Turzai’s Acts and Bills

Transportation
An Act to increase registration and taxes for gasoline failed to be passed in the State House by one hundred and three votes to ninety-eight votes. A second bill was proposed but pulled down after it was clear that there was no support from the House. Turzai proposed another Bill that targeted spending nine hundred million dollars to renovate deteriorating highways, bridges, and transit road systems. The state Senate wanted to pass another different transportation Act in June 2013 getting Two and a half billion dollars from sponsors (like National Credit Systems). The state had not gathered enough support to pass the bill.

Gambling
The state approved a bill in November 2013 known as the Gambling expansion bill which had one hundred and two votes by ninety-six. It would permit taverns and bars to introduce small-scale gambling units such as drawings, lottery, and raffles for prizes and money to be won. The Republican opponents of the bill suggested the state raise one hundred and fifty-six million dollars yearly from tax. Turzai was in support of it, saying it had positively impacted the budget adding that the bill would affect the families.

Liquor Business
From 2002, Mike Turzai was known for his zeal in fighting for the privatization of the liquor business in Pennsylvania. Finally, on March 5, 2013, Mike became the prime sponsor of House Bill 790 which was known as the LCC (Liquor Control Committee). The Bill was a legislative proposal voiced by Turzai and Tom Corbett to privatize the wholesale retail of liquor stores. This was to use the revenue acquired to fund the education system.

The plan was to see the state’s liquor (wines and spirits) stores auctioned off, paving way for convenience stores, box stores, and supermarkets to sell controlled quantities of liquor in the stores. Food joints and restaurants would be allowed to sell customers up to 6 bottles of beer and wine. The Bill also encouraged retail beer distributors to acquire licenses to sell both wine and spirits instead of only selling beer.

The fees generated by auctions and licenses were estimated to shoot to $1 billion in 4 years. Turzai and Corbett planned to distribute the funds generated to school districts following the formula provided by the student income level. The distributed funds would help boost the following:

  • Mathematics programming education
  • Personal learning
  • Early education
  • Engineering – science, and technology

On January 30, 2013, during a press conference release, it was discovered that Pennsylvania lost tax revenue every time a resident went out of the state to buy liquor. The government used over Ten million dollars to bring about its brand of wine to challenge the private wineries. As soon as the Bill was amended to privatize the selling of liquor in wholesale, the number of big box stores and private stores multiplied forcing government stores to shut down within 6 months.

Mike Turzai and Tom Corbett were commended by the Commonwealth Foundation for privatizing the liquor proposal. During a press release, Corbett did not make any comment concerning the approach to negotiations of the privatization with the Pennsylvania senate but emphasized his willingness to support the proposal.

Mike Turzai is married to Lidia, with whom he has three sons; Matthew, Andrew, and Stephen. He resides with his family in Marshall Township, Allegheny County.…

Turzai’s legislation

Mike Turzai served as a speaker of the House of Representatives in January 2015 until he left the office of the legislature on June 15, 2020. He had announced earlier that year that he was not willing to run for re-election. He then agreed to take up the position of general counsel at a natural gas service provider known as People’s Gas serving Kentucky, West Virginia, and Western Pennsylvania regions.

As the general counsel, he was the key leader of the gas business playing different critical roles in day to day lives of many individuals and families in more than seven hundred and sixty thousand homes and business firms. People’s Gas employees ensured safe and convenient delivery for gas to more than one thousand five hundred individuals and families. Providing care for all those families became the cornerstone of his leadership as general counsel.

Bills sponsored by Mike Turzai:

  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/2440) – This bill provided designation, sportsman, shooting ranges, and other facilities related to the selling and producing firearms and ammunition to sustain the business. It was sponsored on November 25, 2020
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/2433)- The bill was to provide emergency COVID-19 provisions. It was passed on (11.19.2020)
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/1279)- Wines and spirits, brewed drinks, and malt licenses provided room for expansion of permits. Ended on (11.16.2020)
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/247)- The act amending gas and oil of Consolidated states was to provide well-developed permits. This was to be passed on (11.12.2030)
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/2025)- This bill was responsible for the authorization of environmental protection carrying out a public process in the department to encourage actions or measures expected to reduce, curb, or decrease carbon dioxide exposure by introducing a tax-generating fee for the control of carbon dioxide production. (09.24.2020)
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/1800)- The Act amending was to fund the district schools providing and recovering receiver duties in different school districts.
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/2510)- Providing health and COVID-19 emergency regional collaboration adding and funding special and restricted accounts. This was to provide essential services in case of any COVID emergencies. Other sponsors who joined Turzai in this were, Tony Deluca, Steve Barrar, Sue Helm, David Zimmerman, Karen Boback among others. It was passed on 05/29/2020
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/752)- Mike Turzai sponsored this bill with the motive to improve the state of buildings in property management sectors. Games and Fisheries in this state were also at the forefront of improvement.
  • Pennsylvania Bill (HB/2060)- The Act amendment of transportation (Title 74) and Vehicles (Title 75) of PCA ( Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes) was sponsored by Turzai, George Dunbar, Sheryl Delozier, and many more to provide and sustain public transport trust fund for more improvement in that industry.

Biography of Rep. Mike Turzai

Mike Turzai was born on August 2, 1959, in Sewickley, Allegheny County. He was brought up in Moon Township and attended Our Lady of the Sacred Heart High School, where he graduated in 1977. In the year 1981, he acquired his Bachelor of Arts in English and Literature from the University of Notre Dame. He later earned a law degree from The University of Duke in the year 1987.

Work experience
Turzai worked for Allegheny County as an Assistant District Attorney from 1988 to 1992. During this period, he gained a lot of experience that propelled him to working in Houston Harbaugh, PC— a highly recognized and cost-effective law firm located in Pittsburgh that served large national companies in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. This engineered the decision to elect him to the Council of Bradford Woods Borough in 1998-2001. His hard work skyrocketed his career further to being the Vice President of the Council from 2000-2001.

Turzai won a competitive election on June 26, 2001, where he was elected to be the 28th Legislative District representative of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives situated in Allegheny County. He founded the House Bill(515) in 2005-2006. The Bill revised the Tax Code aimed to reform and create a decrease in Business tax retaining and attracting manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania to compete with other states effectively. House Bill 515 permitted the Senate and the House of Representatives to take part in Tax Reform.

In the year 2007, he was elected to be the chairman of the Republican Policy Committee and served for a year in the Legislative session. Mike became a Republican Whip from 2009-2010 where he was a highly respected Majority leader for two terms. He had legislative assignments such as:

  • Acting as the chair in the Pennsylvania state committee
  • As a committee key member
  • Making rules and handling Joint Government state commissions

As the Majority Leader, Mike attracted support from the Senate Bill (1131) becoming Act 17 in the year 2011. The Act put away joint liabilities and this led to defendants needing to pay a fair share of all the damages when the liability was lower than sixty percent.

Mike Turzai propelled the passing of House Bill (493) which later came to be Act 77 in 2013, known as RACP (Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project). This targeted the reduction of the Commonwealth’s debts with time bypassing the Debt Enabling Act. The Capital Facility Debt Enabling Act was to help cut the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project debt rate from $4.05 to $3.45 billion.

In the 2016 Republican Convention, Turzai became the delegate of the Nation in Pennsylvania. The fourteen at-liberty delegates in Pennsylvania and the 3 Republican National Convention were tied up by the results of the primary election supporting Donald Trump in the state. Trump had up to one thousand five hundred and forty-two delegates on July 13, 2016. To win, one needed at least 1,237 delegates, this meant that there would be no votes for candidates at the Convention.…