Little to show for his lofty pledges

HARRISBURG - To unwind after a stressful day, Gov. Wolf says, he enjoys reading books or spending time with his wife at home in York. In the morning, he uses a treadmill to preemptively let off steam.

Some politicians thrive on the energy and adrenaline from a messy, combative profession. But Wolf, the cerebral 67-year-old Democrat inaugurated a year ago this week, seems to cope with the weight of his office by seeking a constant state of serenity.

"I don't remember screaming or pounding my fist," he said in an interview Thursday. "That's just not an outlet for me."

Not that he lacks reasons to be frustrated.

After toppling an incumbent with a 10-point victory, Wolf pledged to be "an unconventional governor." He promised to increase school funding, run government efficiently, and bring real-world pragmatism to Harrisburg.

But 12 months into the job, he has a short list of accomplishments. Most glaringly absent: an annual budget, despite months of contentious negotiations with the Republican-controlled legislature.

In fact, his biggest achievements required no give-and-take with Republicans.

For Wolf, the pushback he has encountered is not surprising. He is an outsider who has never held elective office, trying to maneuver in a building storied for its entrenched and unapologetic politics. Change, the governor has said, is difficult, but he believes his fight is a principled one.

The legislature, he said, "has been doing bad things for so long, I understand that's not going to be fixed in a short period of time. But I'm proud of standing up, standing firm, for doing the right thing. I'm proud that I'm not conceding to bad habits of the past."

The governor's critics, most of them Republicans, couldn't disagree more. They say that Wolf is unyielding in his policy positions and impractical in his politics and that he has failed to recognize a simple reality: Many of his proposals cost money, and many GOP lawmakers simply don't support the new or increased taxes needed to fund them. They also say he has unnecessarily ignited battles with the very people he needs to push through his agenda.

"When you're the head of a company, you walk in, you tell people how to do things, and they do it," said House Majority Leader Dave Reed (R., Indiana), a nod to Wolf's last job, running his family's furniture business. "A democracy doesn't work that way."

Where Wolf and the legislature are headed is unclear. In less than a month, a second state budget season is supposed to start - even as the first budget is not done.

"We're really in uncharted waters with this," said Thomas Baldino, a political scientist at Wilkes University. "This is really a test of wills . . . and for either side to appear to concede too much would basically be used by the winning side to lord over the losing side."

Every Pennsylvania governor in the last two decades has had a rough first year, and ultimately scored policy victories: more money for public schools for Ed Rendell, crime-fighting legislation for Tom Ridge.

But Wolf's has been marred by an unprecedented level of political and ideological gridlock - with blame on both sides.

Many of his biggest goals have been cut down by a hardening faction of conservative legislators, particularly in the House. Wolf also has tossed out several GOP-backed spending proposals, often dismissing them as unserious or, in the case of a recent budget passed by Republicans, "garbage."

If they have found common ground, it's not been visible. Much of their interaction has been behind closed doors, with little public explanation.

The 20-minute phone interview last week was among the more extensive the governor has given in recent months. In it, Wolf stayed relentlessly on message, at the same time sprinkling his trademark optimism into his reflections for the year past, and the one to come.

Asked about first-year achievements, he took credit for expanding Medicaid access to 500,000 residents, allowing online voter registration, and banning administration employees from accepting gifts. He also has earned accolades for transparency - posting his schedule and expenses online and requiring his cabinet to do the same.

But none of those required approval by the legislature.

At the same time, Wolf had some notable stumbles. Days after taking office, he fired the newly installed chief of the Office of Open Records because he thought it was wrong that his Republican predecessor, Tom Corbett, made the six-year appointment in his final days. Republicans challenged the firing in court - and won.

Wolf lost again in a battle to get his controversial choice for the State Police, Marcus Brown, confirmed by the Senate. Even when it became clear that Brown lacked legislative support, Wolf demanded a vote. Brown was rejected.

Wolf has brought the same insistence to the budget battle.

Ever since he hit the campaign trail in 2013, Wolf has touted two priorities: increasing school funding, and using new revenue to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit.

For too many years, he said, lawmakers have fudged the numbers to make their spending plans appear balanced. Expenses were paid late to make one year look better, he said, and when the bill came due the next year, the hole got plugged by a one-time fix or a complex accounting maneuver.

Wolf, who served as revenue secretary for a spell during Rendell's last term, said that's not how budgets should work. He warns that the temporary fixes eventually will run out.

So he has pushed for new permanent revenue streams - most commonly found through taxes - to balance the budget. In the spending plan he has favored, increasing a series of still-unspecified taxes would generate more than $1.5 billion over the course of a full fiscal year.

And that is where Republican opposition heats up.

The GOP holds commanding majorities in both the House and the Senate, and unlike his predecessors, Wolf has had to contend with new leaders in both chambers trying to earn their chops - and a legislature unabashedly trended conservative.

New, conservative-leaning groups with deep pockets have joined the fray as well, making it harder for moderate legislative Republicans to veer away from ideologically conservative positions.

Rep. John Taylor, a longtime Philadelphia Republican, said GOP members who might support moderate positions are wary of having those groups fund a campaign to elect a more hard-line conservative in their place.

"The difference, I think, in recent years is that the third of the caucus [members] that are very zealous about it want to punish others who want to see it happen," Taylor said. "So you have sort of an internal strife that is unnecessary."

Against such a backdrop, Wolf - dubbed in one survey America's "most liberal" governor - faced an uphill battle out of the gate.

The divide was evident just before Christmas, when a budget agreement Wolf had supported collapsed in the House, leaving him to approve a half-loaf just to keep schools open in 2016.

Wolf said last week that trusting Republicans to seal a deal was the biggest mistake of his first year.

Republicans say he hasn't helped his cause by remaining in campaign mode, employing sharp rhetoric against the very legislators he needs to pass his priorities.

"He's got to be a partner in that discussion, not a dictator," Reed said.

David Barasch, a friend of Wolf's, said the governor relishes a challenge, and actually "likes really complicated messes."

Wolf is an accomplished chess player, he noted.

"He is not someone who is frustrated by complexity," said Barasch, a former U.S. attorney whom Wolf named to chair the Gaming Control Board. "He goes looking for it and, in fact, embraces it."

Wolf, for his part, still believes he can pass a bipartisan 2015-16 budget with a boost in education spending - then tackle other goals, like new taxes on natural gas drilling, as his second year begins.

Being a part of the action, he said, is why he's enjoyed even a tumultuous first year.

"I loved doing things and getting things done in my business career," he said. "Not that you always succeed, but that you're always in the game - that you're always trying. And this journey is as interesting as any I've had in my life."

cpalmer@phillynews.com

609-217-8305@cs_palmer