More taxpayer-funded gifts to lawmakers

Mario Cattabiani has another story on wasteful spending by the Pennsylvania legislature - this time, $4,000 for  gift pen sets to lawmakers (HT Grassroots PA).

Speaker Keith McCall is taking credit for gifts taxpayers bought,

Bob Caton, McCall's spokesman, said the pens were in keeping with a "decades-old tradition for the newly elected speaker to offer a small memento to the membership on swearing-in day."

I don't think he understands the concept of gifts, but if he doesn't want to spend his own money, perhaps he can print notes for "One Free Foot Massage" or something.

Yes, this is a small price tag, but as I've pointed out before, small ticket items  in the budget add up to billions.  Whether it be pens or Bibles for lawmakers,  promotional calendars bearing legislator's names, political polling, "public service ads," or even excesses at PHEAA, most (but not all) lawmakers - not to mention executive branch officials - give little thought to whether something is an appropriate use of taxpayer funding until after the media catches them. 

Along those same lines, Brad Bumsted covers the cost to taxpayers of outside legal fees (despite an abundance of in-house lawyers) lawmakers spent in defending themselves in the bonus-gate investigation, i.e. an investigation into misuse of taxpayer dollars.

Another $1 million spent to defend lawmakers in "Bonusgate"

As new legislators are coming to Harrisburg to be sworn in, Brad Bumsted reports that the Pennsylvania Senate Republicans have spent $1 million in legal fees (despite the number of lawyers they already employ) to get advice on responding to the Bonusgate investigation.  This now brings the legal fees spent by the PA House and Senate to $4.4 million. 

I hate to state the obvious, but spending millions of taxpayers' dollars to defend the unethical/illegal spending of millions of taxpayers' dollars is one reason we are facing a major budget deficit.

Bonus Ban(s) pass House State Government

After numerous complaints about the lack of action on reform bills (including from yours truly) the House State Government committee today voted to send two "bonus ban" bills to the floor of the House - John Eichelberger's SB 986 (which passed the Senate unanimously almost one year ago), and Babette Josephs HB 2375, introduced last Thursday.

Discharge resolution on bonus ban bill

Representative Brad Roae sends us this regarding his discharge resolution for SB 986, the "Bonus Ban"

"On Monday I turned in a Discharge Resolution to pull the bill out of committee and bring it to the House Floor for action. It is considered going "over the head" of a ranking Member who is a committee chair to discharge a bill, but Pennsylvania taxpayers do not want over $3 million in bonuses being paid to legislative staffers each two year Session. Taxpayers don't like seeing that PHEAA had money for excessive employee bonuses but they are scaling back in money available to help college students. 30 other representatives signed there name after mine in supporting the resolution. House rules require 25 people and we have 31. My discharge resolution will force a vote on the bill Wednesday this week or Monday next week.

The House State Government Committee had a Committee Meeting Monday, but failed again to vote on bonus ban Senate Bill 986. That committee has had dozens of meetings and hearings in the past 11 months, but Rep. Josephs has refused to bring Senate Bill 986 up for a vote. Three bills were passed out of her Committee today and I have filed amendments to all three bills. My amendments are the wording of the bonus ban bill Senate Bill 986. One way or another, I want to make sure that we get to vote on the bonus ban bill.

The State Government Committee also has bills just sitting there dealing with campaign finance reform, ending the practice of jerrymandering legislative districts to protect incumbents, reducing the use of taxpayer funded state vehicles for personal use, reducing the cost of the Legislature, and many other reform bills. She does not want to bring about the "change" and "reform" that many political candidates and citizens are pushing for this year. I am making Senate Bill 986 my pet project for the next several weeks. I am hoping that other Members will do the same with the other needed reform bills."

In other reform news, all three Constitutional Convention bills passed the Senate State Government Committee today.

BonusGate update and questions

The Democracy Rising PA Newsletter raises some interesting points about a pronouncement by Attorney General Tom Corbett that he wouldn't make announcements about indictments leading up to Nov. 4, so as to "not influence the election."

Democracy Rising wonders who that really serves - the voters, the Attorney General, or those who may have committed crimes- and whether it is wise to "not influence the election" by indicting individuals, or if voters should know if a candidate they are voting for is about to be indicted before they vote.

