Changing Harrisburg will take longer than a year, Wolf says
Pennsylvania governors historically have had difficult first years and Wolf, the scion of a business family, had run as a liberal, soundly defeating an unpopular Tom Corbett to win the right to share power with the largest and perhaps most conservative Republican legislative majorities in modern Pennsylvania history.
A year later, he has not secured any of his leading campaign promises or budget goals, key among them making the state's tax system fairer to the middle class, and fixing massive funding disparities between rich and poor school districts.
[...] he said, he stood up for what was right, like when it came to refusing to paper over a long-term budget deficit that has damaged the state's credit rating.
Key constituencies — labor unions, big-city mayors, Democratic Party leaders and environmental groups — still support Wolf, and nearly every Democratic lawmaker stuck with Wolf through the budget fight.
Few Republican lawmakers and business advocates warmed to Wolf, and many accused his administration of being ideologically rigid, unduly political and spiteful.
Some saw the first year as an inevitable testing ground and learning process for an ambitious governor and the huge, entrenched and increasingly conservative GOP majorities.
Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, warned that Wolf is in danger of traveling the same path as Corbett, who, he said, failed at building relationships with legislators and, as a result, had little to show when he ran for re-election.