Episode 44: The senator has resigned

Former state senator Mike Folmer vacated his seat last week after an arrest for alleged child pornography possession. We discuss what happens now.

• Katie Meyer
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Katie Meyer was WITF’s Capitol Bureau Chief from 2016-2020. While at WITF, she covered all things state politics for public radio stations throughout Pennsylvania. Katie came to Harrisburg by way of New York City, where she worked at Fordham University’s public radio station, WFUV, as an anchor, general assignment reporter, and co-host of an original podcast. A 2016 graduate of Fordham, she earned several awards for her work at WFUV, including four 2016 Gracies.
  
  Katie is a native New Yorker, though she originally hails from Troy, a little farther up the Hudson River. She can attest that the bagels are still pretty good there.
  
  WITF's Capitol Bureau Chief Desk is partially funded through generous gifts made in the memory of Tony May through the Anthony J. May Memorial Fund.
  
  For more information about Tony May, click here.

 Bradley C Bower / AP

Pennsylvania state Sen. Michael Folmer, R-Lebanon, presides over a committee bill meeting addressing education funding for charter schools Sunday, June 29, 2014.

Late last Tuesday, the state attorney general released a statement saying the office had arrested state Senator Mike Folmer and charged him with possession of child pornography. By the next afternoon, the Republican had left office.

The episode shook the Capitol. It also left a hole in one of the Senate’s highest-profile committees. As head of the Senate State Government Committee, Folmer had been intricately involved in negotiations on a major push to overhaul redistricting, and had been helping piece together a package of significant changes to state election law.

This week, PA Post reporters Ed Mahon and Emily Previti join us to explain how Folmer’s abrupt resignation affects those initiatives.