In November of 2014, Tom was elected Governor of Pennsylvania after driving hundreds of miles across the commonwealth in his 2006 Jeep Wrangler to meet with families, business owners, and hard-working Pennsylvanians.
The first thing Tom did as governor was to declare that he wouldn’t accept a salary or a pension, banned his administration from accepting gifts, reformed legal contracting to end the pay-to-play culture in Harrisburg, and made his daily schedule available to the public.
As promised during his campaign, Tom invested more in education at all levels than any governor before him. He has restored the billion dollar cut made by Harrisburg Republicans in the previous administration that devastated our schools so that we can set our children and our economy up for success, and he passed a fair funding formula to take politics out of school funding once and for all.
Tom is also growing the economy by moving ahead on large projects like the Shell Cracker Plant in Western Pennsylvania, the Port of Philadelphia, a steel plant in Johnstown, and expanding companies like Amazon to make Pennsylvania a technology hub. He even saved the jobs of working Pennsylvanians at a plant in Easton, Pennsylvania for Majestic Athletic the official provider of on-field uniforms for all 30 Major League Baseball teams.
Tom is also dedicated to ensuring that Pennsylvanians have access to quality and affordable health care. That’s why one of his first acts in office was to expand Medicaid which has given an additional 720,000 Pennsylvanians access to health care and he increased enrollment in CHIP by twenty percent. The governor’s actions have reduced Pennsylvania’s uninsured rate well below the national average to its lowest point in history and has made the commonwealth a national leader in new and innovative ways to battle the opioid epidemic that is ravaging Pennsylvania communities and families.
To protect our seniors, Tom has increased opportunities for older Pennsylvanians to remain in their homes, stood up to Donald Trump’s proposed “age tax” on insurance, and has saved more than 180,000 seniors from losing their Medicare Advantage health plans.
He’s also worked across the aisle to move long-stalled legislation like medical marijuana legalization, liquor modernization, and pension reform.
Governor Wolf has expanded protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender expression or identity for state employees and is fighting for similar protections at the statewide level.
Governor Wolf has vetoed the most extreme anti-choice bill in the country, which would criminalize abortions and leave no exceptions for rape, incest, health or tragic fetal anomalies. As a former Planned Parenthood patient escort, Governor Wolf has also opposed Republican efforts to defund the organization.
Governor Wolf has stopped the Republican plan to gut environmental regulations in favor of big oil and gas, and he pushed new safeguards that improved the protection of water and public resources, as well as public health and safety, and also addressed landowner concerns, enhanced transparency, and improved data management.
Governor Wolf has pushed for criminal justice reforms to refocus the system on rehabilitation and end mass incarceration. Under his leadership, Pennsylvania has reduced recidivism. The governor also banned the box on non-civil service applications for jobs under his jurisdiction and he signed into law a bill allowing non-violent ex-offenders to ask the court to seal their criminal records, which will help them to get jobs and not return to prison. Governor Wolf is also leading an initiative to further improve our criminal justice system from sentencing guidelines to our bail system.
Governor Wolf rejected Republicans’ gerrymandered maps to ensure that Pennsylvanians are fairly represented. He introduced a voting reform plan that includes same day and automatic voter registration, modernizing absentee voting, and enacting campaign finance reform. Governor Wolf instituted online voter registration in 2015, resulting in over 1 million new or updated Pennsylvanian voter registrations. He also refused Donald Trump’s request for Pennsylvania voters’ personal information.
As governor, Tom has used all of his leadership experience to fight for Pennsylvanians in Harrisburg every day.
