Tom Corbett

Tom Corbett
Governor of Pennsylvania
Incumbent
In office
2011 - Present
Years in position	2
Party	Republican
Elections and appointments
Last election	November 2, 2010
Next election	2014
Term limits	N/A
Prior offices
Pennsylvania Attorney General
1995-1997, 2004 - 2010
Education
Bachelor's	Lebanon Valley College
J.D.	St. Mary's University School (1975)
Military service
Service/branch	Captain, Pennsylvania Army National Guard
Years of service	1971-1984
Websites
Office website
Personal website
Campaign website

Tom Corbett (born 1949) is the current Republican Governor of Pennsylvania, as he was voted into office in the November 2, 2010 gubernatorial election. Corbett vacated his position as Attorney General of Pennsylvania upon assuming the governorship in January 2011. Though he was first elected attorney general in 2004, Corbett had previously held the office from 1995-1997. He was appointed interim attorney general by then-Governor Tom Ridge to finish the unexpired term of Ernie Preate, who resigned after being convicted of mail fraud.

Biography

Corbett has a bachelor's degree from Lebanon Valley College, and a law degree from St. Mary's University School in San Antonio, Texas. He served in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard 28th Infantry Division from 1971 to 1984. During that time, he was able to achieve the rank of captain. Shortly after graduating from law school in 1975, he worked as an assistant district attorney in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. Corbett was chosen in 1980 to act as an assistant to the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, a role he maintained for three years.

After returning to Pennsylvania and private practice, he entered the state's political stage for the first time, winning the election for township commissioner in Shaler Township, Pennsylvania. His skills and experience within the legal profession were recognized nationally when President George H. W. Bush appointed him United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania in 1988; he remained there until midway through Bill Clinton's first year in office.

Following his resignation, he again returned to private practice in Pennsylvania, while simultaneously serving as an advisor to Tom Ridge's successful 1994 gubernatorial campaign. In the wake of Ridge's victory, Corbett worked on a number of state commissions, including the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Deliquency where he served as chairman. When he was appointed by ridge to fill the vacancy of state Attorney General left behind by the scandal-plagued Ernest Preate in 1995, he was required by the State Senate Democrats to sign a pledge that said he would not run for re-election the next year, a common practice in the state of Pennsylvania for appointments to elected offices.

Leaving office in 1997, he returned to the private sector by starting his own practice, Thomas Corbett and Associates, one he kept in operation until 2004. That same year he served as the general counsel for Waste Management.. Corbett's professional background also includes teaching civics and history in Pine Grove Area High School in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.

Education

• Bachelor's degree, Lebanon Valley College
• Juris Doctorate degree, St. Mary's University Law School (1975)

Political career

Governor of Pennsylvania 2011-present

Corbett was elected the 46th governor of Pennsylvania in the November 2, 2010 general election. He was sworn into office on January 18th, 2011.

Approval ratings

Although Corbett is not up for election until 2014, several polls were conducted in the months leading up to the 2012 general election to gauge the people of Pennsylvania's opinion of their governor. The thousands of likely Pennsylvania voters who were surveyed between mid to late September reported an average 32% approval rating, while approximately 45% of respondents disapprove of the job he is doing.

Approval Rating of Governor Tom Corbett
Response	Muhlenberg College PA Poll (September 10-16, 2012)	Quinnipiac University Poll (September 18-24, 2012)	Franklin and Marshall Poll (September 18-23, 2012)	Average
Approve	30%	36%	30%	32%
Disapprove	46%	47%	42%	45%
Don't Know or NA	25%	17%	28%	23.333%
Number polled	640	1,180	632	817.33
Margin of error	+/-4.0	+/-2.9%	+/-3.9%	3.6%
Note: The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org

Issues

Presidential preference

2012

See also: Endorsements by state officials of presidential candidates in the 2012 election

Tom Corbett endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election.

Liquor privatization

Corbett voiced his support for the privatization of the 61 state liquor stores before he assumed his position as Governor of Pennsylvania. He joined State House Republicans, including the new Majority Leader, Mike Turzai.

