The wife of the Pennsylvania budget secretary was sentenced to five years probation in connection with two 2010 retail theft incidents, including stealing almost $1,000 worth of groceries from Wegman's.

A Cumberland County court judge sentenced Georgina Zogby to 24 months probation and 24 hours of community service for stealing merchandise from T.J. Maxx in January 2010. She also received 36 months probation and 36 hours community service for stealing $955 in groceries from Wegmans in May 2010, according to the Patriot News of Harrisburg.

Zogby, 48, who is the wife of Charles Zogby, a member of Gov. Corbett's cabinet, faced up to five years each on the two retail theft counts. She has two outstanding DUI cases pending.

In the first DUI indicident last July, Zogby led police on a middle-of-the-night chase forcing them to put down nail strips to stop her. The case sparked controversy after it was learned that a state police officer left Corbett's security detail to pick up Zogby after her arrest.

In the second case, Zogby was found to have a blood-alcohol content of .117 and a suspended driver's license after she crashed and flipped her BMW on Sept. 28 near her home outside of Harrisburg, according to news reports. Pennsylvania's legal BAC limit is .08.

Photo/ABC27

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

Common Cause of Pennsylvania this week asked the state attorney general to investigate the tax status of the American Legislative Exhange Council (ALEC), the Washington-based group that has advocates for a variety of conservative measures in state legislatures.

In the complaint filed with Attorney General Linda Kelly, Common Cause alleges that  ALEC is "primarily a lobbying group and may therefore be in violation of its tax exempt status."

“ALEC is a corporate lobby front group masquerading as a public charity on the taxpayers’ dime. Pennsylvanians shouldn’t have to subsidize ALEC’s agenda to limit voting rights, undermine our public schools, spread Stand Your Ground gun laws, and weaken laws protecting our environment. Tax fraud is illegal, which is why Common Cause/PA is calling on the Attorney General to review ALEC’s registration as a charity and whether its lobbying activities in Pennsylvania are being properly disclosed,” said Common Cause/PA Executive Director, Barry Kauffman.

The complaint also alleges that ALEC was also the beneficiary of a $50,000 Pennsylvania tax-payer subsidy to its 2007 convention in Philadelphia. The funds appear to have been used for food at a reception at the Philadelphia Marriott, including $3,600 for crab cakes, $3,000 for cheesecake lollipops, $4,000 for cheesesteaks.

Common Cause said questions have been raised as to whether Pennsylvania lawmakers “double-dipped”; taking ALEC scholarships and submitting for reimbursement from the state.

Earlier this week the national organization of Common Cause filed a whistleblower complaint with the IRS on the grounds that ALEC is flouting federal tax laws by posing as a tax-exempt charity while spending millions of dollars to lobby for hundreds of bills each year in state legislatures across the country.

ALEC 's membership includes 2,000 state legislators, including many Pennsylvania lawmakers, and more than 140 corporations including the following based in Pennsylvania – Crown Cork & Seal; Endo Pharmaceuticals; SAP America, Inc.; and TEVA Pharmaceuticals.

Several large corporations, including McDonald's and Coca-Cola recently withdrew from the organization because of its sponsorship of legislation including "stand your ground" self-defense laws.

Pennsylvania lawmakers of both parties are members of ALEC. (See list at www.justsaynotoalec.com)

At least five state lawmakers, including Reps. Kate Harper, Sandra Major, Mark Mustio, Harry Readshaw, and Sen. John Pippy have said they have dropped their ALEC memberships, according to a Keystone Progress survey.

The Pennsylvania complaint filed against ALEC follows the filing of a complaint by the national Common Cause organization challenging the organization's status as a federally tax-exempt charity.

In a response to the national complaint, Alan P. Dye, ALEC's legal counsel, said the attacks were based on "patently false claims by liberal front groups." It accused Common Cause of being a "partisan front group masquerading as an ethics watchdog."

Click herefor Philly.com's politics page.

