.

These attacks on women’s health are unacceptable and we’re putting anti-women’s health candidates from both parties on notice. Women Are Watchingwill work to ensure that politicians who play politics with our health are defeated and to support candidates who fight for the care women need to stay healthy.

Planned Parenthood saw victory Tuesday night with Mississippi’s “personhood” rejection and with Democratic victories in Kentucky (Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear was re-elected), Iowa (Democrats retained control of the state Senate) and New Jersey (Democratic control expanded in the state Senate).

However, Virginia is now completely controlled by the Republican Party, which won seats in the already GOP-majority House of Delegates and appears to have tipped the balance of power in the state Senate from Democrat to Republican, with the election of Republican Bryce Reeves over incumbent Sen. R. Edward Houck of District 17. The national anti-abortion-rights group the Susan B. Anthony List claims to have spent $25,000 in radio, TV and mailer ads against Houck’s reelection.

Planned Parenthood is also watching various states in 2012, including:

• Pennsylvania: Bills have been introduced to enforce new regulations on abortion clinics and to require women to receive state-mandated information about abortion.

• Florida: In 2012, Floridians will vote on a ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to prohibit public funding of abortions, which is already illegal, but more significantly the bill would “prohibit the State Constitution from being interpreted to create broader rights to an abortion than those contained in the United States Constitution” — thus rolling back a constitutional privacy right in the state constitution that currently provides more protection for women than the U.S. Constitution does. A “personhood” amendment just like Mississippi’s will also be on the ballot.

• Planned Parenthood is also “watching” New Hampshire, which severed a decades-long family-planning contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England this year; Ohio, which introduced the controversial “heartbeat bill;” and Texas, which slashed the state’s family-planning budget from $111 million to $38 million and passed a mandatory ultrasound bill (many of the provisions of this law were struck down by a federal judge).

Santorum said he often hears people say they like him, he’s a good guy and a solid conservative — but he can’t win. But the former U.S. Senator pointed out he managed to defeat a Democratic incumbent in Pennsylvania, generally considered a swing state.

“You hear the national media say ‘he can’t win,’” Santorum said. “No, he’s the only one that has won. He’s the only one that’s done it.”

Santorum said he has a track record of leading and making things happen, and asked why the media isn’t paying more attention.

“Do you think the media actually wants somebody out there leading who’s actually done exactly what’s necessary to defeat Barack Obama, to win those key swing states, to run against tough democratic incumbents, to put a kind of grassroots and comprehensive organization together to win?”

Santorum then said “we’re going to win here in Iowa,” and noted by the end of this week he will have reached out to people in all 99 counties in the state.

“I’ve done so at town hall meetings. I’ve done so in those kinds of meetings where people have the opportunity to come and kick the tires, get a chance to really see,” he said. “It’s not remotes or viral messaging or interviews by some patsy reporter. No, we get up there in front of the toughest questioners there are, and that’s the people of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.”

Despite spending the most time in the state of any candidate, Santorum got just 5 percent support in the latest Iowa Poll. That puts him in sixth place, in front of only former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has effectively ignored the state.

Santorum made the comments at the National Federation of Republican Assemblies Straw Poll on Saturday in Des Moines. He finished with just 1 percent of the vote from Iowan attendees.

California, Pennsylvania and New York had a higher number of mass layoff actions than Florida. The Bureau of Labor Statistics explains that “each mass layoff involved at least 50 workers from a single employer.” The bureau indicates that “employers took 1,495 mass layoff actions in September involving 153,229 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month.”

The agency indicates the “number of mass layoff events in September decreased by 92 from August, and the number of associated initial claims decreased by 12,318. Florida had 78 mass layoff actions in August, well below June and July levels.

The bureau also reports (.pdf) that Florida had the sixth highest number of initial claimants for unemployment insurance in September behind Illinois and North Carolina, even though the Sunshine State had more mass layoff actions than those two states.

The bureau defines an initial claimant as “a person who files any notice of unemployment to initiate a request either for a determination of entitlement to and eligibility for compensation, or for a subsequent period of unemployment within a benefit year or period of eligibility.”

According to the mass layoff summary, with 376 seasonally adjusted events, the manufacturing sector was the most affected by mass layoff actions through September.

Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that Florida had the largest over-the-month increase in employment adding 23,300 jobs, followed by Texas and Louisiana.

