Interview Summary
PA Budget Impasse
According to Rep. Jenn O’Mara, it wasn’t any one dramatic issue … it was the mix of a Democratic House, a Republican Senate, and a Democratic governor all trying to pull the same bill in three different directions. Add election year vibes and internal Republican disagreements, and the whole thing turned into political gridlock.
SEPTA’s Crisis
SEPTA’s dire financial situation should have been a wake up call in Harrisburg, but Rep. O’Mara says the urgency simply didn’t land with many lawmakers. Outside Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, most legislators don’t rely on public transit, so the idea of “saving SEPTA” feels distant (even though it carries one of the nation’s largest ridership on the smallest state subsidy). Senate Republicans floated a plan to fund SEPTA through revenue from “skill games,” but their caucus couldn’t get behind their own bill, and without a unified GOP position, nothing moved. A court ruling that temporarily blocked SEPTA’s planned service cuts also dulled the sense of crisis, even though the agency only avoided cuts by raiding its capital budget. O’Mara says Pennsylvania can’t keep claiming SEPTA is essential while refusing to give it the predictable, recurring funding any major transit system needs to survive.
Transit Funding Is Stalled
O’Mara says legislators actually built a smart, revenue neutral plan that would’ve shifted a slice of sales tax into the transit trust fund. It’s not a tax hike, it’s not a new fee … it’s just reallocating money. But the Senate won’t touch it, and in Harrisburg, no one wants to be seen touching or broaching the topic of taxes, even when they’re … not raising taxes.
Climate Policy — Cap and Trade
There’s been chatter that Democrats “gave up” on climate action when RGGI got pulled from the budget, but O’Mara argues that’s not accurate. RGGI was tied up in the courts and likely doomed. She says repealing it wasn’t a rollback; it was trading a dead on arrival policy for wins like school funding and an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit. She also supports Gov. Shapiro’s new PACER plan, which aims to put carbon pricing into real law instead of relying on fragile executive orders.
School Funding
Pennsylvania’s school funding overhaul is a marathon, not a sprint. The state still leans heavily on property taxes, and shifting to the modern formula (the one based on actual student needs) will take years. Last year and this year made progress, but seven years is the target to get districts caught up. One quick win is fixing cyber charter school costs, which O’Mara says are wildly inflated and draining money from local classrooms.
A Few Tax Ideas For Public School Funding
If politicians had the political courage, O’Mara says there are two big revenue ideas:
Closing corporate tax loopholes using “combined reporting”
Taxing digital ad spending from huge platforms
Neither is radical (they’re already used elsewhere), but Harrisburg isn’t exactly famous for going against the donors that fund campaigns.
Delco Property Taxes
Delco inherited a fiscal mess from previous administrations, and inflation plus the end of COVID relief funds made it worse. Large, mandatory expenses (like mental health programs) keep rising faster than revenue. Counties also have very few ways to raise money besides property taxes. It’s not that the state is blocking Delco … it’s that it’s not helping enough.
How the State Could Help
A lot of county expenses are state mandated, such as mental health services, emergency services, and public safety. O’Mara says if the state paid its fair share, or even a slightly fairer share, counties wouldn’t be in such a bind. One of her missions is to fix Pennsylvania’s dysfunctional EMS system, which still relies on volunteer staffing even as call volumes grow.
Pennsylvania’s Campaign Finance Laws
Here’s how O’Mara describes the state’s current campaign finance system: “Pennsylvania is like the wild west of campaign financing.” Pennsylvania is one of the few states where there are no donation limits and candidates can spend campaign money on almost anything. She supports adding federal style limits, imposing a gift ban, requiring digital reporting, and dragging dark money into the light. The problem is that the people who benefit from the system, write the rules.
Election Reform That Could Actually Happen
Dream reforms like ranked choice voting or publicly funded elections aren’t close yet. But O’Mara sees potential in Harrisburg for more realistic fixes:
Open primaries
Same day party registration
Early voting
Letting counties process mail ballots earlier (pre canvassing)
