This week’s biggest Winners & Losers

Legal challenges seeking to undo efforts to expand voting access at the state and federal levels were dealt a blow this week when the U.S. Supreme Court said it won’t take up a case that would restore a lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania Republicans, according to The Hill. The lawsuit challenged a 2021 executive order signed by President Joe Biden, as well as an effort from Gov. Josh Shapiro to implement automatic voter registration at Pennsylvania Department of Voter Registration facilities. For now, the governor’s automatic voter registration actions will continue.

The state House Health Committee’s majority chair, Democratic Rep. Dan Frankel, celebrated a win this week – along with millions of Pennsylvanians – when the chamber voted in bipartisan fashion to enshrine into state law key protections of the Affordable Care Act. Frankel’s peers approved three separate measures that, in sum: ban health insurers from imposing annual or lifetime medical-expense caps; prohibit plans from denying or excluding care based on patients’ pre-existing conditions; and allow adult children to remain on their parents’ private health insurance plans until age 26.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency reached a historic settlement over a 2019 refinery fire and explosion in South Philadelphia. EPA reached an agreement with Philadelphia Energy Solutions, claiming the company’s refinery failed to properly monitor a burst pipe that started the fire. Despite the former operator not admitting fault, EPA reached a $4.2 million agreement with the bankrupt refinery, the largest penalty the EPA has levied for a single incident under a section of the law that requires safe management of hazardous substances.

Forty of the nation’s elite private colleges – including commonwealth institutions Villanova, Lehigh, the University of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon – were accused this week of conspiring, along with the College Board, in a price-fixing strategy that has unfairly deprived 20,000 students of financial aid. The suit, filed in an Illinois federal court, centers around a scheme to mandate financial information from non-custodial divorced parents, artificially inflating students’ available family income above assistance thresholds even when those non-custodial parents do not contribute to college expenses.

Some local judges in Pennsylvania made headlines this week for all the wrong reasons. York County judge Steven Stambaugh was indicted this week for wire and mail fraud, among other charges, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, resulting in Stambaugh being suspended without pay. Meanwhile, Judge Mark B. Cohen of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia was suspended for making political social media posts, despite being warned against doing so. We’re judging.

It’s not often the hunters become the hunted. Three Chester County residents now face 71 charges related to a poaching ring that was illegally killing trophy bucks. The Game Commission said it has seized nearly 50 mounts and antler sets from the Nelson family during a two-year investigation that led to criminal charges for Carroll Nelson IV, Mark Nelson and Carl Nelson III. The three are charged with illegally killing white-tail deer out of season, at night and over the bag limit.