DV Journal

The race for Pennsylvania state treasurer is frequently a sleepy affair, with lots of talk about returns on investment and projected revenues. But progressive Democrat Erin McClelland has added ideological spice to November’s contest, advocating for left wing policies in her challenge to incumbent Republican Stacy Garrity.

In fact, McClelland’s politics are so problematic, she’s running without one of the most valuable endorsements in Pennsylvania politics: fellow Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Erin McClelland

While he’s endorsed the two other Democratic row office candidates, Eugene DePasquale for attorney general and Philadelphia state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Shapiro has refused to do the same for McClelland.

The reasons may be political, given McClelland’s progressive policy positions. She wants Pennsylvania to divest from holding Israel bonds in its portfolio, she wrote a piece for the left wing Daily Kos making the case for a taxpayer-funded state-run bank, and she’s pledged to “fight” against school choice if elected treasurer.

Or it may be personal, Shapiro’s response to her trashing him when Vice President Kamala Harris was considering him for her running mate.

“I want a VP pick that’s secure enough to be second under a woman, is content to be VP & won’t undermine the President to maneuver his own election & doesn’t sweep sexual harassment under the rug,” McClelland tweeted at the time, a reference to sex assault allegations against Shapiro’s long-time ally Mike Vereb. The Shapiro cabinet member was forced to resign.

Whatever the reason. McClelland has struggled to get support from Democrats, while Garrity is popular with the GOP.

Garrity served three deployments in Iraq. Her leadership at Camp Bucca earned her the nickname “the Angel of the Desert” by keeping the camp secure and American troops safe without a single complaint of abuse from Iraqi soldiers interned there. She retired from the Army National Guard as a colonel.

Garrity began her career as a cost accountant at Global Tungsten & Powders, the largest tungsten smelter in the Western world, where she became one of the two first female vice presidents at that company.

She was elected Pennsylvania Treasurer in 2020. Since taking office, she’s returned 450 military decorations to the veterans who earned them or their families, including 11 Purple Hearts and three Bronze Stars.

McClelland is from Allegheny County, and she ran for Congress twice previously. She holds a B.A. in psychology and an M.S. in industrial and organizational psychology. She also worked for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, identifying and eliminating “systematic bias.”

Garrity says her campaign is based on her record as treasurer.

“We’ve made tremendous, truly ground-breaking progress in important areas that I will build on,” Garrity said. “We returned more than $700 million in unclaimed property to its rightful owners, including a new record for the most unclaimed property returned in a single year: $274 million.

“Now that the General Assembly has passed — and Gov. Shapiro has signed — a bill to make returning such property easier, allowing Treasury to proactively reach out to owners, I will aggressively implement that law to get as much money as possible back to hardworking Pennsylvania families.

McClelland believes she can improve on Garrity’s record of returning unclaimed property, saying she would modernize that system.

“We also earned a Gold rating for our Pennsylvania 529 College and Career Savings plan – one of just two states in the country,” Garrity said. “One of the big reasons we got that rating is that I cut fees by $17 million for Pennsylvania families. I’m ready to continue building on the successes of PA 529 and our PA ABLE program, a savings program for Pennsylvanians with disabilities.

“As a member of the boards of our state pension systems, I successfully pushed for reforms – working with a bipartisan group of board members – in how these dollars are invested, cutting costs and slashing waste while increasing earnings. In everything I do, I will continue fighting for taxpayers.”

McClelland emphasized the need to improve cybersecurity.

“Municipal cybersecurity is a significant problem in the state.  The National Association of State Treasurers has stated each state treasurer has a responsibility to take this on. I have released a plan for Pennsylvania’s first municipal cyber-security program, which I will immediately begin to enact after taking office.”

Garrity’s spokesman Jim Tkacik says McClelland “has projected some very problematic behaviors several times. She wants to divest from Israel bonds, investments we’ve had for over 30 years under Republicans and Democrats.”

In a post she has since deleted, McClelland called those bonds “Israeli diaspora bonds.”

McClelland says the problem isn’t Israel, it’s the concept of investing Pennsylvania’s saving abroad.

