HARRISBURG – A state Senate committee heard testimony yesterday on a proposal to set forth the chamber’s first rules of ethical conduct, aimed at ensuring that no employee does campaign work on taxpayer time.
The panel convened even as a jury in a courtroom six blocks away was hearing a former House aide describe an alleged scheme built on precisely that activity: using legislative staff for campaign work at taxpayer expense.
The Rules Committee was considering a bipartisan proposal to bar Senate aides from using state time or resources for campaign work, including fund-raising.
Other things that would be prohibited include staffers’ serving as officers of campaign committees, use of Senate mailing lists for any nonofficial business, and sending Senate-funded newsletters within 60 days of an election. Aides would get annual ethics training and could be disciplined or fired if they broke the rules.
“Our goal is to promulgate rules with a resolution that is clearly understood, and in plain English gives guidance for staff,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware).
Some lawmakers and ethics experts say the conduct of elected officials and their staffs already falls under the more broadly worded state ethics law.
John Contino, executive director of the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission, said the state’s law against using public office for private gain has been in place since 1980.
In his testimony, Contino cautioned that the rules proposal is redundant “to a certain extent” and could create confusion.
Pileggi said the rules would spell out appropriate conduct for employees who might not have a lawyer’s expertise.
Activist Gene Stilp criticized the proposal for a section that makes exceptions for “de minimus” or negligible political work, such as allowing Senate staff members to coordinate a campaign schedule with a senator’s legislative duties.
“No means no,” said Stilp, who was handing out news releases for his organization, Taxpayers and Ratepayers United, outside the Capitol hearing room. “What don’t the senators understand? Campaign activity is forbidden.”
Meanwhile, in the Dauphin County Courthouse, Mike Manzo, former chief of staff to House Democratic leader Bill DeWeese, was testifying in the theft trial of former House Democratic Whip Mike Veon in the so-called Bonusgate investigation. Manzo and Veon are among 25 former lawmakers and staff charged in the corruption scandal.
Pileggi, who proposed the Senate rules two months ago with bipartisan support, said the timing of yesterday’s hearing was coincidental.
While Bonusgate may have helped propel the issue to the forefront, Pileggi said, he believed that with the national trend of state legislatures’ beefing up their ethics rules, the chamber would have “gotten around” to issuing the rules, Bonusgate or not.
Read the full Inquirer article here
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