Corruption in Harrisburg

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

The bonus-scam indictments in Harrisburg show a legislature that is unaccountable to the public. But the charges also highlight the need for citizens to get busy.

Pennsylvanians have a duty to demand better government. It's not enough for voters to "throw the bums out" once in a generation, as happened after the pay-raise scandal of 2005. Citizens need to keep after their legislators with regularity, whether the issue is property taxes, potholes or health insurance.

"People need to accept that democracy is hard work," said Eric Epstein, coordinator of Rock the Capital, a nonpartisan voter education group. "You have more people voting in Star Search than in a general election."

Public pressure is the only way to get honest government that responds to the needs of the people, instead of a legislature that protects its self-interests first.

Remember what happened after the legislative pay raise? Voters were so angry that dozens of legislators decided to retire rather than face certain defeat at the polls. Many Pennsylvanians thought the legislature had learned its lesson from that episode.

But in the warped world of Harrisburg, powerful people learned the wrong lesson. According to indictments announced on July 10, Democratic leaders viewed the political retirements as an opportunity, and they ratcheted up their illegal campaign machine funded with tax dollars to new heights of arrogance.

Eric Webb, a House Democratic staffer who allegedly was the bookkeeper in the illegal bonus scheme, told a grand jury that the pay-raise scandal "changed the whole map." He said there were "more seats in play," requiring more volunteers to do more opposition research and to campaign for more candidates in more districts.

The indictment alleges that legislative staffers under the direction of former Rep. Mike Veon (D., Beaver) and others performed political work on taxpayers' time, and were rewarded with taxpayer-funded bonuses.

The indictments portray a culture of corruption and entitlement. No Republicans were indicted, but they aren't immune. Republican leaders were secretly handing out hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to employees as bonuses. The less taxpayers knew about it, the better.

In the wake of the charges, some legislators are calling for a special session in the fall on ethics. Gov. Rendell, who could call a special session on his own, said he'd rather wait for a majority of legislators to petition him. Given how earlier reform efforts have petered out, it's hard to blame Rendell for not taking legislators seriously.

"Pennsylvania's legislators tend to be slow learners when it comes to government reform," said Barry Kauffman, head of Common Cause/Pennsylvania.

Senate Republican leaders are especially vocal about the need for reform. But on the two reforms that would make the biggest difference in Harrisburg, legislative redistricting and campaign donation limits, they have been in hiding.

Pennsylvania is the second-most gerrymandered state in the nation, which allows incumbents to stay fat and arrogant. But the deadline for the most comprehensive redistricting plan has lapsed, with nary a peep from the House or Senate.

Pennsylvania is one of the few states that allows unlimited campaign donations, an essential building block of corruption. But efforts to set donor limits always stall in Harrisburg.

The public must let its legislators know in no uncertain terms that business as usual won't do.