As a recent article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review makes clear, reform – including open records reform – is a long way from a done deal.
The issue? Well, here’s a surprise – money. And not just any money – public money – the huge sums paid out in legislative bonuses to staff members last year. The total distribution amounted to $1.9 million.
Apparently, leaders of the Democratic caucus tried to block Attorney General Tom Corbett’s attempts to look into those payments, and they unsuccessfully tried to quash the subpoenas he issued. Corbett was understandably curious about the payments and wondered whether any of the money was really public – and illegal – compensation for campaign work. It seems a cynical thought, to be sure, but then again, there were a number of incumbents who were in hot water last Election Day because the voters still hadn’t forgotten the secret pay raise they voted themselves in 2005.
That anger goes a long way toward explaining why there are 55 freshmen in the current legislature.
And some of those new legislators are making a stink about the way business seems to be going on as usual.
“It almost looks like PHEAA (the state’s student loan agency) all over again, where a lot of money is being spent to keep information from the public,” Rep. Bill Kortz, (D-Allegheny) said in response to his own leadership’s efforts to block the attorney general. “We should just open it up and let information flow.”
Not surprisingly, the leadership insists all the money was for legitimate public work.
“This stuff has to stop. We have to start working for the taxpayers,” said state Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fayette), whose pending House Bill 443 would significantly modernize Pennsylvania’s open records law.
“I wouldn’t have (tried to block the subpoenas), but I’m not in the position to decide that. We would have never been in this position if we’d had the law,” Mahoney said.
Proving yet again that reform is a bipartisan movement, reporter Tribune-Review Debra Erdley noted that Freshman Jim Marshall (R-Beaver) can’t understand why Mahoney’s open records bill still isn’t law.
“But then again, Marshall’s attempts to make law also have been frustrated. He was sure a measure he introduced to allow lawmakers to contribute toward their health insurance – the state pays the entire bill – would see a vote, especially with 50 new members who vowed to reform the Legislature’s pricey perks. But it remains in committee, where senior lawmakers have the power to keep it.”
Maybe we make too much about the divide between Republicans and Democrats. Perhaps the real divide is between the freshmen and the entrenched old guard. The old guard still has the power inside the legislature, but the newcomers argue that the people elected so many of them because they were fed up with the way business has been done for so long in Harrisburg. They think that gives them a mandate for reform. Others think they are simply naive, and that is why, despite all the talk and the smoke and the mirrors, we still haven’t seen much reform.
Yet, legislators from Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) (and sponsor of Senate Bill 1, an open records bill) to House Speaker Dennis O’Brien (R-Philadelphia) to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D-Fayette) to Freshman Tim Mahoney have said that open records reform is the top item on their agendas – and the cornerstone of legislative reform.
We’re watching . . . and the freshmen are getting restless.
Perhaps they are naive, and their goo-goo bills are being used to light cigars in smoke-filled rooms. But maybe, just maybe, they really do have a mandate from the people who sent them to Harrisburg to shake things up.