Bonusgate, corruption, and reform news

There are plenty of stories on corruption and reform in today's papers:

• DeWeese under fire: State Rep. Josh Shapiro calls on House Majority Leader Bill Deweese to stop down as leader, calling him "a symbol of a broken system".
• DeWeese fires back, claiming Shapiro is just overly worried about his own reputation. Crazy kid thinks that seeing several of his colleagues hauled off in handcuffs for crimes - including illegal payments that may have benefitted his own campaign - may hurt his reputation. Even though he controlled the accounts, supervised the alleged master-mind of bonusgate, and signed off on all the bonuses, DeWeese doesn't worry about his reputation being diminished.
• Voters also think DeWeese should go - 53% of those polled want him to step down, only 11% support him.



• John Baer thinks Shapiro's call could be a tipping point in reform. Baer also takes a shot at Rep. Dwight Evans for saying "This stuff shall pass."



• Fumo Trial: The names of 165 potential witnesses in trial of state senator Vince Fumo has been released.



• More poll results (full results here):
• Voters think the legislature won't do anything to clean itself up.
• Most voters blame both parties for the culture of corruption, but more voters think Republicans are single-handidly responsible than Democrats.
• An astounding 76% of voters support a special session on government reform.


• Here is the latest list of legislators signing on to the call for a special session.

Absurd statement of the day

The attorney for Sean Ramaley - who was indicted in the bonusgate scandal (accused of taking a no-work job to campaign for the House, and dropped his bid for a Senate seat yesterday - says:

"If you look at when these charges came down, there is no reason at all why these charges could not have been deferred [until] after the election, and allow the people to make their choice," Mr. Ignelzi said. "For whatever, they were brought forward before the election."

Do we really live in a world where people believe voters are better off not knowing crimes allegedly committed by candidates for office, or that prosecutors should ignore corruption so that Democrats (Republicans) can win?

Legal fees double taxpayers' cost in bonus scandal

Tribune Review story highlights the millions of taxpayer dollars spent on legal fees - the bulk by House Democrats - in response to the bonusgate investigation.

Taxpayers picked up the nearly $2 million tab the House Democratic Caucus paid private lawyers during the past 18 months, state records show. ...

It's not uncommon for state employees and elected officials to received taxpayer-funded legal aid for costs arising from questions associated with official duties. Typically, that support ends when an employee or official is charged criminally.

For example, state Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Philadelphia, billed taxpayers more than $1 million for
attorneys' fees between 2003 and 2006 while federal authorities investigated him. His tax-funded legal aid ended in February 2007 when a federal grand jury issued a 139-count public corruption indictment against him. He is scheduled to go to trial in September.

Official duties? This isn't a lawsuit alleging a law was passed unconstitutionally - such as the Pay Raise (Stilp v. Jubelirer, Perzel, et. al. and other suits) or the Gambling Law (Pennsylvanians Against Gambling Expansion, et. al., v. Rendell, Jubelirer, Perzel, et. al.) - but a criminal case alleging theft, as is the Fumo case.

Is theft an official duty of lawmakers? That is, theft they haven't made legal.

And this time, Bill DeWeese can't claim "I know nussing"

Responses to Bonusgate

Following the bonusgate presentments (indictments), several lawmakers and newspapers are beginning to call for action to clean up state government.

• Sen Piccola will call for a special session on reform, the Patriot News reports (something we called for in January, but Governor Rendell said that would be a waste of time.  Of course a special session might require lawmakers to return to Harrisburg before the end of their two-month summer vacation, or even stick around in October instead of campaigning).
• Sen. Eichelberger asks "where's my bonus ban" (A: it is stuck in the House State Government Committee, along with virtually every other legislative effort to clean up state government).
• The Post-Gazette calls for the ouster of the House Democratic leaders, starting with Representative DeWeese (noting he called the bonuses "an internal matter" that the Attorney General need not investigate).
• The Philadelphia Inquirer calls for the legislature to start cleaning up its act - without Rep. DeWeese at the helm.
• More news and roundups from Tony Phyrillas and GrassrootsPA.

Next Saturday's episode of TheBOX with feature a discussion on reform in the wake of bonusgate.

A thousand words on Bonusgate

Randy Bish sums up Bonus-Gate (and the use of taxpayer funded lawyers to defend bonusgate) in a great cartoon.

(HT: Tony Phyrillas)

Taxpayer bill in Bonusgate grows

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that legal fees in the Bonusgate scandal now top $1 million - $700,000 by House Democrats.