Sandusky scandal

When Corbett left the attorney general's office in 2011, he appointed Linda Kelly (R) to serve as his replacement for the remainder of his term, ending in January 2013. When Kelly was sworn in on May 24, 2011, she assumed leadership of the state's high profile investigation into former Penn State football coach and eventual convicted sex-offender Jerry Sandusky's, who was charged with 45 counts of sexual abuse committed between 1994 and 2009.

Originating during Corbett's rein as attorney general in late 2009, the case's disturbing revelations about Sandusky reverberated far beyond the boundaries of Penn State's campus, inciting an onslaught of emotional pleas to the state to deliver swift justice, so to begin the healing process. Despite the mounting pressure from the public and press to advance the investigation to trial as quickly as possible, the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, which oversaw the case, proceeded with caution instead of urgency. The case spent two years in controversial gestation under Corbett - and then Kelly - before charges were brought against Sandusky in Novemeber, 2011. After a fraught stage of suspended grief, Sandusky's victims and betrayed fans got the pace they wanted, with the case going from grand jury presentment to trial in a short seven months.

On June 22, 2012, a jury convicted Sandusky of 45 out of the 48 counts of sex abuse for which he was indicted, including 25 felonies and 20 misdemeanors. After the verdict was delivered, Kelly said was confident Sandusky received a fair trial, notwithstanding the hurried pace of the proceedings, and the defense's request for a mistrial following the prosecution's exposure of an erroneously incriminating interview Sandusky did with Bob Costas - "The commonwealth expects to prevail on any appeal, and as far as the timing, the judge made it clear from the beginning to all the parties that he intended to move this case along quickly," Kelly said on CNN. Defense Attorney Joe Amendola tried to withdraw from the case on account of the trial's unusually expeditious time-frame. Echoing Kelly's defense of the trial's sprint to conclusion, and the dismissed mistrial, Corbett said that he expected these issues to manifest in future appeals, but ultimately, the jury's decision was tipped by the "compelling testimony of these now young men who were young boys who suffered at the hands of this pedophile.” Despite Corbett's repeated assurances that the attorney general's office did everything properly in handling the case, suspicions remained about his performance overseeing the case as attorney general, and his continued involvement as governor. Whether or not the handing of the case should be reviewed further was a dominant issue in the 2012 attorney general race. Both major party candidates, David Freed (R) and Kathleen Kane (D), say they would review the office's, and Corbett's, performance leading the Sandusky investigation if elected.

Sandusky Scandal

Do you think the way the Sandusky case was investigated by Governor Tom Corbett when he was Attorney General should be reviewed further, or not?
Response	Franklin and Marshall Poll (September 18-23, 2012)	Average
Yes	49%	49%
No	42%	42%
Do not know	9%	9%
Number polled	624	624
Margin of error	+/-3.9	3.9%
Note: The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org

How would you rate the way Governor Corbett handled the Sandusky case when he was Attorney General?
Response	Franklin and Marshall Poll (September 18-23, 2012)	Average
Good to excellent job	17%	17%
Fair job	27%	27%
Poor job	39%	39%
Do not know	18%	18%
Number polled	624	624
Margin of error	+/-3.9	3.9%
Note: The polls above may not reflect all polls that have been conducted in this race. Those displayed are a random sampling chosen by Ballotpedia staff. If you would like to nominate another poll for inclusion in the table, send an email to editor@ballotpedia.org

Forced pooling

On the day Corbett took the oath of office as governor, critics gathered on the front steps. They were opposing the threat of forced natural gas pooling laws, which they claim will be on the agenda in the new legislative session.Gene Stilp, a local political activist who organized Tuesday's protest, said the legalization of forced pooling would be a violation of constitutionally guaranteed property rights.

"Sure, they'll give you something for it, some kind of monetary compensation, but the idea here is that it is a diminution of our constitutional rights to property," said Stilp. "It lays open the property rights of all Pennsylvanians." Stilp equated forced pooling to "subterranean eminent domain." Range Resources is one of the largest gas companies operating in Pennsylvania and one of the companies people like Stilp are protesting. Matt Pitzarella, spokesperson for Range Resources, said the pooling can benefit property owners by allowing for more efficient extraction of gas.