“This is not about Israel or Palestine. This is about is it a good idea to to reengage George Bush’s cowboy diplomacy and transfer it into our investment strategy?” McClelland said in an interview this summer.

In a conversation with DVJournal, she threw Saudi Arabia into the mix, too.

“I don’t support putting state teacher’s pensions or any other state funds in direct foreign investments,” said McClelland.  “I find our current agreement to put our teachers’ pensions in the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange of particular concern.”

The treasurer serves as one of 15 members of the PSERS Board, so she does not have sole jurisdiction over these decisions. PSERS and PMRS told PennLive in September that there is no direct investment in Saudi Arabia.

Asked about her proposal to start a state-owned bank, McClelland said, “There are conversations happening all over the state regarding public banks, minority-owned banks, and community development financial institutions which I will gladly join as state treasurer. I have already been in meetings and conversations with a number of people involved in determining the feasibility of a public bank in Philadelphia, as well as the lack of minority-owned banks, as there are only three in the state.”

McClelland also said if a school choice bill is passed, she will oppose it in court.

McClelland additionally faced criticism over errors in her campaign finance reports, both from Garrity and from other Democrats during the primary.

Tkacik says voters should keep in mind that the state’s top Democrat is remaining neutral in this race.

“Gov. Shapiro refused to endorse our opponent. He endorsed all the other Democrats running in Pennsylvania. This speaks to the treasurer’s approach to governance in Harrisburg,” said Tkacik.

Three third-party candidates for treasurer are also on the ballot: Troy Bowman of the Constitution Party, Chris Foster of the Forward Party, and Libertarian Nick Ciesielski.

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(From a press release.)

Treasurer Stacy Garrity today announced that the next online auction of unclaimed property will take place on Wednesday, March 27. This auction includes jewelry, currency, precious metals, and many other items that have been safeguarded in Treasury’s vault for more than three years.

“Our first priority is always to return unclaimed property to the rightful owners,” Treasurer Garrity said. “But even though we have the largest working vault in the nation, we constantly receive new unclaimed property and need to make room for it. We work to find the rightful owner of every piece of tangible unclaimed property for at least three years before anything is sent to auction. And auction proceeds are carefully tracked and will always remain available for the owner to claim – whether that happens next month or 50 years from now.”

Treasury partners with Pook & Pook, Inc., in Downingtown for appraisal and auctioneer services. Items up for auction can be previewed at pookandpook.com. Interested bidders should register on Pook & Pook’s website as soon as possible. More than 4,350 items from Treasury’s vault will be available to bid on.

Some of the valuable and interesting items in the upcoming auction include:

• 14K gold and enamel lorgnette (opera glasses);
• 27.22 ounces of palladium (a form of platinum);
• 1908 St. Gaudens $20 gold coin;
• 18K white gold watch with emerald-cut marquise diamond;
• Antique jewelry, including a hair locket with an inscription from 1829;
• Johnson Matthey 100 oz. silver bar;
• 14K yellow gold rosary and prayer beads;
• Andre Harvey 14K yellow gold frog necklace;
• Platinum ring with 1.71 carat diamond; and
• A 1906-D Liberty Head $20 gold coin.

“Pook & Pook is so excited for our first Coins & Jewelry Auction of 2024!” said Deirdre Pook Magarelli, President of Pook & Pook Inc. “Treasures abound in this incredible collection of coins, jewelry and more, and we are delighted to once again be working with the wonderful team from the Pennsylvania Treasury Department.”

Any item listed in the auction is subject to change at any time prior to the sale in the case of new information regarding an item’s authenticity, estimated value, quality, or other determining factor. Treasury is notified of these changes.

Treasury employees and their immediate family are prohibited from bidding.

Military decorations and memorabilia that come to Treasury as unclaimed property are never auctioned and will remain in Treasury’s care until the veteran who earned them or their family is found.

Treasury is working to return more than $4.5 billion in unclaimed property owed to more than one in ten Pennsylvanians. The average claim is worth around $1,600.

Search for unclaimed property anytime.

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The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has $4 billion in other people’s money sitting in its coffers. State Treasurer Stacy Garrity wants to do something unusual with it.

She wants the government to give it back.

