This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

It may have taken a while, but Dr. Mehmet Oz got the diagnosis he was looking for. The celebrity physician emerged the victor of the state’s GOP primary after opponent Dave McCormick conceded in early June, with Oz later emerging the victor after a statewide recount. The concession sets up the former talk-show host to face Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the fall in one of the most-watched U.S. Senate races in the country.

Commonwealth consumers have a new advocate. The Pennsylvania Senate confirmed Patrick Cicero this week to become the state’s next consumer advocate. Cicero, who previously served as executive director of the Pennsylvania Legal Aid Network and Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, has been serving as the acting advocate since December 2021.

State Rep. Todd Stephens, a Montgomery County Republican, may have scored one of the biggest legislative achievements during Pride Month in Harrisburg. Lawmakers in the state House unanimously approved legislation from Stephens to remove references to homosexuality from the state’s Crimes Code, though LGBTQ allies say more work needs to be done to protect LGBTQ Pennsylvanians.

Now that the Commonwealth Court has issued an injunction against the state’s plan to enact tolls on up to nine bridges across the state, Republican lawmakers and business leaders are hoping that PennDOT, led by Secretary Yassmin Gramian, will build a bridge and get over the tolling idea once and for all. Lawmakers rallied at the state Capitol this week to call for PennDOT to end the plan for good, ripping into the Wolf administration for even pondering the bridge tolls in the first place.

The Northampton County state senator is catching heat from some constituents for being the lone Democrat to vote for a bill designed to prevent athletes who were male at birth from participating in women’s and girls’ school sports. Most Democrats criticized the bill as an attack on vulnerable transgender children and Gov. Tom Wolf has said he would veto the bill should it reach his desk. In her explanation for the yes vote, Boscola said she took issue with the PIAA’s rule to allow school principals to decide on participation and voted in favor of a single statewide policy.

There was some voter fraud in Philadelphia, but we didn’t have to go to Four Seasons Landscaping to hear about it. Former congressman Michael “Ozzie” Myers pleaded guilty this week to election fraud charges related to his efforts from 2014 to 2018 to pump up fake votes for his candidates. Myers, who was one of several officials charged in the FBI sting, reportedly bribed two election judges in South Philadelphia wards.