Yes, that is taxpayer-funded lawyers to defend politicians accused of illegal using taxpayer funds.

'Black ops' in the Legislature

Brad Bumsted on the "Black Ops" of BonusGate:

The legality of bonuses might not be resolved for some time. But it's clear that they were wrong, handled "off the books" like some kind of "black ops" effort. The public had no idea when it saw a salary for a legislative staffer that, in fact, the staffer was secretly making $5,000 to $25,000 more.

The bonuses also were wrong because of the appearance they created. Legislative staffers who spent weeks or months on the campaign trail were rewarded with tax dollars at the end of the year.

The bonuses flunk the smell test even if they were legal.

You will note that this is the reason why bonuses - and legislative leadership accounts - are targeted it as "unhealthy spending" in our report Government on a Diet. Even if the bonuses don't represent criminal activity, their is no justification for a pot of money that legislative leaders can dole out arbitrarily.

State bonus probe widens to Senate's GOP caucus

The Bonus-Gate investigation extends to the Senate GOP, the Patriot News reports.

Former staffer-turned-lobbyist Mike Long was one recipient whe defended the bonus process:

Long, a former aide to then-Senate President Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer, R-Blair County, received a $22,500 bonus in 2006 despite taking several weeks off to work on his boss's unsuccessful re-election bid.

Crompton received $19,647 despite working exclusively for Republican gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann from July through October, and Arneson was paid $15,000 though he was on campaign leave for parts of 10 weeks for then-Senate Majority Leader David "Chip" Brightbill, R-Lebanon. ...

"We had 16 people who got caucus bonuses that year and only three of them worked on campaigns," Long said in December. He said those who took time off for campaign work were paid for that work by the campaigns.

"We tried to do it right," he said.

I'm sure taxpayers can be relieved that nothing shady took place, if Mike Long says so.

Lawmakers Spend Hundreds Of Thousands To See If They Misspent Money

WGAL reports that state lawmakers spent $300,000 (mostly from House Democrats) on legal fees relating to the bonusgate investigation. The headline basically says it all.

Props to freshmen Eugene DePasquale for challenging the mentality of his caucus leadership to hunker down:

"I believe that when it comes to taxpayer money, you should always be willing to discuss it," said Depasquale.

Common Sense of Bonusgate

Paul Jacob of The Sam Adams Alliance weighs in on Pennsylvania's "Bonusgate". Listen to the audio version here.

'It's been a very difficult lesson'

Interview with Bill DeWeese in the Patriot News on his role in Bonusgate.

His answers: 1) Didn't know about bonuses ($1.9 million), 2) Will consider reforming legislative spending, 3) Learned my lesson.

While DeWeese has often compared his newfound love of reform to Saul on the road to Damascus, he may need his followers to sneak him out through a hole in the wall in a basket to escape with his political career intact.

More on BonusGate - and more easy targets for the Attorney General to investigate - over at PoliticsPA.

E-mails show how Dems tied staffers' bonuses to campaign work

Dennis Roddy and Tracie Mauriello have a detailed account of BonusGate among the House Democrats in the Post-Gazette, including analysis of several incriminating emails they obtained.

State bonus investigation a step ahead of shredders

Post-Gazette article on how the Attorney General's investigation into Bonusgate is prevent House Democrats from recycling paper.

Pa. House Dems force out 7 top aides

The Bonus-Gate investigation has apparently claimed the jobs of several Pa. House Democratic staffers. Bill DeWeese isn't saying much, other than in his press release:

"As Majority Leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, I am committed to working each and every day to earn the trust of our constituents and Pennsylvania's taxpayers. I am confident that the actions I have taken today will result in additional reform and accountability in this great institution," his statement said.

This places a lot of pressure on me - which punchline do I use? Ok I'll just use them all.

1) See, Bill DeWeese is still committed to reform, no matter what Pete DeCoursey says.
2) I guess we were wrong about term limits - apparently it takes 31 years in House to overcome your staff and develop the expertise necessary to implement reform and accountability.
3) The part of Mike Manzo will be played by Lee Majors.

BonusGate investigation heats up

Philadelphia Inquirer on the expansion of the BonusGate investigation and subpoena of several more staffers. Also check out the Patriot News story.

Brad Bumsted offers his advice for cleaning up the Capitol (and won't charge $180,000 for his ethics advice).