Pittsburgh Tribune Review

February 4, 2007 Sunday

LENGTH: 817 words

HEADLINE: The Susquehanna sewer backs up again

BYLINE: Colin McNickle

BODY:

Just when you think the stench coming from Harrisburg can't get any worse,
the sewage treatment plant overflows. As per usual, taxpayers are downwind.

What started as the public exposure of the secret payment of hundreds of

thousands of dollars in "bonuses" to House Democrat staffers over the past
two years has blossomed into what should prompt a full-fledged investigation.

Total "bonus" payments to all legislative staffers in 2005-06 now is

reported to be at least $3.6 million.

House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, first forced by the media
into full deer-in-headlights mode, initially low-balled the "bonus" totals to
his party's lower chamber staffers. By a factor of four. Staffers received
"bonuses" of $1.8 million in 2006 for a two-year total of nearly $2.3
million.

State House Republicans report two-year "bonus" totals of $919,271.

Over in the Senate, Democrats reported two-year bonus totals of $76,000.

But it was a different and quite interesting story for the Senate's GOP
majority.

The Republican Senate leadership revealed it had paid $366,134 in bonuses.

It was a practice previously undisclosed, one leaders now say they will stop.
 But what makes the GOP Senate payments most eyebrow-raising is the
speculation -- flatly and repeatedly rejected by the politicos -- that some
of the bonuses were paid not for the people's government business but for
partisan campaign purposes. And some of the latter, quite frankly, were none
too savory.

People being reasonable and money being fungible, the question should be
asked if some of the money was paid to reward those who either participated
in dubious legal maneuvering to undermine pay-jacking opponents or
participated in tawdry smear campaigns against those good folks.

If that's the case, it's an outrage. But, also, it's a buffoonish irony:
They were paid for failing.

There's nearly $31,000 in "bonus" money paid to Drew Crompton in 2005-

2006. In 2005, he authored the infamous memo that suggested anti-pay-jacking
forces be forced to register as lobbyists. Clear and simple, it was a blatant
effort to intimidate the very successful grassroots campaign against
legislative larceny. His taxpayer-funded bonus that year: $11,300.

Last year, and for about four months, he was a top policy adviser to
unsuccessful GOP gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann. So, let's get this
straight: Mr. Crompton was on the state payroll for about eight months in
2006. And yet he received a taxpayer-funded bonus of $19,467?

Crompton's old boss, defeated Senate President Pro Tempore Bob Jubelirer,
defended the payments, reports Brad Bumsted, the Trib's Capitol
correspondent. Crompton, Jubelirer says, was one of the "lowest paid staff
attorneys in the building," refused pay raises and worked long hours on such
issues as -- hold down your breakfast, folks -- lobbyist reform.

Bottom line: Taxpayers anted up a series of fat bonuses to a guy who

produced a legal opinion designed to thwart taxpayers' efforts to reverse the
pay-jacking molestation.

And then there's the curious case of Mike Long, the former chief of staff
to Mr. Jubelirer, one of the pay-jackers in chief who was voter-tested and
voter-rejected. Not only was Mr. Long paid $41,000 in "bonuses" in 2005-2006
but, upon his leave, he received a check for at least $95,000. That's said to
have covered unused sick leave, vacation time and -- breakfast hold-down
admonition No. 2 -- "severance."
 What, was his job eliminated in some kind of legislative consolidation?
Dream on. Was he dismissed because his superiors wanted to "go in another
direction"? No. Mike Long lost his job because his boss got his rump kicked
at the polls.

So, we're paying five weeks' severance to the top operative of a fired
politician whose job simply ended?

Again, it must be stressed that the politicos in question categorically

reject any suggestion that public money was used for campaign purposes. But
given their long history of machinations, why should they be taken at their
word?

A few things must happen to unclog the Susquehanna Sewer. And promises of
no future outrageous bonuses in which perception really can't be separated
from reality, or promises of transparency in this obviously long and opaque
process, are not enough.

There must be an independent, bipartisan investigation -- first, to find

out what really happened and, second, to develop rules to make sure nothing
like this ever happens again.

And to that end, state Attorney General Tom Corbett, a Republican, and
state Auditor General Jack Wagner, a Democrat, should jointly investigate.
(And, please, Mr. Wagner, don't say it's not within your purview; take the
lead and challenge the prevailing and warped legal orthodoxy.)

But there can be no dallying. For amid all the happy talk of "reform," the
stench of "business as usual" is frighteningly close to rendering unconscious
government of, by and for the people.