The Morning Call reports that Corbett said districts forced to keep teaching positions unfilled “have their own financial decisions they have to make.”

Corbett concluded, “I would note that many of them took federal [stimulus] money, were told the federal money would go away, made their budgets based on that, and now that money is not there.” The governor’s budget matches state spending levels of 2008-2009.

While the state’s coffers took a beating since the country’s economic downturn, enough money was available to keep funding for Pennsylvania’s mainly lower-income students from taking additional hits, says Bruce Baker, a professor of education at Rutgers who also contributes to the influential National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

After looking at budgeting priorities of various states, Baker noticed that more federal funding fed into short comes in dollar streams allocated to wealthier districts than poor districts. Once Pennsylvania’s share of the $48.3 billion states received in 2009 through the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) dried up, more money was cut from poorer districts while wealthier ones saw no change in state contributions to their education costs. “They’ve hammered the poor districts with [a] warped shell game,” he said.

By analogy, Baker offered this explanation to The American Independent:

For example, let’s say I have a family assistance program, where poor families get a total allocation of $800 per family per year for food assistance, and rich families still get $100 (even though they don’t need it.)   Let’s say we’ve only got two families in the system, one rich and one poor. Because of a recession, my state funding is $200 short this year, but the feds give me a stimulus of $200 to replace it. I could use my $700 in state money for the poor family, and given $100 each in federal money to each family. I’ve still honored my formula which is intended to yield $800 for the poor family and $100 for the rich one.

But, what [Corbett] did was to say that the poor family got $200 in [federal] money and $600 in state money and the rich family got $100 in state money. So, when the fed money is gone, the rich family still gets $100 in state money and the poor family gets $600 in state money – but $200 less than the previous year.

The next twist was to give the rich family $102 in state money the next year, and give the poor family $612 the next year, so each got a 2% increase in state money, but the rich family actually gets a $2 increase and the poor family gets a $188 cut in total funding.

Corbett, in his defense, maintains his budget provides more for education than what the previous governor, Democrat Ed Rendell, called for in 2009. Morning Call reports Corbett’s defenders say his budget should be interpreted as an increase in funding

Pennsylvania, like most states in the union, could not have steered through the recession without the stimulus funding. Jennifer Cohen, an education policy analyst at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., wrote in an email that states were allowed to roll back their education contributions to 2006 levels, with SFSF dollars filling in the void.

Formula Funding Issues

Baker’s second contention is how those additional 2 percent increases were calculated. Like many aspects of public budgeting, schools receive funding by a formula, known as “formula spending.” As Cohen explains, “most education funding formulas take into account lots of things in addition to population like poverty [and] cost of living,” to impact the communities that have lower income levels and small tax revenues.

Baker says Corbett, and other state leaders like Governors John Kasich in Ohio and Andrew Cuomo in New York, aims to provide any increased aid in a flat, “off the formula” distribution. “That is,” he says, “any increases would be a flat percent and not driven through the formula calculations that would drive more funding back to poor districts.”

The implications of going off the formula can be a mixed blessing, says Raegen Miller, an education funding analyst at the Center for American Progress. Depending on how progressive or regressive state funding mechanisms are, “that can either improve equity or exacerbate inequity,” he says. When funding decisions are made irrespective of socio-economic indicators, the money is a lump sum that is evenly distributed by the number of students — small communities can end up with more aid.

Regardless of the jargon, however, Miller warns that,  “off the formula funds aren’t subject to whatever other checks and balances you have in state and local funding.”

Orthodox Union, the nation’s largest Orthodox Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement:

It’s a sad day for children and families across the Commonwealth. Those seeking greater educational opportunity and those families struggling to shoulder the financial burden of education are left waiting. While fully funding EITC at its current maximum is a positive sign after years of cuts, the compromise being negotiated would have helped thousands more. We hope for the sake of Pennsylvania’s children, the Legislature can revisit this as soon as possible and agree to help even more families in need.

At libertarian think tank Cato Institute, Adam Schaeffer lamented the collapse in bicameral negotiations because it postponed a vote on the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC). As TAI has explained Schaeffer’s position before, EITC to him is a better program since it rewards donors with tax credits for subsidizing student private school tuition without placing regulatory constraints on the participating schools. The bills that would have established a voucher program — SB1, HB 1708, HB 1678, and HB 1679 — would have imposed new bureaucratic burdens on private schools receiving public dollars to enroll students, says Schaeffer.