"The reason why we want it is for the sake of consistency, so we can maximize the amount of gas that we can drain, which means more money for the people who own the property and leased it to us," said Pitzarella. "We can plan farther in advance with the wells we will need to drill and the pipelines we will need to lay."

House Republicans spokesperson Steve Miskin said the forced pooling bill was only one of many issues relating to natural gas drilling which lawmakers will address in the coming months.

Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare")

See also: State Attorneys General Against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010

In the wake of the historic passage of President Barack Obama's health care reform legislation on Christmas Eve in 2009, Corbett was one of ten Republican Attorneys General questioning not only the constitutionality of a specific controversial provision within the Senate version of the bill, but also exploring potential legal challenges to the measure as well. The stipulation in question was the back room deal Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid struck with Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson to recruit him as the 60th vote needed to pass the measure, an arrangement "dubbed the "Nebraska Compromise" or the "Cornhusker Kickback" by GOP critics." The agreement gives Nebraska exemption from its share of the Medicaid expansion, "a carve out that is expected to cost the federal government $100 million over 10 years." Corbett tweeted that he was "analyzing [the] constitutionality of [the] "Nebraska Compromise" in health care bill."

On the same morning President Barack Obama signed into law his controversial health care reform bill, the one that narrowly passed the United States House of Representatives just two days before, Corbett and twelve other Attorneys General, all but one being Republican, filed suit against "the federal government to stop the massive health care overhaul, claiming it's unconstitutional." His office, however, "did not detail the specific legal grounds he might cite in arguing against the legislation."

Illegal immigration

Nearly two weeks after the United States Justice Department filed suit against the state of Arizona over its anti-illegal immigration law, Senate Bill 1070 - The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (SB 1070), contending that it "interferes with federal immigration responsibilities," Corbett joined eight other Republican state attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in support of the measure. The Pennsylvania Attorney General argued that the "the lawsuit filed by the federal government in this case undermines the constitutional authority of all our states." This opinion, however, is at odds with the current governor, who contends it is the sole authority of the federal government to handle responsibility for this issue.

Controversies

Civil rights complaint

In August 2008, Thomas D. Kimmet, a former deputy in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office and a ten year veteran of the Department of Revenue, filed a federal civil rights complaint in United States Middle District Court alleging that the state's top law enforcer, Tom Corbett, had violated his constitutional rights. Furthermore, Kimmet accused Corbett and his lieutenants of preventing him from "correcting inefficiencies in the Office of Attorney General's (OAG) Financial Enforcement Section (FES)," the state's last resort in collect debts and back taxes, that may be costing taxpayers millions of dollars per year. The suit now stands before District Court Judge John Jones, a longtime Republican who had been speculated at one time of being a gubernatorial candidate; attorneys for Mr. Kimmet, however, are requesting a jury trial.

Six hours of deposition testimony shows that State Attorney General Tom Corbett depends upon his senior staff to relay information to him and that he believes in a "military style chain-of-command management." Additionally, he denied having any memory of there being significant problems related to the FES and acknowledged that in signing Mr. Kimmet's walking papers in November 2008, he did not see if he had asked for a review of his dismissal.

Kimmet charged that the FES was making "fraudulent payouts for services that were unearned or earned improperly by private collection agencies" and that "many debts collected by state agencies were improperly credited to private vendors." However, when he made attempts to correct these issues, he encountered harsh resistance from his superiors and even members of his immediate staff. He said that Corbett refused to follow up on his investigation into the alteration of FES records in order "to avoid public disclosure of possible criminal misconduct and fraud." The OAG vigorously denied all of these charges. As to the former deputy attorney general's dismissal, the OAG alleged that Mr. Kimmet was a poor manager who routinely acted aggressively toward staff, rejected proposed compromises, and, most importantly, "failed to discharge his responsibilities on a costly and critical technology project."

Elections

2014

Corbett plans to run for re-election as governor in 2014, saying in November 2012 that he "has no plans to break" the tradition of Pennsylvania governors serving two terms.