The state has created a “Money Match” program that would “automate the process of returning unclaimed property to rightful owners.”

“One of my top priorities has always been to return as much unclaimed property as possible to rightful owners,” Garrity told DVJournal.

“This is not our money; it belongs to hard-working Pennsylvanians,” she said. “Money Match will get more money to Pennsylvanians faster than ever before without any action by the person themselves.”

“It actually removes red tape – which is unheard of in government.”

The Treasury said “unclaimed property” includes things like dormant bank accounts, claims payments, accounts payable, uncashed checks, insurance policies, contents of forgotten safe deposit boxes, and more.

The state requires businesses to report funds of those types if they’ve laid dormant in accounts for three years. There has been a surge in unclaimed property flowing into Pennsylvania’s coffers recently, from $343 million in 2020 to $417 million last year.

The government is holding over $4 billion in unclaimed funds.

Normally, Pennsylvania residents must go through a lengthy process to recover any money that has ended up in the unclaimed account. The Money Match program will allow them to reclaim those funds after the state confirms their identity.

The measure will only apply to funds in amounts below $5,000. Any unclaimed money over that amount must follow the earlier, lengthier reclamation procedure.

The Treasury told DVJ that over 95 percent of unclaimed funds are less than $5,000.

The bill received backing from multiple state senators, including the Delaware Valley’s John Kane and Frank Farry, and has strong bipartisan support. It passed the GOP-controlled Senate unanimously. It currently sits in the House Finance Committee.

The state says 10 percent of Pennsylvanians have unclaimed property in the government’s coffers. Some residents use property recovery professionals to help return their funds. The Treasury stipulates that such individuals must “be certified as a finder by the Pennsylvania Treasury.”

The Treasury has held events to auction off unclaimed property in its holdings in the past.

Its most recent sale in April saw the auctioning of over 4,000 items, including “a 14K two-tone gold stick pin brooch with 2-carat diamond,” “multiple Engelhard 100 Troy ounce 999+ fine silver bars,” a gold George Melleze pocket watch, and “various comic books and magazines.”

Proceeds from the auction “will be carefully tracked,” Garrity said at the time, “and will always be available for the rightful owner to claim any time, even years or decades from now.”

On its website, the Treasury stresses it wishes to return the funds to their rightful owners as quickly as possible.

“Let’s be clear,” the department says, “this is YOUR money we’re talking about, and we don’t want to keep it.”

Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity announced Thursday that the social media app TikTok, which the head of the FBI recently called a national security concern, has been banned from all of her department-issued devices. TikTok is owned by ByteDance and is based in Beijing.

“Treasury’s computer network is targeted by scammers and criminals every day,” Garrity said. “TikTok presents a clear danger due to its collection of personal data and its close connection to the communist Chinese government. Banning TikTok from Treasury devices and systems is an important step in our never-ending work to ensure the safety of Pennsylvanians’ hard-earned tax dollars and other important, sensitive information entrusted to Treasury.”

This month, Treasury conducted an internal security review and determined that TikTok had not been used on any Treasury-issued devices. In addition to Garrity’s ban, which covers phones, laptops, and desktop computers, Treasury’s firewall has been updated to block access to both the TikTok app and its corresponding website from the Treasury network.

Also, Congress is poised to ban federal employees from using TikTok on government devices, and many states – including Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Virginia – have banned the app. It has been prohibited by Florida’s Department of Financial Services, Louisiana’s Department of State, and the West Virginia State Auditor’s Office. The Indiana Attorney General has filed two lawsuits against TikTok.

TikTok spokesman Jamal Brown said, “We’re disappointed that so many states are jumping on the political bandwagon to enact policies that will do nothing to advance cybersecurity in their states and are based on unfounded falsehoods about TikTok. TikTok is loved by millions of Americans, and it is unfortunate that the many state agencies, offices, universities, student groups, and sports teams in those states will no longer be able to use TikTok to build communities and share information.

“We are continuing to work with the federal government to finalize a solution that will meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at the federal and state level. These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies—plans that we are well underway in implementing—to further secure our platform in the United States, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them,” Brown said.