As a political prescription, Schaeffer offers this:

The EITC should not be legislatively handcuffed to vouchers. Vouchers are an inferior policy and a proven political liability. For once the popular, politically smart, most principled, and most effective thing to do are all the same; drop the voucher drama and expand the education tax credit program.

In a follow up email to an interview with TAI, the author of HB 1678, and HB 1679, Rep. Curt Schroder wrote:

There is no consensus on which bill or version of school choice to pass. That consensus cannot occur during the last week of session while we are passing budgets and related bills. Furthermore, the House cannot be blamed for the failure of SB 1 to be reported from the Senate. If the groups driving this issue are finally willing to listen to reasonable proposals from House members, we might be able to make progress. It is my hope that over the summer the differences can be resolved and all choice supporters can unite behind a proposal we can pass.

Students First, a PAC that has financed numerous school voucher movements across the country, is still reserving hope an agreement can be struck, posting an urgent memo on its website encouraging supporters to press legislators for a final resolution.

I am extremely disappointed that a comprehensive compromise proposal including school vouchers, the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program, and charter schools did not cross the finish line this month. The school children of Pennsylvania and their parents have lost out, not to mention the taxpayers. Kids trapped in failing schools remain trapped; parents who wish to make educational choices for their children largely remain without assistance. The monopoly system of public education – good, bad, or indifferent and expensive remains in place.

As we approach these last days in June, the Senate at the request of the Governor made a comprehensive, balanced and fair proposal to the House including many components of which we thought they had an interest. Unfortunately, the House was unable or unwilling to engage in any meaningful discussions to finalize this proposal.

This is a lost opportunity to fundamentally change the Commonwealth’s approach to education. We are aiming to implement proven methods to enhance academic achievement for all students. While it will be more difficult, I stand ready to work on this issue in the future. Over the last several months, House leaders and some in the Governor’s administration have said this is an issue to address in the Fall 2011. I am ready but it is clearly the responsibility of the Governor if this remains on his agenda to define the parameters, initiate the process and drive that process to a successful conclusion.

The House, Senate and governor’s office are all controlled by Republicans.

TAI’s coverage of school voucher legislation in Pennsylvania can be read here.

Kobach envisions bills similar to Alabama’s spreading across the country, and was profiled in a Politico article Monday saying as much: “It’s likely that Missouri will raise its standard up to the Arizona or Alabama level… and there’s a good shot that something might pass in Pennsylvania. It’s hard to predict too far out in the future, but those are probably the two best bets.”

The headline of the Politico article is “Swing states face immigration fight,” but the author, Reid J. Epstein, offers no corroboration for Kobach’s claims, instead merely quoting national-level opponents and proponents of the “attrition through enforcement” laws already in existence.

Carlos Gomez, president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Greater Kansas City, told TAI that a Missouri version of the immigration law in next year’s legislative session is possible but, “it just depends on the community and how they’re going to react.” He points out that Kobach’s ideas met with strong opposition when they were proposed in Kansas and ultimately failed in this year’s legislative session.

Mike Hethmon, a colleague of Kobach’s at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, mentions Florida and Texas (only one of which is a swing state) as states where “you tend to see fairly high-profile… media efforts but [you] haven’t seen the appearance of a legislator who is both willing to focus on the technical issues and keep pushing the issue through multiple sessions.”

But it’s hard to see how Kobach’s claim that his laws will be spreading to swing states is any more substantial than the unfocused efforts of media-focused politicians that his colleague criticizes.

A FreedomWorks employee wears a Panda suit in goading pro union Supporters during a labor-sponsored event in Washington, D.C. on February 22. Freedom Radio host Tabitha Hale appears in the foreground. (Caption: Mikhail Zinshteyn)

On Monday an installment of Freedom Radio, a podcast production of FreedomWorks, outlined the conservative action group’s involvement in the school choice movement of Pennsylvania.

The Keystone state is in the midst of a heated campaign over SB 1, the state Senate bill that would put the state in the company of Indiana as having the most expansive public-funded student voucher program in the country.

The podcast identified the guest, David Spielman, as one of FreedomWorks’ point men in organizing rallies in cities across Pennsylvania. During the exchange, Spielman told host Tabitha Hale, “We sent a message, lets just say, that people want SB 1.” Hale followed up that “we’re in a position of facilitating what’s already going on there.”

