New Group Aims to Make PA Government More Conservative

The right-leaning PA Independent reports on the appearance of a new group to push Pennsylvania’s GOP-held General Assembly in an even more conservative direction.

The American Future Fund Political Action, a national group that advocates for free-market and conservative ideals, launched a campaign targeting Pennsylvania’s General Assembly. The group will use phone calls, direct mail and social media to apply pressure to “select lawmakers” and to support lawmakers who support reform efforts, according to a news release.

“Conservatives are hungry, and they’re not hungry for unreasonable things,” said Nick Ryan, AFF Political Action chairman.

The campaign will focus on three topics of importance to more hardline conservatives – Obamacare, a failure to privatize the state’s liquor stores and the gas tax increase that accompanied a $2.3 billion transportation funding package approved last year.

Why this is sort of weird: Two of the three “failures” — on liquor store privatization and the increase in gas taxes — can be laid at the feet of GOP Gov. Tom Corbett, who failed to get the first finished and who signed off on the second. (In the latter case, at least, we’re not convinced that’s such a bad thing.” As for Obamacare: There are things states can and will do to muck it up, but the real debates about that are playing out at the federal level.