Pennsylvania’s second-in-command is holed up with his family at home in Braddock, outside Pittsburgh, where he once was mayor.
But John Fetterman, the state’s larger-than-life lieutenant governor, known for straight talk and public service, is pushing messages via facetime on TV news and on social media.
“We are doing what every Pennsylvanian is doing,” he said, “And I’m working remotely promoting critical themes during this pandemic and trying to stay ahead of where I think things are going.”
He’s removed from Harrisburg and his normal duties of presiding over the state Senate for the practical purpose of protecting state government’s line of succession. If necessary, he would succeed Gov. Tom Wolf.
But he’s constantly underscoring the need for folks to avoid hoarding, stay-at-home, wash their hands and practice physical distancing.
He and his wife, Gisele, continue to collect and box-up food for pickup at the Freestore she founded years ago. She continues her work promoting compliance with Census 2020. And she just wrote an op-ed piece for PennLive urging people to come together to help each other while staying physically apart.
Their three children -- 11, 8 and about to turn 6 -- are doing well but, he said, “They miss their friends. They miss their life. Like we all do.”
And, in a far-ranging telephone interview, Fetterman hammered on a few issues, from personal to policy, that are very much on his mind.
He urged high praise for frontline workers, especially in health care, farming, trucking and grocery stores: “No one’s getting rich doing these jobs. No one signed up for this. I hope they all get ticker-tape parades when this is over.”
Gisele Fetterman, the Second Lady of Pennsylvania, works at The Free Store in Braddock, Pa. She's shown here in a file photo from last September in the store, which she founded years ago. The store is closed due to the coronavirus but she and her husband, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, have dropped off food at the store for those who need it. Sean Simmers | ssimmers@pennlive.com
He spoke of the hard truth that the coronavirus pandemic and its effects are far from over, and the need to face that reality:
“My state of mind these days is resolve. We gotta make it through this. If that means channeling your grandparents or whatever, then do that because we’re there, we’re at that point.
“Channel somebody in your blood who got through tough times. I channel my grandmother Edith who raised three kids alone in Berks County during WWII while my grandfather, Lt. Commander Donald Fetterman, fought in the Pacific Theater.”
And Fetterman, long a champion of LGBTQ rights (as Braddock mayor, he married same-sex couples before gay marriage was legal), also linked the impressive daily briefings of state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine to the fact Pennsylvania has no law protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination in employment or housing.
“I don’t know how there could be any Pennsylvanian with a heart watching Dr. Levine (who is transgender) and think it’s OK to deny legal protection under the law to the LGBTQ community…my hope is people see her and say, 'Maybe I’ve been on the wrong side of this issue.’ I hope this is a watershed moment for our state,” Fetterman said.
He also suggested the next annual state budget, technically set to take effect July 1, could be a vehicle for policy issues that he’s pushed for years.
“The budget’s going to be epic, and not in a good way,” he said.
The $36 billion budget proposed by Wolf in February calls for lots of new spending based on larger-than-normal revenue growth driven by a pattern of revenue increases from higher collections of sales taxes and income taxes.
Seems pretty certain that won’t pan out.
As a result, Fetterman said he’ll push at least two of his long-time favorites, legalized (and taxable) recreational marijuana and a dramatic reduction in the state prison population.
In 2018, a state Auditor General’s report estimated new revenue from legal weed would total $580 million a-year.
And Fetterman said the state could cut its inmate population by one-third by releasing non-violent offenders and older convicts. Such a move, he said, would save close to $1 billion in a criminal justice budget of $2.7 billion (mostly for prisons).
“I’m putting it out there,” Fetterman said, “We are reaching a point where such proposals are no longer optional.”
He added he hopes that Harrisburg’s too-often partisan politics is no longer optional either.
John Baer may be reached at baer.columnist@gmail.com
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