Tuesday, January 25, 2011

By Tracie Mauriello, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau

Kurt Weber/Post-Gazette

Mike Turzai

HARRISBURG — During his first year as House majority leader, Mike Turzai expects robust debate on his aggressive plans to privatize liquor sales and reduce welfare spending, but he plans to start out with a few bills he views as slam dunks.

There is a bill to create a searchable database for all state spending, a plan to prohibit lawmakers from creating publicly funded nonprofits and a provision to strengthen whistle-blower protections for state employees who report wasteful contracts.

Those bills — all proposed by southwestern Pennsylvania lawmakers — will be among the first out of the gate in the new legislative session. They could come up for debate as soon as Wednesday.

Similar legislation to create a spending database and strengthen whistle-blower protections passed the House last session but was not taken up by the Senate.

Proposed by Rep. Jim Marshall, R-Big Beaver, the spending database would be called PennWATCH, and would provide lists of expenditures by all agencies and departments.

“You can call us out on our expenditures, and either we can justify them or we can’t,” Mr. Turzai., R-Bradford Woods, said during a Press Club luncheon Monday.

The whistle-blower legislation proposed by Rep. Mark Gergely, D-White Oak, “would make sure that when things are being contracted out, they’re things that we actually need,” Mr. Turzai said.

The third bill is aimed at nonprofits such as the now defunct Beaver Initiative for Growth, or B.I.G., which is the subject of a criminal case scheduled for trial this summer in Dauphin County Common Pleas Court. In that case, former state Rep. Mike Veon and former legislative aide Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink of Beaver Falls are accused of misusing state grants that had been given to B.I.G.

“No one should be controlling a nonprofit and funneling state money at their discretion,” Mr. Turzai said.

After moving those bills ahead, Mr. Turzai plans to work on more controversial measures. His agenda includes expanding school choice, privatizing state wine and spirit stores, reducing business taxes, promoting private-sector job creation and restoring integrity to government.

Mr. Turzai said he believed that those were the initiatives voters indicated they wanted in November when they elected 112 Republicans and only 91 Democrats to the House.

“If we squander this opportunity, I suspect the people of Pennsylvania will push us aside just like they did our colleagues from the other side of the aisle,” Mr. Turzai said.

Mr. Turzai also said he expected the Republican-controlled Legislature would pass a budget by the June 30 deadline and without a tax increase.

Capitol Bureau Chief Tracie Mauriello: 1-717-787-2141 or tmauriello@post-gazette.com.

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