With the legislators at recess, there are rumblings across the Commonwealth about the state of the ballyhooed legislative reform. One question that keeps coming up is, “If the last days of the just-ended session – and in particular, the budget negotiations – are an example of what our leaders will do, how can we have any confidence in what they say?”
Look at the $360 million in the budget that is earmarked (now there’s a word we hear a lot, lately) for special projects in individual legislators’ districts. Or, at least, we think it is $360 million. As reported by Marc Levy of the Associated Press, that is supposed to be the number. And as Levy goes on to say, the legislators have refused to say where they put the money and “they don’t have to tell anyone.”
Why not?
• The state legislature remains exempt from Pennsylvania’s pathetic open-records law.
• An existing exemption of lawmakers’ notes under current law acts as a further barrier to understanding where the money is going.
• Finally, a provision that lets them avoid creating a single document in response to open-records requests allows legislators to create a maze of confusion, which they seem to do willfully and with impunity.
The issue has been around for a long time. This money, which for years was called “Walking Around Money” or WAMs – and later, during the tenure of Governor Tom Ridge, was dubbed “Ridgies,” after WAMs were outlawed (luckily, we haven’t had a Governor Wedge) – goes to small projects in the districts that often are worthwhile and certainly are anticipated – and appreciated – by the local recipients. Legislators like them too, for they enable them to dispense public money as if it were their own, get profusely thanked for their “generosity,” and, of course, get re-elected with numbing regularity.
“In response to numerous requests by The Associated Press,” Levy writes, “legislators and legislative staff members have offered various explanations for not revealing the programs the Legislature funded, WAMs or otherwise. Others would not discuss the matter at all, and still others did not return telephone calls.
“Some said there is no ‘list.’ Asked to make a list, they said the final destination of the $360 million could not be separated from an overall budget of $27.2 billion, since the whole was a negotiated product between Democrats and Republicans in the two chambers and the governor’s office.”
“What’s the big secret,” asks the Sentinel of Carlisle? “[I]t’s hard to think of an example that more clearly illustrates what’s been wrong in legislators’ attitudes toward the public’s role in the governing process than these secret funds parceled out at the legislator’s discretion.
“Just to remind - the public are the ‘employers’ – the real governors, if you will – while the elected officials are the public ‘servants.’”
All of which led Brad Bumsted, the Harrisburg reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune, to declare: “It’s official. The reform movement’ in the Pennsylvania Legislature is dead.”
“The biggest disappointment,” notes Bumsted, “was the return to the pay-raise mentality – the public be damned approach of legislative leaders and the governor – and the blatant failure of rank-and-file members to stand up to their leaders and demand openness.
“The largest freshman class in years – elected on reform agendas – should have revolted. The senior members who continue to put up with this nonsense should resign.
“The leaders and the governor should apologize to the public for doing little to reform state government and for conducting your business out of the public’s view.”
We have leaders in both parties – House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D-Fayette) and Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) – declaring that open records reform is at the top of their agendas for the fall, that open-records reform is the foundation of democratic government, that transparency in government is a political necessity and a public good.
Yet, no real effort was made to pass open-records reform in the last legislative session, and the performance on the budget have led a lot of observers to be might skeptical about what will happen in the fall.
It’s times like these that clichés were invented . . . like
Old ways die hard.
Talk is cheap.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.