LIFE MIGHT IMITATE ART IN THE REGULAR WORLD -
BUT IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE IT IMITATES “MY FAIR LADY”

PENNSYLVANIA GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2007 TO DATE

322 days since swearing-in
$12,136 in session per diems per legislator
Approximate cost to operate: $ 277,616,330.
There have been 82 session days: the legislature has worked 35.6 percent of a regular week.
The legislature has enacted 95 bills, seven of which are significant. One is new as of this issue.
Ten bridges now have names and identities. Two are new as of this issue. One building now has a name.

It has been a month since we last visited our legislature. They were in session twelve of those days and once something happened.

HB 110
Known sometimes as the “Pa. Climate Change Act” or the “Pa. Global Warming Act,” this measure would require that the Department of Environmental Protection prepare a report about the potential impact of higher temperatures on Pennsylvania and conduct an inventory of all greenhouse gases emitted within the state. The bill also calls for the appointment of an advisory board to direct the department as it conducts its task as directed by the bill. The measure also requires the department to develop a climate-change action plan that must be updated every three years.

Things That Didn’t Happen But Should Have

Oops!
Phase-out of the capital stock and franchise tax means that there are no funds for the Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act. A bill has been introduced which would direct $15 million to the HSC Act Fund out of legislative accounts for the current fiscal year, and provide for future years $40 million in existing capital stock and franchise tax revenue until this tax is phased out in 2011.

HB 443
The “Open Records Act” would require certain records of the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions, authorities and agencies, and other public bodies to be open for examination, inspection, and copying for denial or refusal of access under certain circumstances, for final agency determinations, for appeals, for court costs and attorney fees, for penalties, and for immunity.

As reported last month, HB 443 exited committee on October 18, with forty-one recognized exceptions to what constitutes a public record imbedded in the bill. Since then, there have been seventy-six amendments to the bill, and the Republicans failed in their attempt to send it back to committee.

In its present form, HB 443 has lost much of its support from the reform community; because it has been so watered down, it offers little improvement over existing law. That means, according to the way things get done in Harrisburg, that a bill will be on the governor’s desk soon.

HB 1590
Ask not for whom the Commonwealth tolls - the Commonwealth tolls for thee (and to avoid raising the gas tax).

Paving the path to purgatory continues, and there still are no tolls, but the plot continues to thicken as details of the 2007 Transportation Spending bill leak out like fluid from a 1950s Powerglide tranny.

Last month we reported about the problems over making I-80 into a toll road namely that the area’s congressional representatives inserted language in a Federal appropriations bill specifically prohibiting the tolling of I-80. But long-haul truckers and truck-stop operators be dammed, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has since taken over the road through a fifty-year lease funded by an $11-billion-dollar bond issue. The $23 billion dollars required to pay off the bonds would be raised by the tolling of I-80.

On Halloween, the state received the first $290 million dollar payment from the bond issuers, so this plan will only be stopped if someone catches it in full daylight sun and drives a stake through its heart.

If this seems strikingly like the ol’ shell game, it should, because it is.

PROPERTY TAX REFORM
Which is a good segue into property tax reform. Recent tax shift proposals underscore the lack of imagination that one finds in our General Assembly. To suggest that all that’s needed is to tinker with the rates of sales and earned income tax, and that property taxes can be entirely eliminated, is a slap in the face to taxpayers who have waited at least thirty years for something to be done. Even for a state representative, that’s a long time to be looking for the percentage key on your calculator.

HOW BERKS VOTED

Things That Did Happen But Shouldn’t Have
Despite important issues requiring immediate attention, (such as property tax reform, and the proposed mega merger of the state’s medical insurance giants), “bonusgate,” the scandal that has been heating just below the surface for about a year, has finally boiled over, and is expected to take center stage for the remainder of the year.

Here is what has happened thus far in the saga. Last holiday season after the Democrats took control of the House, the House Democratic and Republican Caucuses issued bonuses totaling about $1.9 million to staffers. A letter accompanying the Democratic payments, from Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, cautioned the recipients to keep the payments a secret, supposedly to avoid envy among peers who didn’t receive as much loot.

You would swear it was Bill DeWeese’s first day in Harrisburg, that he could make such a rookie error, but of course someone got a hold of a copy of the letter who wasn’t supposed to, and leaked it to the Harrisburg Patriot-News. And the next thing you know, the paper pries out of four very reluctant caucuses the fact that, in an election year, they paid out a combined $4 million in staff bonuses, when in a non-election year they were paying out roughly an eighth of that sum.

Because of the obvious nexus between bonus sums and the recent campaigns, someone went to the Attorney General and insisted that he investigate the various news accounts of campaigning on the taxpayer tab.

(Author’s suggestion: Start humming the My Fair Lady tune “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly?” to yourself as you read along.)

Sometime in March 2007, Majority Leader DeWeese issued a no-bid contract to a Washington-based consulting firm, Chadwick Associates, to help the House of Representatives learn about ethics, paying Chadwick a minimum of $25,000 a month to transform Pennsylvania’s Eliza Do-Littles into ladies. To date Chadwick has received about $250,000 from House Democratic Leadership accounts.

Meanwhile, AG Corbett empanelled an investigative grand jury in Pittsburgh, which later subpoenaed all the records of the Democratic Caucus Research Bureau and has to date collected testimony from about fifty witnesses. Apparently this was early in Majority Leader DeWeese’s ethics classes, because he resisted the AG until the state Supreme Court ruled that the Democrats had to cough up the records.

Between the testimony and records, a quilt work of scandals has begun to emerge that could ultimately implicate former House Policy Chairman Mike Veon, and Majority Leader DeWeese in a number of schemes to pad payrolls and use taxpayer funds to illegally conduct campaign operations.

Last week the first indictments came out, charging former Rep. Frank Lagrotta with having two relatives on his payroll as ghost employees, one of whom was paid an extra $19,000 according to Corbett, on an employment contract that was back-dated four months and signed by DeWeese.

Also last week, DeWeese suddenly fired seven high ranking House staffers during the Nixon chapter from the big book of ethics. According to DeWeese, Chadwick Associates recommended the firings in a risk management assessment they prepared for him. Coincidentally, Chadwick had reviewed documentation the staffers were scheduled to turn over to the AG.
(You can stop humming now.)

Things That Happened But We Don’t Know Why
Commonwealth Court struck down Pennsylvania’s hate-crime law. Although recently the Scoreboard has bemoaned the state court doctrine of presumed constitutionality as exemplified by the gut and run’ procedural ruse used to pass controversial legislation without citizen notice or input (such as slots, the pay raise, etc.), it speaks volumes about our courts that one of the first instances where a law is invalidated because of the methods used by the legislature to pass it is Pa.’s hate-crime statute, in an action brought by the right-wing religious group, Repent America.

Coming Attractions
Watch for our “Twelve Indictments for Christmas” special on Bonusgate.
All other activity comes to a screeching halt as the Democratic caucus tries to find a way to show Bill DeWeese the door.

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