Wolf Campaign Fires Staffer After Plagiarism Complaints
The Tom Wolf for governor campaign hit a bump last night as it admitted that several passages in a policy document were lifted wholesale from white papers on energy efficiency published by Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls.
The move came after the campaign of U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, one of Wolf’s opponents for the Democratic nomination, pointed out in a news release what it called the “troubling plagiarism” in his Fresh Start governing blueprint.
“I have directed the staff to make sure nothing like this ever happens again and have asked for a new process to be put in place to ensure it does not,” Wolf, a York businessman and former state revenue secretary, said in a statement.
Schwartz campaign spokesperson Mark Bergman told the Inquirer: “Tom Wolf claims to be a different kind of candidate [and] says he will lead us in a new direction … yet the words are not even his own.”
Wolf, the frontrunner in Pennsylvania’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, acted quickly, firing the unidentified staffer responsible.
“We have terminated the person responsible,” [Wolf campaign spokesperson Mark] Nicastre said in an email.
How — and if — this affects the York County millionaire in the polls remains to be seen. (Inquirer | Penn Live)