CORRECTION - Post has been updated to reflect gun rights rally to be held on Tuesday.

A House lawmaker was among those stopped by police at an entrance to the main Capitol today and told he could not enter the building because it had "reached its occupancy limit."

Rep. Mike O'Brien (D., Phila) said he was coming back in after grabbing a smoke at midday - about the same time a large rally was scheduled to protest Gov. Corbett's proposed cuts to social service programs.

"I was stopped and made to show ID and told the Capitol had reached its legal occupancy limit and I could not proceed," O'Brien said later on the House floor.

"Where's the legal occupancy limit posted?" said O'Brien in an interview.

Troy Thompson, a spokesman for the Department of General Services, said the limit is 300 people on the Rotunda floor.

He said a decision was made to close off access after receiving complaints from Capitol workers that they could not move around the building.  

"It  was an issue of safety based on complaints We still allowed people to demonstrate," he said.

But O'Brien and others say they have seen larger crowds in the past. Ex-Gov. Ed Rendell's spokesman Chuck Ardo said he was unaware of a limit and said there was never a time during Rendell's eight years in office that the Rotunda was closed, even during very large rallies.

Some see it as the latest dust up between the Corbett administration and protest groups - specifically the disabled and others rallying against cuts to social service programs - who say they are being unfairly denied access to legislative and administration offices in Capitol.

"They are aggressively trying to keep people out of the Rotunda area," said Bill Patton, spokesman for the House Democrats.

But Thompson noted the governor's wing was not closed off today and there were no incidents.

Nevertheless rally goers were stopped from going into the most public place in the Capitol, the Rotunda. 

"It's the people's living room," O'Brien said.

After session ended last night, O'Brien said a couple, one of whom was in a wheelchair, stopped him to ask if he was the one who spoke on the House floor about the denial of access.

O'Brien said the woman in a wheelchair told him, 'I came from Erie and they wouldn't let me up.'

"That's a g- shame," said O'Brien, who plans to write House Speaker Sam Smith and the governor about the situation. "The people have a constitutional right to address their governor. He may not like what they have to say but they have a right to say it."

O'Brien wonders if gun owners will get the same treatment when they arrive at the Capitol for their "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" rally next Tuesday in the Rotunda.

Click herefor Philly.com's politics page.

A group of individuals is suing the state to overturn Pennsylvania’s new voter identification law, saying it will deny them their constitutional right to cast ballots in elections.

The ACLU and the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights group, filed the long-awaited suit Tuesday in Commonwealth Court on behalf of ten plaintiffs, among them three elderly women who say they cannot obtain necessary documents because they were born in the Jim Crow South where states have no records of their births.

“What we’re not talking about here is not just any right we’re talking about the right to vote,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “Two hundred years ago we actually fought a war for this right. This is an extremely important right.”

Gov. Corbett signed the voter ID legislation in March, after it won overwhelming , albeit partisan, passage in the General Assembly, saying it would protect the integrity of the voting process. Under the law those without driver's licenses will be able to get a non-driver's ID at no cost, but in order to do so must possess both a Social Security card and a birth certificate, which is a problem for many people.

The lawsuit says the law "severely burdens the rights of qualified voters" who have to got to great lengths and expense to obtain the identification needed to get the non-driver's ID.

The new requirements had a “soft rollout” during the Apr. 24 primary during which voters were asked for photo ID but did not have to produce it. Voters will have to produce only acceptable forms of ID in order to vote in the Nov. 6 general election.

Among those the suit says will be barred from voting is Vivian Applewhite, 92, who was born in Philadelphia and has been casting ballots since John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960. She also marched alongside Rev. Martin Luther King and other civil rights activists in Georgia.

Applewhite never drove and had her purse stolen years ago. Despite paying a fee to obtain a birth certificate she has never received one from the Commonwealth, she said.

“I think it stinks,” she said on a video aired at the news conference Tuesday. “They are taking our rights away.”

