Four Big Things That Happened at the Pennsylvania Society Weekend

This weekend was the annual gathering of the Pennsylvania Society, where the cream of the state’s elite (and a few reporters) whisk themselves off to New York for frolicking and glad-handing. Here are four bits of important news that emerged:

• Former city solicitor Nelson Diaz confirmed he will run for mayor, telling Newsworks that he and Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams are the only two candidates who can win black votes. “Lynne (Abraham) is a great candidate, but she won’t be able to get black votes,” Diaz said. “Ken (Trujillo) has done nothing in the black community, so he can’t get black votes. And who else is in this race? (Terry) Gillen, and I don’t know what Gillen will do.”

• City Council president Darrell Clarke, meanwhile, kept to the sidelines of the mayoral race, though he did hold a fundraiser during the weekend. “A lot of people are interested in me running for mayor, I can’t deny that,” he told KYW. “And there are conversations that people are having with me and other individuals about the possibility of being on the ballot for mayor next year.”

• Attorney general Kathleen Kane promised to run for re-election, despite an embattled first term that has seen her office come under a grand jury investigation for allegedly leaking secret grand jury information to the press. “I will be running for a second term,” Kane told PennLive. “I love my job and I think it is the best place for me.”

• And finally: New Senate majority leader Jake Corman said it’s possible that his chamber would support a new tax on gas fracking operations in the state — but it will come with a cost to new governor Tom Wolf: pension reform. “We’re not ruling anything in or out,” Corman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We’re going to work with the new governor. But there’s no tax — a Marcellus Shale tax, tobacco tax, whatever you want — there’s no sin tax that’s going to cover our costs for public pensions and Medicaid. There’s just not enough money there.”