Corbett targeted in new ad, reformers squabble in Phillly, and more

It sometimes seems as if none of the protests of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s budget cuts and gas-drilling policies have any effect. But there was a shake-up in his top staff last week, and now Keegan Gibson of PoliticsPa tells us a new political committee called the American Working Families Action Fund is going after the guv with the ad above.

Corbett isn’t up for re-election until 2014, and no Pennsylvania governor has lost a mid-term election since I was a baby. But but these aren’t exactly normal times. We’ll see.

In Philadelphia, one of the more interesting developments of recent years has been the election of two self-styled reformers to the three-member City Commission, which supervises elections in the city. Our friend Bob Warner of the Inquirer has this interesting post about conflicts arising among Commission Chair Stephanie Singer and her fellow commissioners.

Meanwhile Philadelphia City Council will meet again today to consider Mayor Nutter’s controversial Actual Value Initiative on property taxes, which is now beset by so many uncertainties and conflicting criticisms and counter-proposals that members seem almost paralyzed with indecision.

I’ve written a fair amount about many of the complications of the initiative. But activist Marc Stier makes a well-reasoned case for enacting the AVI plan in a Monday op-ed piece for the Philadelphia Daily News. Read a slightly longer version of his argument on Stier’s blog here.