Bucks woman incensed by Rendell's outrage

HARRISBURG - If Gov. Rendell ever runs for public office again, there's one vote he'll have to work hard to regain: that of Marti Hottenstein, a Bucks County woman whose son died in 2006 from a prescription-drug overdose.

Hottenstein was on the receiving end of one of the governor's now-infamous blowups when she showed up at a Capitol news conference and questioned him about funding cuts to drug- and alcohol-treatment programs.

During the conference, two weeks ago outside the governor's office, Rendell appeared visibly pained as Hottenstein asked the question. Afterward he walked over to talk to her.

That's when the trouble began.

Hottenstein said she told the governor that her son Karl, 24, died in 2006 after taking methadone, a medication used to treat narcotic withdrawal and dependence. She showed him a picture of Karl that she wears around her neck.

"Suddenly, it was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," said Hottenstein, who has started a nonprofit foundation in her son's honor called How to Save a Life. "His face got red. And he started raising his voice. Then he stormed off."

"I was like, are you kidding me?" Hottenstein said yesterday. "I bury my son, and this is how you treat me?"

Two people who witnessed the incident confirmed Hottenstein's account yesterday. Hottenstein, a Republican who said she voted for Rendell, called The Inquirer on Tuesday to describe her encounter with the governor and said she was still upset over how she was treated.

What set the governor off, apparently, was when Republican Rep. Gene DiGirolamo walked up to him and Hottenstein. DiGirolamo is one of the legislature's outspoken advocates for drug- and alcohol-treatment programs.

At that point, Rendell began yelling that Hottenstein should ask DiGirolamo, of Bucks County, and "his party" about why they were unwilling to raise taxes in Pennsylvania to help find more money for important programs, Hottenstein said yesterday.

He then abruptly turned away and walked off.

Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo, who witnessed the exchange, said yesterday that the governor's response was "impassioned but not directed toward her."

"We have all seen the governor when his passion overwhelms his demeanor," Ardo said. "But I think what she saw was the frustration that the governor feels at being unable to fully fund all the programs he believes merit full funding.

"Could she have misconstrued his reaction? Could he have handled it differently? Maybe," Ardo said. "But was he angry at her? No."

It is not the first time Rendell has let his temper slip. His confrontations with reporters have been exhaustively detailed, including one in 1994, while he was Philadelphia mayor, when he grabbed the neck of an Inquirer reporter. Two years ago, he also grabbed the tape recorder of a reporter for the Patriot News of Harrisburg and refused to give it back for a few minutes.

When he went to Harrisburg as governor in 2003, he gained a reputation for pulling reporters into his office and berating them for stories they wrote.