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This month’s PoliticsPA Congressional vulnerability rankings have a new Number 1 – Democratic Rep. Paul Kanjorski – but beyond him, the ordering has remained stable.

When he was president of the free-market advocacy group Club for Growth, Republican Senate candidate Pat Toomey was the most fearsome RINO hunter in the land. He sought the defeat of GOP incumbents deemed soft on the Club's drive for lower taxes and smaller government - often termed Republicans in Name Only by the right.

HARRISBURG — If Republicans pick up just three seats in the 203-member Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the November election, it could bring sweeping policy changes to a state that can't seem to make up its mind whether it wants to be blue or red.

There will be plenty to talk about on the campaign trail, from the dysfunctional budget process and state spending to the "bonusgate" corruption cases and lingering resentment over the 2005 pay raise and the 2001 pension grab.

As part of the state budget deal, Gov. Rendell secured $600 million in new borrowing for pork-barrel projects, including $10 million for the "Arlen Specter Library" at Philadelphia University and another $10 million for the "John P. Murtha Center for Public Policy." These monuments to politicians have sparked outrage, but represent only the tip of the iceberg in Pennsylvania's debt-fueled pork spending.

They cut staff, dipped into their savings, and came up with new ways to lower expenses, but even so, almost all school districts in the Philadelphia suburbs are raising their property taxes for the coming school year.

More than half of those districts are increasing taxes at a rate above Pennsylvania's budgeting benchmark "education inflation" index, which is a combination of the statewide average weekly wage and the wage-based federal education inflation index. That rate is 2.9 percent for the 2010-11 school year.

Pennsylvania is ground zero for House races in the looming midterm elections, with at least 10 of its 19 districts legitimately in play and fiercely competitive. Congressional Power Rankings from pa2010.com are the most dynamic, richly reported and up-to-date political forecasts in the Keystone State, the best way to find out which races should be high on any political insider’s radar.

Two years after Pennsylvania gave its 21 electoral votes to Barack Obama and four years after it elected a new Democratic senator and unseated four Republican congressmen, signs are strong that the Keystone State may be shifting into the Republican column this fall and in a big way.

Republicans candidates said the main reason for the change in fortunes was voters souring on President Obama, which won the state 54% to 44% over Sen. John McCain in 2008.

Pennsylvania has led all states in the nation for seven consecutive years in spending money on lobbyists in Washington D.C., and few others even come close.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which gathered information from lobbying disclosure reports filed in the nation's capitol, Pennsylvania spent a total of $7.4 million of taxpayer money on lobbyists since 2003. Prior to 2003, when Gov. Ed Rendell took office, the Commonwealth itself spent no money on lobbyists in Washington, although the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and the Higher Education Assistance Agency did.

A funny thing happened in the House Republican caucus on the way to the passage of the state's $28 billion General Fund budget Wednesday. All the Republican leadership voted for the bill, while 80 percent of the rank-and-file members did not.

The controversial measure, relying on more than $1 billion in unsecured funding, passed by a vote of 117-84. One hundred one of 104 Democrats voted for the measure, along with 16 Republicans, including all seven members of the House Republican leadership. Leaders are elected by the members of the caucus.