Before joining TikTok in November, Brown formerly worked for President Joe Biden’s campaign and then the Pentagon.

Former President Donald Trump had similar concerns about TikTok security and banned the video app by executive order in 2020. However, Biden, who reversed most of Trump’s executive orders when he took office, revoked the TikTok ban, too.

Mike Caputo, who served as a spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department in the Trump administration said, “Chinese TikTok is clearly a national security threat when it’s downloaded on government devices. Even more dangerous is the kind of federal bureaucrat who is stupid enough to download any Chinese app at all – imagine all the other foolish decisions they’re making.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

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Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff (R-Centre/Mifflin) Monday announced plans to introduce legislation to divest Pennsylvania of any Russian financial assets the commonwealth might hold.

And his fellow Republican, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, is already on the case.

“In light of Russia’s unprovoked attack against Ukraine, a sovereign and democratic nation, the Pennsylvania Treasury immediately began divesting its holdings in all Russian-based companies last week,” said Garrity. “The divestment will be complete by the end of business today (Monday). While these holdings were very minimal, immediate action was necessary to protect Pennsylvania taxpayers and to show our support for Ukraine.”

Philadelphia and the surrounding suburbs have the second-largest Ukrainian-American population of any urban area in the country, according to the Census Bureau. (New York City has the largest.)

“Clearly the people of Pennsylvania stand with the people of Ukraine and against this unprovoked Russian aggression,” Benninghoff said in a statement. “Over the weekend, the Liquor Control Board pulled Russian-made vodka from its shelves, something I commend, and the Capitol was lit with the colors of the Ukrainian flag. But I think it is time we start moving beyond symbolism and get to concrete action with what Pennsylvania can do to hold Russia accountable and apply pressure to stop this attack on the innocent people of Ukraine as well as the viability of Eastern Europe.”

“The commonwealth’s public funds represent a substantial amount of investment power. We have a moral obligation to ensure that our public fund investments are not inadvertently supporting those who are engaging in an unprovoked invasion of their democratically elected neighbors,” he added.

According to a co-sponsorship memo released Monday, Benninghoff’s legislation would divest the Commonwealth’s holdings in the State Treasury and pension funds from investments that are connected to the Russian government and its critical supporters.

The effort would expand upon Act 44 of 2010’s divesture of the State Treasury and pension funds from investments related to Iran and Sudan.

On Sunday Gov. Tom Wolf asked the state Liquor Control Board to stop selling Russian products.

“As a consequence of Russia’s horrific actions in launching an unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine, the administration is currently reviewing all commonwealth procurement contracts to ensure that we are not providing any financial support to Russia,” said Elizabeth Rementer, the governor’s press secretary. “We support the Treasurer’s action to divest from Russian assets and would review legislation that would further divest from Russian financial assets. We also applaud PLCB for taking swift action to remove and cease selling Russian-sourced products.”

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Pennsylvania State Treasurer Stacy Garrity joined the growing list of Republicans calling on President Joe Biden to withdraw his nominee for a top Federal Reserve post. 

Many Republicans believe Sarah Bloom Raskin, Biden’s pick to become the Fed’s top banking regulator, is too extreme for the job. On Wednesday, a group of 48 congressional Republicans sent a letter to the White House asking Biden to pull Raskin’s nomination as vice-chair of supervision, warning her past statements indicated she would “irreparably politicize the Federal Reserve and destroy what remains of its credibility and independence.”

Two weeks ago, Garrity joined a group of state financial officers who released their own letter expressing reservations.

“We oppose Ms. Raskin’s radical banking and economic views and are deeply concerned that she would use the supervisory authority as Vice-Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve Bank to disrupt the private banking sector, reliable energy supplies, and the U.S. economy,” the state financial officers wrote.

Republicans charge that acting on her progressive climate change views would result in severe job losses in the petroleum, natural gas, and coal industries. Democrats say the job losses are countered by those that would be created in the green energy sector or jobs would be lost anyway due to the continuing climate crisis that they believe confronts the world.

