Fast start
There is an old adage that a new broom sweeps clean, and that’s certainly been the case with Gov. Tom Wolf who has hit the ground running since taking office a little more than two weeks ago.
Wolf said he’s not taking the governor’s salary, which at $187,256 is the highest in the nation and said he would continue living at his home in Mount Wolf, York County, instead of the gated, taxpayer-funded confines of the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg. Knowing that living there will cause extra costs for his state-provided security detail, Wolf said he would pay them from his own funds.
But even more importantly, Wolf imposed a ban on all gifts for members of the entire executive branch, including those on his transition team.
On Tuesday, Wolf even took that a step further, urging board members and leadership of 25 commissions, authorities and other agencies to enact a ban on gifts for their employees.
“Too often our leaders take advantage of the public, but I am committed to making government work so we can restore the public’s trust and make sure we are being open and transparent,” said Wolf in a letter to the groups.
The list of proposed bodies include the Gaming Control Board, the Public Utility Commission, the State Employees’ Retirement System, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, which already approved such a ban last month.
However, Wolf needs to take the ban even further and lobby members of the state Legislature to pass a similar measure. There was a furor last year when an investigation revealed that four legislators, all Democrats from the Philadelphia area, were caught on tape allegedly taking cash in exchange for favors. It was even more upsetting when it was revealed that there was no law against lawmakers taking such cash gifts. The only requirement was that all gifts over $250 must be reported, which apparently wasn’t done in this case.
Legislators were falling over themselves in their rush to pass legislation banning cash gifts. However, as happens in Harrisburg all too often, the protests died down, and no legislation was passed.
The House and Senate did update their respective ethics codes to forbid such gifts. However, there’s a big difference between violating an ethics code and breaking the law. For one, members of the state legislature would have to act on ethics code violations, something they’ve shown not much of an appetite for in the past. For another, the penalty for violating ethics codes is much less than the punishment for committing a crime, which could involve hefty fines and possibly jail time. It stands to reason that lawmakers would much rather face an ethics code probe, rather than a police investigation any day of the week.
But there are members of the legislature, on both sides of the aisle, who are staunch supporters of a gift ban, and Wolf would be smart to work with them in trying to get such legislation passed.
Democrats in the House and Senate also would be wise to follow Wolf’s lead on this action and become proponents of reform in Harrisburg. Stuck in the minority in both chambers, being the party of reform might resonate with voters and result in more success for the party in future elections for the state Legislature.
We’ll see in the coming months whether Wolf’s ban goes any further. The halls of Harrisburg are filled with good intentions, which rarely result in anything being actually done. Governors in the past have talked a good game about reform but were rarely willing to use their political capital on such issues. But things could be different with Wolf. By bringing reform to the forefront, Wolf could bring a major change to the culture of Harrisburg, which has been in need of an overhaul for quite some time.