Another plaintiff, Wilola Lee, 59, a retired Philadelphia schools employee, was born in rural Georgia. Lee has been voting for decades and worked as a poll worker in Philadelphia. She has been trying for nearly ten years to get a birth certificate from the state of Georgia which told her they have no record of her birth.

Ron Ruman, spokesman for Carol Aichele, secretary of the Department of State who is also named in the suit, said Aichele believes the law will stand up in court.

“We believe the law is on sound legal footing,” said Ruman. “The question that needs to be asked is, does Pennsylvania have a reliable way to identify voters? This law makes the ID verifiable.”

But Walzchak assailed what he called the Commonwealth’s “phantom claims” of voter fraud. While there have been allegations of voter fraud, state officials have produced no evidence of in-person fraud in at least the last decade.

Cases have been heard in federal and state courts in at least four Republican-controlled states that recently enacted voter-ID laws.

In March, the U.S. Justice Department blocked Texas from enforcing a photo-identification law. At the same time, a Wisconsin state judge ruled that requiring a photo ID to vote was unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2008, however, backed Indiana's law requiring voters to show photo identification.

Walczak said the Pennsylvania case is different from Indiana's because plaintiffs are filing suit on the basis of the state constitution, not the federal constitution and the provisions are different.

In addition the Indiana plaintiff groups were unable to produce anyone who would absolutely be affected under the new law whereas the Pennsylvania plaintiffs would certainly be unable to vote in November, he said.

"This is not hypothetical," said Walczak. "Six of out ten plaintiffs have tried to get their birth certificates and they are told 'we have no record of your birth.' No birth certificate and you can't get ID needed to vote."

Contact Amy Worden at 717-783-2584 or aworden@phillynews.com or follow on Twitter @inkyamy.

Click herefor Philly.com's politics page.

In case there was any doubt whether abortion will play a key role in the battle for Pennsylvania voters, President Obama made it clear over the weekend that it will.

Speaking at a fundraiser in Washington on Friday, Obama used Gov. Corbett and his positiono on a controversial abortion bill as an example of how normally anti-regulation Republicans want to meddle with women's health.

He charged that GOP governors, like Corbett, who support mandatory ultrasounds for those seeking an abortion, is evidence they believe "women can't be trusted to make their own decisions."

“It’s appalling,” said Obama at the Women's Leadership Forum, referring to Corbett's suggestion that patients "just close your eyes” if you don't want to look at the ultrasound image. “It’s offensive and it’s out of touch."

The Obama campaign and its allies are working hard to connect Corbett and his perceived "anti-woman" stance with the presumed GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

Minutes after Corbett endorsed Romney last week the Democratic National Committee was on the air in Pennsylvania with ads showing an excerpt from the the press conference where Corbett made the "close your eyes" remark.

When asked if Corbett might hurt Romney with women voters in Pennsylvania, GOP party chairman Rob Gleason said, "No, absolutely not. I think the governor will be very helpful to Romney because of his record of accomplishment."

Gleason went on to call Obama's seizing on a single comment by Corbett as a sign the Democrats are "desperate."

No one doubts how important Pennsylvania is in the general election. Gleason said no Democrat since 1948 has won the presidency since without winning Pennsylvania. 

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

Fresh off his primary win here last week, Mitt Romney is scheduled to return to the area Tuesday for a private fundraiser hosted at the Bryn Mawr home of real estate developer Mitchell Morgan and his wife, Hilarie.

The invite list reads like a who’s who of the area’s GOP dignitaries. Top Republican fundraiser Robert B. Asher, former Gov. Tom Ridge and Patrick O’Connor, vice chairman of the Cozen O’Connor law firm, all made the list.

The Morgans, who have previously hosted fundraisers for Rick Santorum in 2006 and John McCain during his 2008 presidential bid, have emerged as frequent and generous Republican donors over the last six years. So far this year, they have given at least $51,000 to Republican candidates and causes and serve as members of Romney’s Pennsylvania fundraising committee.