“The nominee is a risk to reliable energy companies and the millions of people who are employed by them here in Pennsylvania and across the country,” Garrity said. “[Raskin] has claimed that the fossil fuel industry is a ‘dying industry’ and actively worked against it. Meanwhile, the Energy Information Administration’s preliminary data for 2020 show that energy produced from petroleum, natural gas, and coal accounted for about 79 percent of total U.S. primary energy production.

“These energy industries are critical to our nation’s economy, and it’s clear that Ms. Raskin is not the right person to serve in this position. If President Biden doesn’t withdraw the nomination, the Senate should swiftly reject it,” Garrity added.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) had similar objections to Raskin.

“Today’s hearing is not just about vetting [Biden’s nominees], it’s really about the Fed’s independence and whether or not we’re going to abandon a core part of our democracy,” Toomey said.

Democrats argued many of these attacks have been overblown and are politically motivated.

“We have seen a coordinated effort by some to paint her as a radical… that characterization requires a suspension of common sense,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

Many of the objections to Raskin stem from a New York Times piece she wrote in 2020 entitled, “Why Is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?”

“The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare just how vulnerable the United States is to sudden, catastrophic shocks. Climate change poses the next big threat. Ignoring it, particularly to the benefit of fossil fuel interests, is a risk we can’t afford,” she wrote. 

In the article, she lays out how she thinks the fossil fuel industries had fallen short of addressing the climate crisis and accrued impossible amounts of debt as they continued to expand, often without turning a profit. She argued continuing to fund those industries “undermines urgent efforts to counter surging carbon dioxide and methane emissions, which are bringing us closer to the catastrophe of an unliveably hot planet.”

Not all Republicans consider that line of thinking controversial.

“Among the future trends that will impact our national security is climate change,” said Republican former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel. When retired Marine Gen. Jim Mattis took office as secretary of defense, he urged the armed forces to battle the effects of global climate change.

“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today,” Mattis said in written testimony addressed to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2017. He claimed that, “While Trump downplayed the problem, his Pentagon quietly continued to follow a ‘climate change adaptation roadmap’ to protect against catastrophic storms that put coastal bases at tremendous risk.”

The Republican criticism that addressing these concerns would have serious economic ramifications is serious. In their letter to Biden, Garrity and the other fiscal officers explained that they feared Raskin “would use the supervisory authority as vice-chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve Bank to disrupt the private banking sector, reliable energy supplies, and the U.S. economy.”

To switch to a fully green economy would be an enormous undertaking and might ultimately cost millions of jobs in the fossil fuel sectors. Still, many progressive Democrats fear that the time for politics as usual in confronting the climate issue has ended and demand action.

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Calling her views “out of line with American principles,” Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity joined with 21 other state fiscal officers from 18 states asking President Joe Biden to abandon his progressive nominee for the Office of Comptroller of the Currency.

“The nominee has repeatedly expressed views that are completely out of line with American economic principles,” Garrity said. “She has said that she wants to ‘end banking as we know it’ – and earlier this year claimed that we should want the natural gas, oil, and coal industries to ‘go bankrupt’ in order to address climate change. It’s clear that she is not the right person to serve as Comptroller of the Currency. If President Biden doesn’t withdraw the nomination, the Senate should reject it.”

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, is responsible for chartering, regulating, and supervising all national banks.

In a letter to the president, Garrity and the other fiscal officers wrote they “are opposed to Ms. Omarova because of her radical views and have a deep concern that she would abuse her supervisory power as Comptroller to expand political control over the private banking sector, disrupting the economy. … Omarova’s professed worldview is incompatible with the free market and is therefore disqualifying.”

Saule Omarova

The letter further noted, “We share the general belief that the U.S. Senate should defer to the president on most nominees, but not one who has made such reckless and irresponsible comments regarding the institutions and system she would regulate. We hereby call upon you to withdraw this nomination on the grounds that Omarova’s professed worldview is incompatible with the free market and is therefore disqualifying.

Garrity joined treasurers and other fiscal officers from Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming in calling for Biden to withdraw the nomination.

They are not alone. As Delaware Valley Journal has previously reported, the graduate of Russia’s Moscow State Univerity is opposed by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more radical choice for any regulatory spot in our federal government,” Toomey said. “I know that is a very sweeping statement to make. I think I can stand by it.”

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