2010

See also: Pennsylvania gubernatorial election, 2010

Corbett announced his candidacy for the Republican party nomination for Governor of Pennsylvania on September 15, 2009. A Quinnipiac poll taken in December 2009 indicated that he leads United States Representative Jim Gerlach for the Republican nomination with 38 percent favoring his candidacy. Furthermore, the polling data suggested that were the gubernatorial election to be held today Corbett would easily beat the three top-polling Democrats in head-to-head match-ups.

• 2010 General Election

Corbett and his runningmate Jim Cawley earned 54.5% of the vote in the general election on November 2, 2010, defeating Democrats Dan Onorato and runningmate Scott Conklin.

Governor of Pennsylvania, 2010
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Republican	Tom Corbett	54.5%	2,172,763
	Democratic	Dan Onorato	45.5%	1,814,788
Total Votes				3,987,551

• 2010 Republican Primary

Corbett won the Republican nomination for governor on May 18, 2010 with 68.7% of the vote over opponent Samuel Rohrer.

Governor of Pennsylvania, 2010
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Tom Corbett	68.7%	589,249
Samuel Rohrer	31.3%	267,893
Total Votes		857,142

2008

• 2008 Race for Attorney General - Republican Primary
  • Tom Corbett ran unopposed

2008 Race for Attorney General - General Election
Candidates		Percentage
Tom Corbett (R)		52.4%
John M. Morganelli (D)		45.7%
Marakay J. Rogers (Green)		1.9%
Total votes		5,732,574

2004

2004 Race for Attorney General - Republican Primary
Candidates		Percentage
Tom Corbett (R)		52.8%
Bruce Castor (R)		47.2%
Total votes		931,362

2004 Race for Attorney General - General Election
Candidates		Percentage
Tom Corbett (R)		50.4%
Jim Eisenhower (D)		48.4%
Marakay J. Rogers (Green)		1.3%
Total votes		5,423,269

Campaign donors

Ballotpedia collects information on campaign donors for each year in which a candidate or incumbent is running for election. The following table offers a breakdown of Tom Corbett's donors each year. Click [show] for more information.

Tom Corbett's Campaign Contributions
	2010 Governor of Pennsylvania		2008 Attorney General of Pennsylvania
Total Raised	$28,689,900		$4,258,741
Total Raised by General Election Opponent	$25,310,387		$1,154,610
Top 5 contributors	Republican Governors Association	$6,000,967	Republican State Leadership Committee	$691,550
	Pennsylvania Republican Party	$2,095,333	John M. Templeton, Jr.	$128,000
	Friends of Tom Corbett	$763,500	Pennsylvania Future Fund	$111,500
	Vahan Gureghian	$325,714	John S. Middleton	$100,000
	John Templeton, Jr.	$283,500	John G. Rangos, Sr.	$85,000
Individuals	$14,316,266		$2,075,892
Institutions	$10,692,523		$1,381,536
In-state donations	$18,797,610		$3,084,972
Out-of-state donations	$9,260,799		$1,145,527

Personal

Corbett currently resides in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with his wife, Susan Manbeck, though their family home is in Shaler Township. The couple has two children - Tom, a video game producer, and Katherine, a prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, as well as one grandchild.

Contact Information

Tom Corbett for Governor Campaign logo

Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
16th Floor
Strawberry Square
Harrisburg, PA 17120

Phone: 717-787-3391
Fax: 717-787-8242

See also

• Governor of Pennsylvania
• Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania
• Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley

External links

• Official Governor of Pennsylvania Website
• Official Pennsylvania Attorney General website
• Tom Corbett's Facebook profile
• Tom Corbett's Twitter account
• Tom Corbett for Governor Campaign website
• Project Vote Smart - Tom Corbett biography

References

Political offices
Preceded by Ernie Preate	Pennsylvania Attorney General 1995–1997	Succeeded by Mike Fisher
Preceded by Jerry Pappert	Pennsylvania Attorney General 2004–2010	Succeeded by Linda Kelly
Preceded by Ed Rendell	Governor of Pennsylvania 2010–present	Succeeded by NA