HARRISBURG — Gov. Tom Wolf on Friday rejected a GOP subpoena for records related to the administration’s coronavirus waiver process, potentially sparking a constitutional showdown in the courts, but did release a list of which businesses received approvals to reopen amid the shutdown.
“This information should be sufficient to address your committee’s concerns,” Wolf wrote in a letter to Sen. Mike Regan (R., York), who signed the subpoena.
But the information, published online, didn’t include the criteria by which applications were considered or the reason a business was approved. The administration has not made any applications available, nor has it released a list of the applications that were denied, or those that were approved and revoked.
In total, the disclosure fell well short of what has been demanded by legislative Republicans and requested by numerous news organizations.
In the letter to Regan, Wolf cited a Commonwealth Court decision holding that former Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, was not obligated to respond to a subpoena because it would have unconstitutionally interfered with the duties of the executive branch.
“Therefore, to preserve these constitutional boundaries, my office will not be substantively responding to your subpoena,” Wolf wrote.
The governor also fired back at Republicans, noting that, as part of the state auditor general’s review of the process, the administration would release “the plethora of communications from legislative members to the Governor’s Office about the exemption process.”
“We believe the Auditor General should also review whether legislative members attempted to influence the exemption process in any way,” Wolf wrote.
Senate Republican leadership said Friday evening that information posted online only partially responds to their request and they are reviewing “next steps,” including court action “to intervene and force the administration to comply with the subpoena.”
“As an equal branch of government, we are looking at our legal options to further getting the information out to the public,” Senate Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R., Jefferson) said. “The public has a right to understand the methods behind granting waivers to some employers and not others.”
For weeks, the Wolf administration has put off requests from news organizations for information related to the business waiver process, which has been cloaked in secrecy. The state has declined to say what criteria they were using the make determinations. And many businesses complained bitterly that there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to why some companies had received them, while others in the same line of business were rejected.
In at least two instances, Wolf yanked waivers for companies after Spotlight PA questioned why they had received them. One of those businesses was the cabinet supply company once owned by Wolf.
Republicans in the state Senate last week authorized two subpoenas, asking for all notes, memos, emails, letters, and other documents related to the process. In addition to Wolf, a separate subpoena named Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Davin, whose agency oversaw the process.
Wolf ordered all but “life-sustaining” businesses to close in March to slow the spread of the coronavirus, while also creating the waiver process “in an attempt to actually make the process more open and transparent,” he told reporters in April.
100% ESSENTIAL: Spotlight PA relies on funding from foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results. If you value this reporting, please give a gift today at spotlightpa.org/donate.