But their lavish, 29,000-square-foot, Bennett Weinstock-decorated property on 20-acres of Main Line real estate may upstage Romney himself.

“Someday I hope all Americans can live like this,” former President George W. Bush was quoted as quipping during a speech on improving standards of living at the Morgans’ 2006 Santorum event.

But Romney could use a few more friends like them if he hope to meet his lofty fundraising goal for the state: $5 million. 

Shortly after the tight Democratic primary race for attorney general was called in favor of former Lackawanna County prosecutor Kathleen Kane, her cell phone started ringing.

Among the first callers late Tuesday night was her opponent, former U.S. House Rep. Patrick Murphy, of Bucks County, conceding the race and wishing her well.

The next call was from former President Clinton.

Clinton had endorsed Kane and attended a rally with her at Upper Moreland High School in Willow Grove in the final days of the campaign.

Clinton told Kane that she "ran a great, hard-fought race" and that he "felt good about (her) winning in the fall," according to a Kane spokesman. 

Kane, who led the volunteer effort for Hillary Clinton in northeastern Pennsylvania during her 2008 presidential bid, told the president how much his appearance at the rally meant to her and her supporters.

She also said she would never forget his memorable description of her at the rally as a woman with a "steel spine and a caring heart."

Kane's camp says to look for Clinton to make a couple of return engagements for the Democrat in the fall when she squares off against Republican Attorney General nominee David Freed in the general election.

Click herefor Philly.com's politics page.

Inquirer staff writer Angela Couloumbis will live tweet from the sentencing hearing for former state House Democratic leader H. William DeWeese.

DeWeese, 62, spent 35 years in the Legislature before his conviction on five felony counts of corruption. He resigned his post on Monday, but is still running for reelection in today's primary election.

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

Earlier today, a small group of politicians hit their local supermarket to do what they haven't done probably since their days in college: shopped as if they could only afford to spend $35 weekly on food.

It was a symbolic move - most can afford to spend more than that -- but it was part of the so-called Greater Philadelphia Food Stamp Challenge sponsored by the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger and the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia.

The purpose of the challenge, open to anyone who wants to join in: to give a sense of what it's like for those who rely on food stamps in Pennsylvania, where the average monthly food stamp benefit for one person is $113.

The issue is getting even more attention these days because of the Corbett administration's plan, starting May 1, to impose a new asset test on people before they can qualify for food stamp benefits.

Elected officials participating in the challenge so far: Philadelphia Mayor Nutter; U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, a Democrat; state Sen. Vincent Hughes (D., Philadelphia); and state Reps. Tony Payton Jr. (D., Philadelphia), Cherelle Parker (D., Philadelphia), Brendan Boyle (D., Philadelphia), Vanessa Lowery Brown (D., Philadelphia) and Gene DiGirolamo (R., Bucks).

"Skipped breakfast this AM so I'll have peanut butter and jelly 4 lunch will cook tonight, day 1 food stamp challenge, will be hard," Payton said in a tweet this morning.

A few hours later, he added: "I'm already hungry again, time for my carrot snacks I cut and packed."

Aside from elected officials, about 120 others have joined the challenge, said Carey Morgan, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger.

DiGirolamo said in an interview today that he is trying to come up with healthy ways to meet the $5-a-day, or $35-a-week, threshold. It hasn't been easy. For breakfast, he had a single glazed donut; for lunch, a bowl of Cheerios with a banana; for dinner. it will be pasta - he's trying to figure out if he can afford to have one meatball with it. As for drinks - that would be water, water, and more water.

"It's a challenge," he said, "and it's particularly challenging if you are trying to eat healthy."

Under the Corbett administration's new asset test, households with people under age 60 will be limited to $5,500 in assets in order to qualify for benefits. For households with people 60 and above, that limit is $9,000.

Houses, retirement benefits, and one car would not be counted as assets. Any additional vehicle worth more than $4,650 would be counted.

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.