Financial literacy, private school vouchers, and recreational marijuana are a few topics LebTown discussed with State Sen. Chris Gebhard (R-48) on Thursday, Dec. 29, during an impromptu interview.
The interview followed the Lebanon County Commissioners’ Dec. 28 special meeting to consider passage of the 2024 county budget.
Read More: County commissioners approve 2024 budget and a .50-mill tax increase
Gebhard said he came to the commissioners’ meeting to address potential questions about the 911 surcharge legislation, which the state Legislature authorized in late December. He represents all of Lebanon County and parts of Berks and Lancaster counties.
LEBTOWN: We’re heading into a new year, so what are some of your personal goals in the state Legislature, or things you would like to see happen in 2024?
GEBHARD: “Well, 2023 was a really good year for us. So we’re still kind of living in a little bit of the excitement that was created over the last month or so when we passed a couple of bills that we were really working hard on, and that were priorities of ours.”
The prime sponsor of financial literacy legislation, Gebhard said that bill was one of his top priorities. The bill was signed into law by the governor in December and requires economic education and personal financial literacy programs for high school students.
Read More: Legislature sends Gebhard’s financial literacy bill to governor for approval
GEBHARD: “Our team’s enjoying that, enjoying what we accomplished. It certainly wasn’t easy. In terms of 2024, I think what we’re gonna see as a whole, the Republican caucus in the Senate is going to look back on the challenges we had in 2023 in terms of negotiating the budget, negotiating with the House, negotiating with the governor, and see where we had failures, which there certainly were many as we just passed the budget in December that was supposed to be done on June 30. So we certainly had some challenges.”
Gebhard said the Legislature needs to do a better job in 2024.
GEBHARD: “So I think we need to identify what our issues were there in terms of communication and compromise and figuring out, ‘Hey, how can we do a better job.’ As we put this one budget to bed this month, the governor’s giving his budget address in, basically, 35 days. So we’ll be right back at it at that point.”
LEBTOWN: I think you would probably agree that it seems like, unfortunately, we’re living in times that are so partisan at the state and federal levels. How do we move beyond that in 2024, especially with the presidential election next year?
GEBHARD: “Sadly, I think the presidential election being next year will only kind of heighten that divide that we’ve seen. But I still see the silver lining in what was accomplished in this last year. I mean, I’ll just say two examples are the two bills that we were primarily working on. Both of them were not universally supported in the beginning. One of the things that I identified and that I’ve gotten complimented on is that I tend to be someone who says, ‘OK, if we disagree on a concept, let’s all sit down and have a conversation and figure out what are the issues that exist and what’s the pathway forward to identifying what compromise can be made, where we can get a final product that everybody can agree on.’ We were able to do that on numerous issues.”
Gebhard, who owns a Lebanon-based insurance agency, said he believes his career as a salesman has helped him be a negotiator on both sides of the aisles in the state Senate.
GEBHARD: “I’ve built a little bit of a reputation in the building as someone good at handling those and I know my colleagues have kind of said, who have kind of put me forth as kind of a negotiator – for lack of a better term – to be someone who sits at the table and helps move these things along.”
LEBTOWN: What is your position on private school vouchers?
GEBHARD: “My stance has been that we are really blessed with the school districts that are in our district, in the 48th district. We have some great school districts. … But that’s not the case in every corner of the commonwealth. We certainly have some schools that are failing and struggling to educate our students. You see that when you look at statewide testing results when they get released from the Department of Education. I don’t think it’s right that we would doom a child to that type of education just based on where they live. If there’s an opportunity we can give them a path forward, a path to a better education, that certainly should be part of the conversation. It should certainly be an option that’s on the table.”
LEBTOWN: You seem to be a key cog in making the legalization of recreational marijuana a reality. Where do we stand with that happening?
GEBHARD: “So I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t describe my efforts as being towards that. I’ve answered that question a few times the same way. I believe that we have a medical system that is working really well and it’s really efficient and it’s been a model for other states as they’ve ventured into the medical marijuana side of things. So I think it’s doing well and I think it certainly needs changes.”
Gebhard is the prime sponsor of Senate Bill 773, which would provide for the authorization of additional marijuana dispensary and grower/processor permits.
GEBHARD: “Part of what my bill was that we just passed was tweaking the system to make it more competitive to allow some of these independent growers/processors to operate and succeed and survive. So that was really where my guidance was there. It wasn’t a marijuana-related issue to me. It was more of a fair business practices issue, and that’s what we were trying to solve. One of these is in my district, actually right on the border of my district and a lot of the employees live in Berks County. So it was important for me to try to protect those businesses, protect those jobs.”
Gebhard added he believes the legalization of recreational marijuana in Pennsylvania will eventually occur.
GEBHARD: “I think the train toward legalization is certainly on the tracks and it’s certainly moving forward. But I can tell you from my conversations with my colleagues as we worked on the bill that we had that there’s still a lot of resistance amongst the Senate Republicans in terms of whether we should be legalizing marijuana or not.”
LEBTOWN: Are you in favor of recreational legalization?
GEBHARD: “I don’t think so. I think the medical system’s working fine right now. I mean, it’s not that old, it’s less than a decade old. And while I certainly believe it needs tweaks and upgrades from time to time, I would let it develop a little bit and see how it comes about. It certainly is not that difficult to get a medical card if you need one. I know some people that have gotten them and they have said they don’t ask you a whole lot of questions and they don’t seem to be too strict on what those qualifications are. So it’s not that hard to get a card right now, to get a prescription card.”
Gebhard added that he believes recreational marijuana legalization will happen in Pennsylvania after the federal government changes its designation as a Schedule 1 drug. Schedule 1 drugs are defined as those with a high abuse risk and no safe, accepted medical use. Heroin, LSD, PCP, and crack cocaine fall under this designation.
LEBTOWN: We’ve been covering the 911 surcharge legislation. What was your position on the final vote of $1.95 as opposed to the requested $2.30?
GEBHARD: “When you sit down and you look at what cost structures are with 911 centers, what it costs to provide the services, what it costs for the employees, what it costs for the technology, those costs have certainly gone up – and they’ve gone up significantly. And that rate had been locked in for a while where it was at $1.65. So having an increase there seemed to be very logical to me. It is a vital service for the general public, so it’s certainly something we can’t just discount. I thought increasing the fee was the more logical way to approach it.”
Gebhard added that while some of his colleagues wanted to leave the surcharge at $1.65 per landline and cellphone user, others wanted the law to sunset.
GEBHARD: “I didn’t think either one of those was a viable solution because if you do that, either way, you push more of that burden down to the county level. The counties would address it by increasing their property taxes.”
He noted that would not have been fair to homeowners.
GEBHARD: “If we do it based on everybody who has a phone, well, that’s a far broader group, a larger group of people, and you spread those costs amongst more people. And that made much more logical sense to me. I think I would have – I was in favor of maybe making it a little higher than $1.95, but I think what you saw was some people pushing for $2.30, some wanting $1.65. That was a compromise, that was reasonable.”
LEBTOWN: Final question. If you had one legislative issue to pick for 2024 that you’d like to see get done on behalf of not only the citizens of Lebanon County but all Pennsylvanians, what one item would that be?
GEBHARD: “I’d have to give that some thought. (laughing) Yeah, I know I would have to give it some thought. I don’t have a whiteboard in my office where we are just checking them (legislative priorities) off.”
The state legislature reconvenes on Jan. 2.
Editor’s note: This article was updated after publication to clarify which counties other than Lebanon are included in the 48th Senate District.
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