Spielman accused organizations opposing the voucher bill of misappropriating the proposed law’s key features. In particular, he pointed to “the teachers unions” who are “spreading around messages that are upsetting conservatives,” like arguing the bill is unconstitutional and would raise taxes.

Though Hale and Spielman note support for the piece of legislation is bipartisan, the organization is putting pressure on Republican lawmakers exclusively to see the bill become law. The FreedomWorks website has posted their names and phone numbers, and during the podcast, House Majority Leader Mike Turzai and Sen. Kim L. Ward were singled out for waffling on whether they will vote for SB 1.

FreedomWorks returns to Pennsylvania next weekend, this time to the neighborhoods of Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. The group came to national prominence during the 2010 election season as one of the main supporters of tea party candidates. Former Republican House Majority leader Dick Armey is a co-chair of the organization.

Between 2007 [PDF] and 2008 [PDF], FreedomWorks received $200,000 from The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation. In 2008, the foundation controlled over $70 million in assets, according to 990 tax filings, and donated tens of millions of dollars in those two years to Christian foundations, churches seminaries and other conservative political groups like Focus on the Family ($1,000,000) and The Heritage Foundation ($4,000,000).

Richard and Helen DeVos are the parents of Dick DeVos, whose wife leads the American Federation for Children, a leading school choice advocate that moves millions of dollars to support local legislation expanding voucher and public-to-private school initiatives. The Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation also donated $200,000 to the Alliance for School Choice between 2007 and 2008, a Washington, D.C.-based school choice organization that support public funds paying for students private school tuition costs.

Bradford County’s director of public safety said a Chesapeake well went out of control late Tuesday night. That means the well blew near the surface, spilling thousands and thousands of gallons of frack fluid over containment walls, through fields, personal property and farms, even where cattle continue to graze.

DEP is taking ground water and stream samples to determine the extent of the spill.

Officials said fluids from the well have, in fact, contaminated Towanda Creek which feeds into the Susquehanna River.

Like Calhoun County, local residents have been evacuated. In a press release, environmental group Earth Justice said:

“We appear to be marking the one-year anniversary of the oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico with a gas well blowout in Pennsylvania today. Considering the sad state of regulatory enforcement in Pennsylvania and other drilling states, it is sadly not at all surprising. In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Corbett has all but completely turned over environmental oversight to the gas drilling industry – requiring inspectors with first-hand knowledge of problems on the ground to get individual approval from the Deputy Executive Secretary at the Department of Environmental Protection before issuing any violations to gas drillers. For all we know, a notice of violation for the Bradford County site has been sitting on the DEP Deputy’s desk for a week.

“And yesterday’s announcement asking drillers to keep gas drilling wastewater out of rivers and steams is, frankly, small comfort. All the Governor has done is to ask nicely. He has not backed up his request with any enforcement orders. Even if companies choose to do as he’s asked, the massive quantities of polluted water industry is generating has to go somewhere. If, instead of dumping wastewater into rivers and streams, we see them start spraying it over roads and fields – a practice innocuously dubbed ‘landfarming’ by industry — then we are going from bad to worse.

“How many wells need to blow out, how many people need to get sick, how many communities need to be devastated before elected leaders say ‘enough is enough.’ The gas has been there for millions of years, it can stay there a little longer until we figure how – and if – we can extract it safely.”

Jeff McMahon blogs for Forbes:

“It is important to note that the corresponding MCL for iodine-131 was calculated based on long-term chronic exposures over the course of a lifetime – 70 years. The levels seen in rainwater are expected to be relatively short in duration,” the agency states in a FAQ that accompanied yesterday’s brief news release.

EPA said it is receiving “verbal reports” of higher levels of radiation in rainwater samples from other states as well, and that Americans should continue to expect short-term contamination of rainwater as radioactive isotopes spread through the atmosphere from Japan.

“We continue to expect similar reports from state agencies and others across the nation given the nature and duration of the Japanese nuclear incident.”

The agency said it has ordered samples from 78 drinking water systems. It has also ordered immediate sampling of cow’s milk around the country. Milk sampling is important, EPA said, because in situations involving large releases of radioactive iodine, cows grazing on contaminated grass will accumulate the iodine in their milk. A complete analysis of the cow milk can take three days.

EPA’s only recommendation to state and local governments is to continue to coordinate closely with EPA, CDC and FDA – EPA will continue to communicate our nationwide sampling results as they come in.

EPA’s daily updates are available here.