Pennsylvania "Bonus-gate"

From Sunshine Review

Pennsylvania "Bonus-gate" is the indictments of 12 democratic members of the Pennsylvania Legislature and two of their aids who received illegally $4 million in bonuses.

In 2007, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett began investigating $3.8 million in bonuses paid to legislative staffers in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. While the bonuses themselves are not illegal under state law, the Attorney General is investigating the possibility that the bonuses were handed out for campaign work. State law forbids state employees from performing campaign work while on the job and forbids payment for campaign work out of taxpayer funds. ^{[1] [2]}

Pennsylvania media refer to this scandal as "bonusgate." ^[3]

[edit] Attorney General's investigation

Bonuses to staffers were awarded by the four legislative caucuses in the Pennsylvania General Assembly with House Democrats handing out $2.3 million, House Republicans - $919,000, Senate Democrats - $41,000 and Senate Republicans $366,000. ^[4]

The investigation's early focus on the House Democratic caucus and Attorney General Corbett's 2010 gubernatorial aspirations have led to charges from that the investigation may be politically motivated.^[5]

Democratic state representative Mark B. Cohen suggested an "apparent reluctance of Attorney General Tom Corbett to go after Republicans giving and getting bonuses after doing campaign work with the same zeal as Democrats..."^[6]

[edit] Lawmakers

The following are the lawmakers and legislative staffers charged in the scandal and their arraignments: ^[7]

• House Minority Whip Mike Veon: expected to be arraigned today on 59 counts of theft, criminal conspiracy and conflict of interest
• Rep. Sean Ramaley, 33, of Economy, the Democratic nominee for a state Senate seat, faces six counts of theft, criminal conspiracy and conflict of interest.
• Brett Cott
• Earl Mosley
• Scott Brubaker
• Jennifer Brubaker
• Stephen Keefer
• Patrick J. LaVelle
• Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink

[edit] Senate Republican Caucus

On January 31 2007, the Senate Republican became the first caucus to release a list of their staffers who received bonuses.^[8] The next day, Senate Republicans ended the practice of giving bonuses altogether^[9]

Out of sixteen Senate Republican staffers receiving bonuses, only three had worked on campaigns. ^[10] Mike Long, a former aide to Senate Pro Tempore Robert Jubelirer, received a $22,500 bonus in 2006 despite taking several weeks off to work on his boss's unsuccessful re-election bid.^[11] Senate legal counsel Drew Crompton received a bonus of $19,647 despite working exclusively for Republican gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann from July through October.^{[12] [13]} Erik Arneson, chief of staff to Senator Chip Brightbill was paid $15,000 in bonus payments.^[14]

On February 13 2008, Attorney General's office officially extended its investigation to the Senate Republican caucus. ^[15] The Senate Republicans have retained two Philadelphia law firms as legal advisers. ^[16]

[edit] House Democratic Caucus

Eighty of the 100 Democratic House staffers who were awarded bonuses in 2006 either donated money to or worked on the campaigns of DeWeese or his Whip, former Rep. Mike Veon.^[17]

DeWeese fired seven high ranking democratic staffers who were involved in the disbursement of bonuses, including his chief of staff.^[18] On November 13 2007, some of these staffers were fired after it became known that they had destroyed records that were required to be turned over to the Attorney General Corbett. ^[19][20] One of the fired employees, Stephen Keefer, the caucus' former information technology director, filed a wrongful termination suit alleging that he was fired to draw attention and suspicion away from the legislature.^[21][22] The other fired employees were Scott Brubaker, Brett Cott, Lauren McClure, Earl Moseley, Eric Webb, and Caucus Chief of Staff, Michael Manzo.

At least fourteen staffers from the House Democratic caucus have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury in Harrisburg. Agents for the state Attorney General's office have also seized 20 boxes of records from the House Democratic caucus' Legislative Research Office in August. The director of that office, Jennifer Brubaker, is married to Scott Brubaker, former director of Staffing and Administration, who was among those fired in November 2007. ^[23]

[edit] House Republican Caucus

On October 22 2007 House Republicans received subpoenas seeking personnel records. ^[24] House Republican Leader Sam Smith conceded there some House Republican staffers worked for campaigns, but said they were not paid with taxpayers' money.^[25]

[edit] LaGrotta guilty plea

Former State Representative Frank LaGrotta, who was working for the House Democratic caucus after losing his 2006 re-election bid, pleaded guilty to conflict of interest charges relating to hiring his relatives for no-work jobs.^[26] The scheme was uncovered during inspection of personnel documents during the bonus investigation.^[27]

[edit] Indictments

One indictment included a former beauty queen being added to the payroll after having an affair with a top legislative aid.^[28] Others included spam scams which cost the taxpayers $1.7 million dollars.^[29]

[edit] Aids

• Jeff Foreman, chief counsel of Keith McCall, took $28,000 in bonuses from 2004 to 2006. He was also found working for his private firm while on state time.^[30]
• Rachel Manzo, executive director of the House Democratic Policy Committee, was also indicted.
• Mike Manzo, former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene County

[edit] Transparency legislation proposed

In response to "Bonus-gate" the Pennsylvania House has proposed a 12 point platform for reform which would limit perks for politicians, place more restrictions on lobbyists and bring transparency to political campaign funding.^[31]

[edit] Voter doubt

In a recent polling by Quinnipiac University a majority of Pennsylvania voters have little confidence that the Pennsylvania Legislature will enact legislation to end political corruption.^[32] However 76 percent believe a special session should be called to deal with the latest bought of government corruption.

Confident	Not Confident
24%	74%

[edit] Preliminary Hearings

Preliminary hearings have been held for Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink and Rep. Sean Ramaley (D-Beaver). The ten remaining defendents have waived their right to a prelimenary hearing. During testimony Mike Manzo implicated House Majority leader Bill DeWeese, claiming he knew about the bonuses.^[33] Former aid Patrick Lavalle struck a deal with prosecutors who dropped four of the six charges against him in exchange for testimony. Lavalle plead guilty to conspiracy and conflict of interest. ^[34]

[edit] See also

• Spam scam costs taxpayers $1.7 million
• Pottsmerc.com, "To clean up corruption incumbents must go" August 14, 2008

[edit] References

Portions of this article were taken from Wikipedia.

	v • d • e State of Pennsylvania Harrisburg (capital)
Transparency Topics	Right to Know Law | Transparency Checklist | Government corruption | Transparency Legislation | Open Records procedures | Transparency Advocates | Transparency blogs | State budget | Taxpayer-funded lobbying associations |
Divisions	State | List of Counties | List of Cities | List of School Districts | Evaluation of county websites | Evaluation of city websites | Evaluation of school district websites |
Government	Pennsylvania State Constitution | Executive | House of Representatives | Senate |
Judiciary	Pennsylvania Supreme Court | Commonwealth Court | Superior Court | Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas | Judicial news | Judicial selection in Pennsylvania |
Ballot Measures	Ballot initiative news | History of direct democracy |